Heat Treating 440c Stainless Steel Knife

The method we use to heat treat 440c ss knife blades.

Heat treating 440c stainless steel knife.

440c is a hardenable chromium steel. Everything i ve been able to pull up on various websites about heat treating 440c is conflicting. 440 c is a high carbon chromium stainless that resists corrosion from fresh water steam crude oil gasoline stains from food acids and fruit. This can also be done wit.

Decarburization is the number one reason for bad heat treating results. This grade is magnetic at all times. Hot rolled and annealed typical chemistryc 1 00 mn 45 si 30 cr 17 00. Stresses created in hand forging 440c are destructive and permanent.

Place it into the oven and heat slowly to between 1 400 and 1 450 degrees fahrenheit. Some say oil quench some say air hardening some say you can do either which i didnt think was possible but ive been wrong before and some on either sides of those spectrums talk about a cryo cycle after hardening. I hope this helps others who are trying to heat treat their stainless knifes. 440c is mid range that used to be a high end stainless steel that offers great corrosion resistance and great wear resistance and will take a great mirror polish so the answer is yes it s a good steel for knives but it has low toughness.

Place the blank the unfinished piece that will become your knife blade in the heat treating oven and heat. Therefore i wouldn t recommend it for hard usage a boning knife for example it would be a great knife for the wet environment fishing knife or kitchen knife and it holds an edge for long which is great for an edc knife carry. Remove the blade from the. 440c is not a forgiving steel that can be worked and reworked in a forge hammered cooled heated hammered cooled heated repeatedly without substantial damage to the structure and allotropes desired.

For those applications where superior machinability is desired and where slightly lower corrosion resistance is satisfactory 440c can be supplied.