Heat Treating 5160 Tool Steel

This reference does state that higher temperatures and longer times are needed to dissolve all the carbides in d7 than in other d series tools steels.

Heat treating 5160 tool steel.

5160 has very good toughness with a heat treatment using an austenitizing temperature of 1500 1525 f and tempered at 375 400 f. That results in 58 5 59 5 rc and very high toughness when heat treated with a cryo step. Skipping cryo may improve toughness slightly with a drop in hardness but this was not tested. 5160 steel spec s and heat treating.

Carbon 0 56 to 0 64 carbon 0 55 to 0 65. Heat treat instructions for this grade can be found in the asm heat treaters guide. Heat the steel to non magnetic any way you can 815 c 1500 f no hold time required just get the entire blade to this temperaturequickly quench in luke warm canola oil oil is about 30 c 86 f sand the flats with some sand paper just enough to get a few shiny sections temper the blade in the stove for 2 hours x 2 at 200 c 390 f the. 5160 aisi 5160h aisi.

Designer and knifemaker derick rougeau heat treats 5160 steel to be used for torture testing. Phosphorus 0 035 max silicon 0 15 to 0 35. Over the last 40 years especially many cutting competition choppers have been made out of it as 5160 is a medium carbon deep hardening steel that is relatively easy to forge heat treat grind and finish that offers excellent toughness and durability an ideal combination for larger blade projects and why to this day many production functional swords and choppers are made from it. Manganese 0 75 to 1 00 manganese 0 65 to 1 00.

How to heat treat simple carbon steels the short version.