154CM Bar Stock

This is basically ATS-34.

Heat treat as 154CM: Heat treat information link

Note: 154CM bar stock normally comes with a very hard black exterior from the foundry. This bar stock has been sand blasted by Crucible to remove most of the hard "bark" but there will still be deep surface marks and surface inclusions to grind away. The bar stock comes oversize to take this into account. The following dimensions are typical.

Nominal thickness     Typical thickness
3/32"                          .103/.113"
1/8"                            .135/.149"
5/32"                          .165/.181"
3/16"                          .180/.2"
1/4"                             .227/.227

Tip: My heat treat is basically this:
Wrap in 2100F Temp stainless foil. I do not put any paper in the foil pouch. I want the pouch to suck up close around the blade. Putting paper in the pouch puff's it up.
Fast ramp up 1450F, soak 10 minutes, continue fast ramp to 1850F, soak for 30 minutes.
Remove and plate quench between two 1" thick plates of aluminum. I do not remove the blade from the pouch. While quenching, I shoot compressed air between the plates. This cools everything off a little quicker.
The RC hardness I at this point averages around 61.5RC. I then put right into cryro (liquid nitrogen) for 8 hours. The hardness now averages 63RC.
I then temper twice at 450F for 2 hours each. The hardness now is 59RC.

Tip: If you are going to cryo treat your blade with Dry Ice use kerosene instead of Acetone for the bath. It is still flammable but not as explosive as Acetone is.

CRA means cold rolled annealed and is important to be in the description. It means the steel was pressure rolled while cold but was annealed again to relief the stress and take it to the softest state from rolling under tremendous pressure.

HR means hot rolled and this steel was rolled to thickness usually during the smelting process but maybe later. The steel generally will be half or nearly fully hard depending on the type. It may often have mill scale residue. This steel can be easily forged. It can also be ground via stock removal. Drilling a hole in the tang maybe hard to do with out a carbide bit.

HRA is the same but the steel was later annealed to relieve stress and make it as soft as possible for easier machining.

Several companies produce "powder" smelted steels. This is a premium smelting process that improves the mixing of alloy content and generally produces a finer grain structure as a result. The powder steels are nearly always annealed and can be assumed to annealed unless noted otherwise.

154CM Descaled Bar Stock HRA .165" x 4" x 12"