Can we talk about people who don't bother to normalize their steel before heat treat?

I swear I see way too many beginners skipping the normalization step and wondering why their blades crack or warp. Normalizing is just heating the steel up to critical temp and letting it cool in still air, it takes maybe 15 minutes extra. I had a guy bring me a knife last month that he'd heat treated three times and it still had a huge curve in it. He was just going straight from forging to quench without any prep. I showed him how to do three normalization cycles on a fresh piece of 1084 and the difference was night and day. The blade came out straight and held an edge way better. It doesn't matter if you're using a gas forge or a coal forge, that step saves so much headache later. Has anyone else noticed this getting worse or is it just my shop?

2 comments

2 Comments

leog6816d ago

People skip the easy steps in all kinds of things and then wonder why the hard parts go wrong. It's just like not reading a recipe all the way through and then having to start over.

emma_hart17d ago

You said it with that "night and day" difference, more smiths need to see that proof firsthand.