I’m just an amateur guy who messed with metal on occasion
And straight up not following the logic
I know heating and quenching makes it harder, which is good for knives and such, but also makes it more brittle I guess? And likely to crack?
The descriptions on this subject are literally “over explaining the scientific molecular composition of metal” or “so anyway make hot then make un hot, dat good”
But I was trying to bend some metal today, heated it up a few times and got it near its shape, then cooled it by quenching so no one would grab it and burn their hands on it while I stepped away, came back and heated again and it just broke lol
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for any given metal, it’s down to the actual temps you’re talking about. there are certain changes that happen to the crystaline structure of metal at certain specific temperatures. It’s SIMILAR to phase changes like 100*C to boil water, etc. Not exactly the same, but similar. So whether a cold/hot cycle strengthens or weakens a metal depends a great deal on how hot it got (what was happening to the crystals at the peak), how long it took to get there (what happened to the crystals on the way up), how long it stayed at the highest temp, and how long it took to cool down.
The point of ‘qeunching’ is because at certain temps the crystals form in a way you want, but it’s way back to room temp they would be undone by time spent at lower temperatures. So maybe 1000 degrees does stuff you want, but 800 degrees will undo the stuff you want. so you try to spend however much time at 1000, and then quickly get back down to some lower temp as fast as possible, skipping the 800 degree zone that undoes all your work.
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