W2 is a very high carbon (1.3%) weakly alloyed water hardenable steel suitable for making low impact, high hardness cutting tools - razors, files, rasps, etc, is also popular as a knife steel as it is ideal for producing selective hardening lines (hamons) and makes a reasonable substitute for Japanese white paper No.1.
Forging very high carbon steel is quite an art, it needs to be heated very evenly and only worked in the cherry red heat range, if scale is forming carbon is being lost. Over the years smiths have developed techniques like muffles and heating baths to protect the material from decarburisation and crack formation due to uneven temperature change.
Also very suitable for stock removal methods which bypass most of the above and the material only needs to be heated for hardening.
High carbon steels have very little corrosion resistance, this steel is not recommended for food use.
- Werkstoffnummer 1.2008 / 135cr3 / W2Carbon 1.3, Chromium 0.74, Molybdenum 0.2, Manganese 0.35, Silicon 0.2, Vanadium 0.08, Nickel 0.07
- Made in Europe
- Condition: Hot rolled, annealed
- Hot Working 800 – 1000C
- Quench: water or accelerated oil (Parks 50 or similar)
- Quenching temp: 780 - 800C
- Hardness after quenching RC66
- Tempering 200C for RC63, 300C for RC58 (straight line)
- 300mm x 30mm x 6mm
