Ultra-amateur heat treatment---could I get some grain structure help?

[Veitchii]

So this is my second-ever attempt at heat treatment. Took a small piece of 1095 for practice, stuck it in a Mr. Volcano gas forge, normalized it one time when it was just past non-magnetic, and then did a 10 minute soak while fumbling around with literal barbeque tongs as my hands got seared by the fire. Eventually I quenched it in parks 50, broke it, and found this inside.

And under slightly different lighting:

Everyone seems to say different things about steels like this. Some will normalize 3x at decreasing temps while others will normalize at a high temp and cycle the metal at critical temp, and of course theres the varying soaking times for all of these steps as well as the quench.

So what exactly should I aim to be doing here, how should I go about it, and what should I look for afterwards?

Thanks!

 

[Veitchii]

Forgot to hit post before I had another go. I took another coupon of 1095, cycled it 3x just past nonmagnetic (5 minutes each time), soaked it for 10 minutes, and quenched like I did before. Here's the structure of these pieces:

This was slightly finer and definitely more uniform than the last one. Maybe 4 or 5 cycles would have been better, and maybe I overheated it some. I'm really interested to hear your thoughts and advice.

 

[Kippington]

The good news.
You've done well for your first few heat-treatments! It's fun to learn the science (rather than simply following someone elses recipes) and to see the changes in action.
If you were to make a knife with that steel, it would work well..

The bad news?
It's possible for you to get a finer grain with less effort (just going off the pictures and gnoring carbides)
You should try going to non-magnetic then immediate quench, no other steps. Straight from the bar stock, if you have any more to test with. Repeat that sequence if you want finer.
This ignores a few other key components of the HT (e.g no soak for carbides) but I'm assuming you just wanna see a fine grain break.

 

[Enso Forge]

No need to thermal cycle the steel unless you’ve forged it and could have altered the grain in some way. Most quality steel in bar stock form has already been cycled and annealed and is in an excellent state to grind and quench. Trying to refine the grain further can just increase the probability of problems.

Different if you’re forging a blade from it. Hope this helps!

 

[PolishAvenger]

I'm going to suggest switching to 1084. 1084 needs no soak, which is virtually impossible to correctly accomplish without temp control. And both kippington and enso are correct.

 

[Veitchii]

I read that using some square iron to even out the heat in tandem with a thermocouple can work well when dealing with temp control in a gas forge. I do have a thermocouple, so I think it's worth a shot. I'll try quenching multiple times and some more soaking tests, and if I fail a few more times, I'll order some 1084. I'll post again once I get that piece of square iron and do a few attempts. Thanks so much!

 

[MSicardCutlery]

No need to thermal cycle the steel unless you’ve forged it and could have altered the grain in some way. Most quality steel in bar stock form has already been cycled and annealed and is in an excellent state to grind and quench. Trying to refine the grain further can just increase the probability of problems.

Different if you’re forging a blade from it. Hope this helps!

This

I'm going to suggest switching to 1084. 1084 needs no soak, which is virtually impossible to correctly accomplish without temp control. And both kippington and enso are correct.

And this

See knifesteelnerd for more details, but ideally you should avoid hypereutectic steels if you have no temp control. 1084, 1075, 15n20, 80crv2 are good steels for this kind of thing. Very forgiving and much tougher than 1095 at the same hardnesses. And as far as edge retention goes the difference should be nil for kitchen work. Look up the DET anneal with vermiculite on KNS too if you haven't seen it yet. It's much less of a hassle than cycling.