Is cryo treatment of vintage razors worth doing?

I do my own cryo treatment in liquid nitrogen, wonder if I should try it on my straight razors. Would it make any difference?

Give Mike Blue a PM asking him his opinion. Hopefully he'll post some thoughts here. He had a lot of interesting things to say about cryo at the MN meet up. I believe the question about cryo on vintage blades was posed to Mike by Utopian (Ron).

Chris L

What sort of materials do you do cryo treatment to?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mike Blue

What sort of materials do you do cryo treatment to?

---

Thanks for the response. I normally cryo treat speaker cables.

Here's a thread where I posted some of my thoughts a few months ago, about cryo applications to steel. The principle of how deep freezing works would be the same for speaker wires, just limited to copper or aluminum whatever the conductor material is.

http://straightrazorpalace.com/forge...treatment.html

Old razors will likely not benefit from cryo treatment since they would be predominantly high carbon low alloy materials. It might be possible for some post 1900 razors to be stainless materials that might benefit from cryo treatment but would also require a tempering cycle afterward.

Unless you knew how a particular razor was heat treated, and the materials, it would be difficult to predict any benefit.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by cotdt

Thanks for the response. I normally cryo treat speaker cables.

---

What is the purpose of this? What does it achieve? Just curious.

Essentially the deep freezing causes the crystalline metallic structure to form a smaller shape, packing more crystals into a tighter lattice.

For copper wire there should be greater contact for electron transmission improving efficiency.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mike Blue

Essentially the deep freezing causes the crystalline metallic structure to form a smaller shape, packing more crystals into a tighter lattice.

For copper wire there should be greater contact for electron transmission improving efficiency.

---

What happens when the material returns to room temperture? Will this effect be permanent?

For practical purposes, say in the context of a human lifetime, the changes will be permanent. There are some anecdotal reports of historical blades (swords) being of a legendary level of hardness, but when tested centuries later, do not measure up to the legend physically. The laws of entropy still operate, but at a scale where we do not live long enough to personally see any changes.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jcw122

What is the purpose of this? What does it achieve? Just curious.

---

Being able to sell the audio cables at 100$ per meter to audiophiles :D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bruno

Being able to sell the audio cables at 100$ per meter to audiophiles :D

---

I am guilty of being practical in this matter. I have access to LN at work. Have I tried this on blades of my own? Of course. There just wasn't enough benefit shown to be worth the money spent for the type of steels I use.

I'm heat treating the low alloy steels I use, optimally, and those blades are not likely to have any retained austenite to convert with LN. So it's money wasted on a process that adds nothing to the tool. It might even risk adding greater stresses.

For anyone really interested in making their own blades and doing their own heat treatment, stick to the simple methods. Really, before the 1940's or so, millions of very serviceable blades of all types have been manufactured without benefit of LN. In the end, it comes down to practicality.

I had a pre-WWII Inox blade treated by Texas Knifemaker's Supply on a recommendation from John Crowley. It was less then $10.00 if I remember right. It did improve the blades ability to take an edge. Texas Knifemaker's Supply will only cryo treat stainless. For me it paid off.

http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/i...artsfrnt-1.jpg

I asked a teacher about this.

Cryo treatment usually is done between the quench and the tempering, to release some stress from the quench, so cryo quench a blade that is already tempered won't change much.
(that or my teacher was an idiot... wich is also possible)


Also if you drop a blade that just got out from nitrogen, it will probably break.


EDIT: I read it again, I'm not sure what you mean: For razors you make, why not. For vintage, forget :S

My pickups and other bits of my Fender Strat are cryo treated by www.callahamguitars.com
They sound good:D
M:D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by cybrok

Also if you drop a blade that just got out from nitrogen, it will probably break.

---

If you drop a mouse that just got out from the nitrogen, it also will break. The students in my lab used to make me do this every time a new student joined the lab. The important thing is to pick up all the bits before they thaw!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Utopian

If you drop a mouse that just got out from the nitrogen, it also will break. The students in my lab used to make me do this every time a new student joined the lab. The important thing is to pick up all the bits before they thaw!

---

:tu One of these days your students will talk you into trouble...

My understanding is that cryo treatment (usually in LN) is used to remove retained Austinite. Unless you are using stainless or highly alloyed carbon steels, you are unlikely to have retained Ausitinite in the first place. That said, Tim Zowada is cryo treating his O1/L6 Damascus razors, so you might check with him to see what benefit he is obtaining from the process. (His website mentions "dimensional stability", but I'm not sure exactly what he means.)

Remember, if you do decide to cryo your blades, you need to temper them again when you are done. Otherwise, you will have untempered Marteniste in your blades, which can lead to failure.