On Sunday, March 1, 2020 at 11:25:36 AM UTC-8, Christopher Tidy wrote:
Hi folks,

I've been experimenting with heat treatment and have tried bending annealed HSS

The various high-speed steels are hardened in a process that generates hard
(vanadium carbide etc.) crystals in the steel matrix. So, annealing requires heat
and time to dissolve those crystals; it's NOT the steel, but the additives,
that have to be considered. Re-hardening to recreate those crystals can
be a complex process, too.

It's easier to use hardenable steels that haven't ever been hard.