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Turn on any TV or radio in the UK and after a while you will be confronted with an advert for a price comparison website. There are four of them: Moneysupermarket, GoCompare, Confused.com and Comparethemarket. Between them, they spend over £150 million a year on traditional media advertising and a lot more on other marketing. A few years ago, Go Compare’s TV advert – featuring Welsh opera singer Gio Compario – was voted the most annoying in the UK; Comparethemarket’s ad was not far behind. 

In some ways these companies are a precursor to the super app that is gaining increasing traction in financial services. This week, PayPal launched a one-stop shop allowing customers to access credit, savings accounts and other financial services from a single app. Like super apps, price comparison sites provide an interface between the customer and the market – a first port of call for customers to access financial services. But the mechanism is quite different, as are the economics. 

Price comparis…

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After years of development, we have released our spin-off product of a compact 16 station CNC Lathe Turret for those who would like to upgrade their CNC lathe. 8 Stations are for 3/8" tooling and 8 Stations are for round tooling (i.e. Drill bits) Tool change times can be in as little as 4 seconds. Optically isolated interfacing with 4 possible methods of interfacing with your motion controller.

Our website is at https://www.5cfab.com

Demo videos:





Plenty of information on the development at https://5cfab.com/blogs/
Manual at: https://5cfab.com/wp-content/uploads...ual-R-10-1.pdf

While currently shipping only within the USA, Shipping is free.

$1495.00 introductory price.

Education:

American colleges and universities now enroll roughly six women for every four men. This is the largest female-male gender gap in the history of higher education, and it’s getting wider. Last year, U.S. colleges enrolled 1.5 million fewer students than five years ago, The Wall Street Journal recently reported. Men accounted for more than 70 percent of the decline.

The statistics are stunning. But education experts and historians aren’t remotely surprised. Women in the United States have earned more bachelor’s degrees than men every year since the mid-1980s—every year, in other words, that I’ve been alive. This particular gender gap hasn’t been breaking news for about 40 years. But the imbalance reveals a genuine shift in how men participate in education, the economy, and society. The world has changed dramatically, but the ideology of masculinity isn’t changing fast enough to keep up.

Side hustles:

An undisclosed share of Gatorade’s profits flow to a Gatorade Trust. The trust then sends 20% to the [The University of Florida], which employed the professor who invented the drink nearly 60 years ago.

In 2015, Florida announced it had accumulated ~$250m from the royalties. Its annual take over the last few years has been ~$20m, according to the university.

Wealth:

Unprecedented YoY change in household net worth. pic.twitter.com/59JnvyM74X

— Cullen Roche (@cullenroche) September 23, 2021

Progress:

mRNA cancer therapy works (in mice). … “Nineteen of 20 mice treated with the four-component mixture had complete tumor regression.”

Savings:

If I had to convince my 22 year-old self to save more money, here is what I would say: Go big, then stop.

What I’m talking about is a savings philosophy so effective that it can put your future finances on easy mode. It can help you to build wealth for decades while you literally do nothing. It may just be the lowest effort way to set yourself up for a nice retirement.

Have a good weekend.

This small fiber laser cutter is designed for these who have a small space for their cutting business. Enclosed with full cover make this machine safer and cleaner durning the processing.

Welcome to visit our web to know more about it.

https://www.eagletec-cnc.com/fiber-l...g-machine.html

Estoy creando un club de bolsa, que es como un grupo de amigos que debaten sobre oportunidades de compra de acciones, con el objetivo final de crear una cartera de inversión que puede utilizarse por todos los miembros del club. ¡Apúntate!

The post Estoy creando un club de bolsa ¿te apuntas? appeared first on Slowinver.

On Sunday, Germany will elect a new parliament and with it a successor for Angela Merkel. After the election Merkel will remain in office until a new coalition is formed and a new chancellor elected. After 16 years in office, Merkel led Germany and the European Union through three major crises, starting with the Global Financial Crisis in 2008, followed by the European Debt Crisis in 2011, and then the pandemic in 2020.

That her policies have been criticised by left-wing politicians is no surprise. After all, Merkel and her party are Germany’s conservatives and ostensibly follow centre-right policies. Yet, Merkel has invited a lot of criticism from conservatives alike and in particular from conservative pundits and politicians in the United Kingdom and the United States. Yet, despite the dire warnings of these Anglo-Saxon “experts”, the European Union is alive and well and the Euro is still around. And in my view, no one can take more credit for that than Angela Merkel.

It is instructive to see how far detached from data and facts her critics on the right have become and how ideologically blinded especially the conservative wings of the UK Conservative Party and the US Republicans have become. It shows how ideologues need to ignore reality in order to keep their ideological system intact in the face of contradicting evidence. And it shows why countries that elect ideologues and extreme parties (be it on the right or left wing of the political spectrum) always suffer economically. And it is the reason why I am a radical centrist and a technocrat when it comes to politics.

To do this, let me take a couple of quotes from an opinion piece by conservative commentator Allister Heath published in the Telegraph on 1 September 2021. What starts out as a critique of Boris Johnson quickly turns into a comprehensive takedown of Angela Merkel’s 16 years in office.

Heath writes: “The German Chancellor’s strategy was to put herself first, and to court popularity by making all sides believe she was one of them” just to add a few lines later that “her mishandling of the 2015 refugee crisis fuelled the populist Right and created a permanent fissure with Eastern Europe which, in time, will destroy the EU”.

That is an obvious contradiction though cleverly disguised by taking these two sentences apart from each other and digressing into other ad hominem attacks in between. But Angela Merkel was not a populist who put popularity above the good of her country. Her actions during the 2015 refugee crisis were severely criticised by her own party and fuelled the rise of the populist right because they were so unpopular. The chart below shows Angela Merkel’s popularity figures during her time in office and in 2015 her willingness to accept refugees with an open border policy cost her dearly in terms of popularity.

Merkel’s popularity amongst voters

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Source: Politbarometer

On her economic record, Heath writes: “Its economy only survives thanks to her predecessor’s labour market reforms, and the fact that the euro is much cheaper than the Deutsche Mark would have been” and “the result is a gigantic, disastrous mess: a Germany in structural decline, the most over-rated political leader of her generation, and yet the most popular”.

To which I say that first, it is ironic that a conservative commentator credits her predecessor with labour market reforms. Did he forget that his predecessor was the centre-left social democrat Gerhard Schroder? And even so, the facts don’t prove him right. I have looked at the average annual real GDP growth in Germany during Angela Merkel’s term in office. It was 1.1% per year. That sounds like stagnation and structural decline, but it is still better than the 0.7% average growth over the same time by the Eurozone overall. And since Heath likes to think that the Brits do everything better, let me clear that up. Over the same time period, the average UK real GDP growth was 0.6% per year. Compounded over the 16 years of here chancellorship it means that the German economy has created 7% more income and wealth than the Eurozone on average and 10% more income and wealth than the UK.

Now, I can hear conservatives in the UK claim that this is all fine and well, but the UK had a Labour government until 2010 and was only governed by the Tories since December 2010. Starting in 2011, the average real GDP growth in Germany was 1.25% vs. 0.8% for the Eurozone overall and 0.8% for the UK. Over the last decade, Angela Merkel and her government have created about 5% more national income and wealth than the UK government has.

And unlike the UK government or the Eurozone overall, this growth did not come at the expense of future generations. Germany’s debt/GDP-ratio declined by 4.8 percentage points during her time in office. Over the same time, the Eurozone’s debt/GDP-ratio increased by 29.6 percentage points and the UK’s debt/GDP-ratio increased by 78.3 percentage points. When Angela Merkel became chancellor, the UK’s net debt was half that of Germany in terms of GDP. When she leaves office, the UK will have twice as much debt relative to GDP than Germany. When it comes to fiscal discipline and not living off borrowed money no country (except maybe Switzerland) even comes close.

And with regard to the point of a weak Euro let me give you some more facts. During her time in office, the Euro has appreciated(!) on a trade-weighted basis by 3.0%. Over the same time, Sterling has depreciated 25.0%. During the time of a conservative government in the UK, Sterling depreciated on a trade-weighted basis by 3% while the Euro depreciated by 1%.

It is a persistent myth in Anglo-Saxon countries that the Euro is a weak currency when in fact it is Sterling that is weak and should have given the UK economy a growth boost that has narrowed the growth gap between the UK and Germany.

Plus (and my conservative readers may forgive me for that comment), if the weak Euro was such an advantage for Germany, I suggest the UK abolishes Sterling, adopts the Euro, and re-joins the EU?

Finally, Heath states that Germany has a decrepit infrastructure and is in terrible shape and bound for structural decline. Well, the WEF’s last assessment of the competitiveness of different countries puts Germany in 7th place vs the UK in 9th. Germany’s infrastructure is ranked 8 in the world vs. the UK in 11th place. When it comes to having a skilled workforce, Germany ranks 5th, while the UK ranks 11th. And in the category of business dynamism, Germany ranks 5th, while the UK is in 9th place.

In other words, Angela Merkel leaves behind a dynamic economy that is growing at a faster pace than the majority of other European countries despite the headwinds of a stable to stronger Euro. And she did all that without the use of government deficits to inflate growth.

And in my view, the reason why she achieved that is because she is not associated with any ideology or grand plan of how the world works. Heath criticises this lack of beliefs as a negative, but in my view, it is exactly why she was so successful. Angela Merkel is at heart a technocrat and that is a good thing. Instead of dithering about keeping the economy open as so many politicians did during the first stages of the pandemic, she followed the evidence of scientists and probably saved thousands of lives. And guess what, against the dire forecasts of conservative pundits, locking the economy down in spring 2020 didn’t cause the end of the world. Germany’s economy declined, but far less than the UK economy.

Throughout her career, Angela Merkel was willing to follow the evidence and the data no matter where it took her. Did that lead to mistakes? Absolutely. We know today that austerity measures to reign in debt in Southern European countries were counterproductive and caused more harm than good. But back in 2011 it seemed like the sensible thing to do based on empirical evidence and data. Nobody knew back then that in a low interest rate world, austerity measures have a different effect than in a high interest rate world. A decade later, our knowledge has evolved and so have my views and Merkel’s views. Why else would she have agreed to the pandemic bonds and effectively the introduction of Eurobonds in spring 2020 which also means that another European debt crisis like the one in 2011 can never repeat itself?

I don’t agree with all of her policies, though. I think her appeasement politics towards Russia (e.g. the Nordstream 2 pipeline) and her exit from nuclear power in 2011 while giving in to the German energy lobby’s desires to continue to run lignite and coal power plants are a historical error. Nevertheless, Germany is at the forefront of the green revolution and will be one of the first countries in the world to become fully sustainable. In the end, her pragmatism may have led to some policy mistakes but on the whole, I think Angela Merkel was popular in Germany and abroad not because she was a populist, but because she was competent. And that is more than can be said for almost all political leaders these days.

 Leer

Trying to compile the hh415 source file, but gets an error saying:

B_AXIS=(-ROT_TILT_B)
error 1 at 1415 in CALC_PIVOT_POINT_COORDINATES
Syntax error or unrecognized variable name

But I cant find those lines in the src or lib file .

How can I compile it ?

 Leer

La pandemia ha puesto de moda el ahorro, que se generalizó hace año y medio debido a las restricciones al consumo. Esta reducción del gasto ha abierto un nicho de mercado al que se apuntan cada vez más 'start up'. Leer

Fundada en 2018 la compañía madrileña cuenta con una tecnología de inteligencia artificial que mejora el proceso de fabricación de componentes magnéticos y electrónicos para los coches y otros sectores. Desde el año pasado llevan trabajando en mejorar su tecnología para acabar con la falta de 'chips', uno de los grandes problemas actuales del sector de la automoción. En la ronda han participado Bonsai Ventures, Join Capital, 42Cap, Big Sur Ventures y Bankinter. Leer

Thanks to Mike Poutiatine, TWJC, Robert Hugh, Head VI, and Snackin for becoming Knife Steel Nerds Patreon supporters! I was able to purchase a forge to do these experiments with thanks to the contributions of supporters.

Video Version

The general information in this article also exists as a YouTube video for those that prefer to consume their information that way:

Importance of Prior Microstructure

In a previous article I wrote about how to normalize and anneal steel after forging but before the final steps of austenitizing, quenching, and tempering. One of the things that I pointed out in that article was that using a normalized, pearlite microstructure to heat treat from would lead to very rapid response to heat treatment. An annealed structure such as comes from the manufacturer takes more time, and higher temperature, to properly austenitize the steel.  Below shows the resulting as-quenched hardness for 1084 and 52100 comparing normalized and annealed steel. These were all quenched from approximately where they became nonmagnetic (1385°F for 1084 and 1445°F for 52100), relatively low in temperature compared with the typically recommended temperature for heat treatment.

1084 hardness:

52100 hardness:

The high hardness after quenching 52100 from such a low temperature is impressive because of the relatively high chromium (1.5%) of the steel. Higher chromium delays transformations in the steel and typically 52100 is a steel that is thought to require higher temperatures and soak times. However, if starting from a pearlite structure it can be quenched from nonmagnetic and still be heat treated “properly.” This large difference in austenitizing response is also shown in the literature, such as in the study shown below comparing pearlite and spheroidized structures in 52100. You can see that the hardness is at its maximum in less than a minute with the pearlite structure while it takes over 2 hours to reach the same hardness with a spheroidized structure.

52100 steel austenitized at 840°C/1550°F, quenched in oil, and tempered at 175°C/350°F [1]

This occurs because the distance that diffusion occurs is much shorter with a pearlite structure then with a spheroidize annealed structure. See the simplified schematic below where the pearlite (lines indicating the cementite structure) vs spheroidized carbides (black circles) where you can see that the distance between those features is much greater with spheroidized cementite/carbides.

Pearlite (normalized)

Spheroidized carbide (annealed)

Heat Treating in a Forge

This is useful because typically when bladesmiths heat treat knives in a forge they are trying to get to a temperature at some point higher than nonmagnetic and this is a major source of variability. I figured if we use a normalized structure instead I could heat to nonmagnetic and quench without trying to reach a higher temperature that can’t easily be measured with a forge running at high temperature. There are various methods for heat treating in a forge such as using a muffle, or pipe, within the forge to help maintain a more even temperature distribution. However, I wanted to use the simplest method used by many beginning bladesmiths with a simple forge to heat the steel and checking for temperature with nothing but a magnet. If I could successfully heat treat in this way then I would have more confidence in recommending to people methods of how to heat treat with a forge. In the past I have always recommended against heat treating in a forge because a furnace is so much more controllable and consistent. However, I wanted to prove myself wrong in a sense by seeing if I could heat treat in a forge without any past experience with doing it.

I chose a range of different low alloy steels typically used by forging bladesmiths. I wanted to do different steels to make sure that the process worked with different carbon and alloy content. With each I overheated the steel at 2100°F/1150°C for an hour to simulate forging, normalized at 1550-1700°F for 10 minutes and air cooled. The normalizing temperature varied by steel. This was the condition that I used when heating to nonmagnetic in the forge and quenching in Parks 50. These were all 1/8″ pieces of steel.

Because of the different compositions of these steels the hardness of the normalized steel varied though I was able to cut all of them with a bandsaw and drill a small hole. A very high hardenability steel like L6 or thinner steel like 1/16″ may air harden enough where bandsaw cutting or drilling may be difficult.

Hardness of normalized steel

Magnetism and Heating Rate

The steel becomes nonmagnetic when it has transformed to austenite, a nonmagnetic phase of steel. There are certain steels, notably austenitic stainless steels, which are designed to be austenite at room temperature and are therefore nonmagnetic at room temperature. These are not used for knives but I am giving an example for better understanding of magnetic/nonmagnetic behavior. Fortunately for us with normalized pearlitic steel, it becomes nonmagnetic when the pearlite has been replaced with austenite and is ready for quenching. With annealed steel it will also become nonmagnetic when it has transformed to austenite, but the higher required temperature is to get more carbide to dissolve and to put more carbon and alloy in solution by dissolving those carbides. With the pearlite starting condition there is enough carbon in solution immediately after the pearlite has been replaced with austenite (see the previous chart of 52100 hardness vs time for pearlite and spheroidized carbide).

Different steels will transform to austenite at somewhat different temperatures but we don’t have to worry about that because we are checking with a magnet; when the steel has transformed we see that with the magnet. Another potential concern is that the transformation temperature can change based on how rapidly the steel is heated. Faster heating means the transformation is delayed to a somewhat higher temperature. Steel can heat relatively rapidly in a forge so the transformation may be shifted up a few degrees. However, we are checking with a magnet so once the steel has transformed we quench from there regardless of the temperature where that has actually happened. (Note: The dissolution of all of the carbide/cementite is not shown on the diagram.)

52100 transformation temperatures with continuous heating at different rates. Adapted from [2].

However, while with continuous heating the transformation is shifted up, if the steel is held at that temperature for a period of time the transformation will occur at a lower temperature. Therefore if the relatively fast heating of a forge leads to an increased temperature of transformation, attempting to hold the steel at that temperature may lead to the steel being overheated.

52100 transformation temperatures with holding at a constant temperature. Adapted from [2].

Dangers of Overheating

Grain Growth

Bladesmiths are generally familiar with the problem of grain growth with overheating. Larger grains in steel usually means reduced toughness. If the grain size is big enough the steel is brittle and will chip or break easily. This can be evaluated based on fracture appearance if the steel is broken in a brittle condition, ie as-quenched steel that isn’t tempered. Ductile steel that is fractured does not reflect the grain size of the steel, which is why normalized steel cannot be used to evaluate fracture grain. Below shows 1084 which was heated for 10 minutes, quenched, and broken.

1475°F (800°C)

1700°F (925°C)

2000°F (1095°C)

Carbon in Solution

However, grain growth is not the only danger of overheating. When too much carbide is dissolved putting excess carbon in solution toughness is reduced. Above about 0.6% carbon in solution the type of martensite starts to transition from “lath” to “plate” martensite. Plate martensite is brittle and prone to microcracks. A 1% carbon steel does not necessarily have 1% carbon in solution. The steel is generally austenitized at such a temperature where some carbon remains in carbides.

The arrow points to plate martensite within a matrix of primarily lath martensite [3]

Image from [4]

I also compared the toughness of low alloy knife steels in this article where I also used calculated carbon in solution to compare them. The trend was pretty convincing, showing how important this factor is for knife steel toughness, particularly in low alloy knife steel where carbon in solution is not as easily controlled as in high alloy steels.

Results of Forge Heat Treatments

So I heat treated these steels in an Atlas Forge with the propane set to very low pressure. This is still at relatively high temperature, approximately 2000°F/1095°C. I heated them up to a consistent temperature the best I could while occasionally checking with a magnet. When the steel was nonmagnetic I quenched in Parks 50. The samples were then tempered twice for 2 hours at 400°F/205°C. I tested the samples for hardness and also toughness using my standard unnotched subsize charpy specimens.

5160 and 8670

These steels are the lowest in carbon that I tested with these experiments. These steels are also among the highest toughness that I have tested, see the chart below for low alloy knife steels. I have separate articles about the heat treatment of these two steels:

How to Heat Treat 5160

How to Heat Treat 8670

In my forge heat treatments of 5160 and 8670 I measured similar hardness and toughness to the furnace heat treated specimens:

This indicates that the steel was both sufficiently heated (similar hardness to the furnace heat treated specimens) but not overheated (similar toughness). In furnace heat treatments of 5160 we found that when using temperatures of 1550°F or above the toughness was significantly reduced from grain growth. This gives a relatively wide window when forge heat treating between nonmagnetic and excessive grain growth when using normalized steel, as it becomes nonmagnetic at least 100°F below that point.

O1 and 1095

With the relatively low carbon content of 5160 and 8670, excessive carbon in solution is not as much of a potential problem with overheating. Instead we are primarily concerned about grain growth. However, with high carbon steel the effect of carbon in solution is much more significant. This is why the toughness of O1 and 1095 is so much lower than 5160/8670 in the low alloy steel toughness chart. Sometimes using reduced austenitizing temperatures with high carbon steels can result in improved toughness because of the reduction in carbon in solution (less carbide dissolved). See below where austenitizing O1 at 1475 and especially 1425°F resulted in superior toughness when compared with 1550°F even after compensating for hardness.

This was also an important topic when comparing the toughness of low alloy steels with a heat treatment for bainite, as bainite does not have the carbon in solution problem that plate martensite has. This resulted in higher toughness for O1 and 1095 with austempering treatments for bainite because of the elimination of plate martensite.

1475°F is the typical temperature recommended for furnace heat treating in these steels, so this is the comparison I made with the forge heat treated specimens. In this case the hardness was somewhat higher for my forge heat treated coupons but the hardness-toughness balance was similar to the 1475°F furnace heat treated coupons. So this is a good result I think.

52100

With 52100 the furnace heat treated coupons have significantly better toughness than furnace heat treated O1 and 1095. The chromium addition reduces the carbon in solution for a given austenitizing temperature and makes controlling the carbon in solution easier. This gives 52100 excellent toughness and wear resistance when compared with other high carbon low alloy steels. However, this is for furnace heat treating from a spheroidized annealed condition. When heat treating from pearlite you do not have the same control over the carbon in solution and the resulting as-quenched hardness, as shown below.

Chart adapted from [1]

However, 52100 would be the most difficult to heat treat in a forge from the spheroidized annealed condition because of how sluggish the dissolution of carbide is. And even if that was effectively done it would be difficult to target specific temperatures as with a furnace. So like with 1095 and O1 you are limited to relatively high hardness. You could temper higher than 400°F but then you would run into the issue of tempered martensite embrittlement where hardness is reduced but toughness also goes down. This was seen when heat treating 52100 with a 450°F tempering temperature, see this article on heat treating 52100 for more.

The toughness of the 52100 forge heat treated specimens was still good, with higher toughness than O1 and 1095. However, the toughness was somewhat worse than other high hardness furnace heat treated 52100. This may be because of greater carbon in solution from the pearlite starting microstructure. The other high hardness coupons from furnace heat treating used lower tempering temperatures (300°F/150°C) in combination with lower carbon in solution. However, as I said the properties are still reasonable and would do well for thin, high performance knives.

80CrV2 and 1084

I saved these two steels for last because they are in between the medium carbon (5160/8670) and high carbon (1095/O1/52100) categories described above. They therefore have behavior that is basically in between those two categories. 1084 is known as being very easy to heat treat in a forge because of its low alloy content and good hardenability (doesn’t have to be quenched as fast as 1095). Using a pearlite starting structure in all of the steels I have heat treated does somewhat remove the advantage 1084 has from the low alloy content, however, as all of these steels hardened from nonmagnetic just fine. Ironically, 1084 gave me the most trouble in heat treating because two of the coupons had lower toughness than the third. This was because I was having trouble heating the piece evenly and had a hot spot on one side of the steel, as shown in the image below, which is from video footage of me heat treating the specimens:

So to get the entire piece to reach nonmagnetic I ended up overheating those two hotter specimens resulting in grain growth and reduced toughness. This was also visible in the fracture grain of the specimens, though it was not as bad as you might think based on the reduction in toughness (remember these are only 10 mm wide):

This overheated treatment of 1084 would still result in an acceptable knife; there are many steel-heat treatment combinations used in common knives with lower toughness. However, we would of course prefer an optimized heat treatment rather a subpar one.

For 80CrV2 the toughness was somewhat lower than the furnace heat treated specimen. However, the hardness was also higher. So to have some idea of how it compared I overlaid the toughness of the furnace heat treated 1084 coupons since I don’t have a trend for 80CrV2. When viewed against the furnace heat treated 1084 the hardness-toughness-balance of the forge heat treated 80CrV2 looks pretty good.

Overall Trends

Because I heat treated from a pearlite microstructure rather than spheroidized annealed, and all of them were tempered at 400°F, the resulting hardness and toughness was primarily controlled by the carbon content of the steel, as shown below:

And then if we plot the hardness vs toughness balance you can better see where the different steels ended up in their overall properties:

So 5160 and 8670 would be best for knives requiring high toughness like heavy choppers. The medium carbon content gives them good hardness (58-60 Rc with a 400°F temper) without having significant issues with high carbon in solution and plate martensite.

1095, O1, and 52100 would be best for fine cutting knives like kitchen knives. Though 52100 did have better hardness and toughness than 1095 and O1 so it would be my choice. And 52100 has better edge retention than either of those steels.

1084 and 80CrV2 would be best for general purpose knives. Their medium-high carbon content gives them somewhat more hardness/strength and edge retention while still having very good toughness.

Should You Heat Treat in a Forge?

With furnace heat treating, however, you would have somewhat more control over the final properties of the steel and the steels would be more flexible in heat treatment for achieving different properties. 52100, for example, can have toughness as high as 1084/80CrV2 at similar hardness with the added benefit of more carbide for higher wear resistance. So with this type of forge heat treating the steel selection is very important for the type of knife that will be used, without being able to rely as much on changes to heat treatment. However, I did get decent properties with all of these steels with forge heat treatments, and these were the very first coupons I had ever heat treated in a forge. So can you get good results heat treating in a forge? Yes. I attribute this to the use of the normalized, pearlitic microstructure that meant I could quench from nonmagnetic without worrying about how much hotter to go.

The biggest dangers for forge heat treating are overheating for grain growth and excessive carbon in solution, as well as uneven heating leading to spots that are higher/lower in hardness or toughness. The problem of uneven heating can only be fixed with practice which is why I would still recommend that beginner knife makers send out knives to a professional heat treater if a furnace is not yet in the budget. Furnace heat treating is very easy and results in the same properties each time. You can follow recommendations from this website, datasheets, or my book Knife Engineering. Just follow the recommendations and the performance will be good even if you are a novice. The chances of screwing up a forge heat treatment are much higher. One example I gave in my last article was where a knifemaker sent me a whole range of different coupons heat treated in a forge, and he even used the muffle method with a thermocouple to try to have more even heating and more consistent temperature. The samples were obviously overheated according to the fracture appearance, and the toughness was very bad. So there are fewer guarantees with forge heat treatments.

Properly heat treated 52100 on the right and improperly heat treated 52100 on the left

High Alloy Steels and Stainless Steels

All of these examples were with low alloy steels generally used by forging bladesmiths. The method of heat treating normalized steel and checking with a magnet would not work for high alloy tool steels, high speed steels, stainless steels, etc. Basically any steel with 3% chromium or more. I have not attempted to heat treat any of those in a forge and the methods required to do so would be different.

Summary and Conclusions

My goal here was to prove to myself that good forge heat treatments can be done by a novice and that goal was achieved. There are still potential pitfalls to forge heat treating, with overheating and uneven heating being the most common. If you follow my recommendation to use a normalized, pearlitic microstructure, heat to nonmagnet and no hotter. It can be easy to heat significantly above nonmagnetic which will result in reduced toughness. I still recommend furnace heat treating or sending out to a professional heat treater for most people. That way you can have confidence in consistent, repeatable results. And furnace heat treating is just easier.

[1] Stickels, C. A. “Carbide refining heat treatments for 52100 bearing steel.” Metallurgical Transactions 5, no. 4 (1974): 865-874.

[2] Orlich, Jürgen, Adolf Rose, and Paul Wiest. Atlas zur Wärmebehandlung der Stähle;: Band 3: Zeit, Temperatur, Austentisierung, Schaubilder. Matplus GmbH, 1973.

[3] Samuels, Leonard Ernest. Light microscopy of carbon steels. Asm International, 1999.

[4] Krauss, George. Steels: processing, structure, and performance. Asm International, 2015.

The post How to Heat Treat Knife Steel in a Forge appeared first on Knife Steel Nerds.

Last month the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published its latest report which made clear that temperatures today are higher than any time in the last 125,000 years, and methane emissions are a primary culprit.

While methane makes up a smaller share of overall greenhouse emissions compared with carbon dioxide, some estimates indicate it’s close to 80x more powerful than CO2 when it comes to warming the planet.

Unfortunately, atmospheric methane concentrations continue to climb:

When you look at where all that methane is coming from, the livestock industry emerges as one of the largest contributors.

And among livestock, the world’s 1.6 billion cattle are responsible for the majority of the livestock industry’s greenhouse gas emissions.

While plant-based milks and vegetarian beef alternatives are on the rise, so are beef and dairy consumption — projections by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations show significant growth in the demand for livestock products through 2050.

With that in mind, solutions aimed at mitigating methane emissions stand to have a meaningful impact on climate.

That’s why we recently got behind a team of animal scientists, engineers, product designers, and veterinarians called ZELP (Zero Emissions Livestock Project).

As its name suggests, it’s on a mission to drastically lower greenhouse gas emissions across the livestock industry. It’s developed an unobtrusive wearable for cattle that measures, captures, and oxidizes up to 60% of methane emissions from the mouth and nostrils of cows, which is where they emit nearly all of their methane.

In addition to neutralizing emissions, ZELP can also tell cattle farmers quite a bit about the welfare of their livestock by capturing and analyzing lots of data about their feeding habits, rumination, and rest, which are useful inputs in caring for the health of each animal and help boost farm productivity.

You can follow ZELP’s journey here.

Fish farmers are feeding them fewer drugs

The racial income gap has narrowed since 1994. But the gains went largely to the black elite

God wants his servants to be rich

To the dismay of many Algerians

Friends and neighbours have offered to help, but mostly to help themselves

A selection of correspondence