How to Heat Treat 80CrV2 Knife Steel

I found no less than 4 different recommendations for how to heat treat 80CrV2, and nobody seems to know whose advice to follow. I compare the heat treatments, test the resulting properties, and give my recommendation on how to heat treat it for different situations including with a forge vs a furnace, and for stock removal makers vs forging bladesmiths. And I compare the properties of 80CrV2 to other steels and explain how it is different than the slightly simpler 1080 steel.

Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:31 80CrV2 Composition
03:43 Book plug
04:01 Heat Treating Steps
05:36 Normalizing
06:51 Grain refinement
07:18 Annealing
09:24 Please subscribe
09:55 New Experiments - Annealed Microstructure
11:58 Austenitizing and As-Quenched Hardness
14:50 Toughness Testing
16:12 Heat Treated Microstructure
17:21 Quench Oil and Hardenability
20:23 Tempering - Hardness and Toughness
21:19 Summarized Heat Treatment Steps
24:21 Thank You

[FearNoSteel]

Strong work, my favorite part is how you used solid testing to rule out the different nuisances people hear repeated but never prove. Improving the knife community one video at a time, cheers.

[RedBeardOps]

Hey man, this is awesome... thanks for breaking this down. I really enjoyed your book as well! I'd love to see a simple broken down video like this for every common steel! lol

[OUTDOORS]

Always nice to see a video. Really appreciate all the work that went into it👍

[Zonkotron]

You are citing Föll !!! NICE ! I had the honor of hearing his material science for engineers lectures shortly before he retired. He was a monster. Insanely knowledgable, funny and with a seriously dirty sense of humor but dressed in oldschool buisiness

[Cz]

Came here for the steel facts stayed for the star wars sweater
I have a Terava Skrama in 80CrV2 so was really interested in this

[ronnie]

Definitely gonna continue to heat treat in a forge....cause I a paramedic and broke and forging is a hobby

[unmybwj]

I make professional grade throwing knives for no spin and half spin throwing. I use two steels 80crv2 and 5160. Both are super tuff and do not suffer snapped tips or blunted tips. Ive stuck mine into cinder blocks even with no damage done

[thedavidwalker]

This is awesome. Love to see something like this for 5160!

[gjDOnBBQ]

Being new to knife making, and not an Engineer, I was able to glean some previously misunderstood concepts regarding heat treating. Much thanks

[JFirnQ]

Subscribed! Very good info here, with research data to back it up. Thanks man.

[rodneylangstroth]

I've been using 80crv2 for some time now. Also, having a kiln gives me excellent results. Using the processes you've mentioned, is exactly what I do. I use Parks 50 as my quench oil, and the result is excellent in toughness and edge retention. I really appreciate your research, as it definitely helps me become a better Smith

[wullgrew]

Larrin, I always feel like I'm back in school when I watch your vids. I love it!!

[tijlaerts]

Thanks for once more bringing this wizardry closer to our level!

[RogerF]

You are a freaking genius. I learned so much from one video.

[papy]

Thanks for your work. Its so great to have a well researched guide to heat treatment of steels. Your book is a blessing to the knife community

[sunbunbradley]

WOW that is a lot of information! I love my WINKLER belt knife in 80CrV2 !!

[scottvines]

I’m half way through your book and I’m already a better knife maker. I wish this video had been available when I started the hobby several years ago.

[bitsindustries]

Your vids, when played at 0.5% play speed... Knife making hints & tips with Terance McKenna!
Very easy to watch, highly informative, and gets a👍. Great video!

[eddielittleii]

Thank you for the time and expertise you invested in this. Very interesting.

[bklynpa]

Thanks very much for this video Larrin, and your book which is a really great resource. I'm in the process of heat treating a chopper I made out of pattern welded steel. I used 80crv2 (Jantz), and 15n20. It's very confusing trying to figure out the right method to heat treat since it's 2 different steels with differing properties. Since I wasn't sure, and for 15n20 your book says to austenitize at 1475 for 10 min which is close to the recommendation for 80crv2, I'm going with the 80crv2 rec. I do have a new Jen Ken vertical air bath kiln, which is AWESOME, so that should help. I've already completed the normalizing and heat treating steps, and will quench it tomorrow in parks 50, then planning to temper at 400 for 2 hrs x 2. Thanks again for the good advice! PS. I'd love to see a video outlining some general rules/recommendations for heat treating pattern welded steel in the future, but I know that must be a seriously tough subject to tackle!