Dar, I was using the existing stock of O1 when I first started working at my
job, and had poor and inconsistent results with it all around. I went with
A2 for most round items and plates, and have never looked back. The higher
cost of the material to the company is now offset by me spending less time
dicking with it. I even got brave, and I now make short splined broaches out
of or S7, heat them with a torch on a rotating turntable, air quench, reheat
slightly to stabilize, and run them. They are around 1/2" diameter being
rammed dry through a pilot hole in 3/8" thick ledloy 12L14 or 360 brass by
a punch press. No problems. Whenever I use the foil wrap, I put a torn up
piece of toilet paper in the bag to ignite and burn off the remaining oxygen
in the bag, to create my "inert" atmosphere.

RJ

"Dar" wrote in message
...
Howdy folks,
Anybody familiar with annealing 0-1 ?. Lately the flat stock I've been
getting is harder than normal , so to test my theory about that being
caused at least significantly by the condition of the steel as opposed
to alloying variances, I annealed a batch of die plates the other
day .
I was right about that and my guess is that the mill is cutting mfg
costs by not fully annealing the stock that the flat-grinders are
being supplied with. According to data from Diehl Steel, the slow
cooling should take place at 35 deg F max . per hour from 1475 deg to
1110 deg, which takes roughly... a whole freakin day !. Regardless of
why the steel is harder than normal, my concern is about degradation
that may occur from the steel spending so much time at elevated
temps. I wrapped my parts in ss foil and that did keep them clean, and
I am assuming that since these are the directions given for annealing,
that it's safe to actually do it; that the steel does maintain it's
"hardenability integrity " through the process of annealing and
subsequent hardening after cold working.

Input?.

Thanks,

DS