# Books on heat treating?



## SCLead (Aug 11, 2018)

I'm burning through my stack of "books to read" rather rapidly lately, so I'm looking for suggestions for good heat treat books.

I tend to buy older, turn of the century/wartime era books regarding machining and general metalworking. Unlike manual machining techniques and tricks, I figure metallurgy has come a rather long way in the last 100 years.

Now, I know less about heat treating than I know about brain surgery. Aside from the "heat it 'til the magnet doesn't stick, then stuff it in oil" trick, I'm clueless. I'm at least relatively certain you have to open a skull to surgerize a brain, so I figure I'm farther ahead there.

With that in mind, _are_ old-timey books worth reading for the fundamentals, which presumably haven't changed *too* much? If so, any titles you'd suggest I keep an eye out for (I'm a _sucker_ for having old books on the shelf, it's about as bad as tool addiction)?

Or, am I best to avoid old books to skip potentially conflicting data? I'd love to get my hands on some ASM handbooks, but I'm afraid they tip the budget a wee bit too far.

While I'm mostly concerned with steels, aluminum processing also interests me. I've slowly been gathering pieces for a small heat treat oven over the last several years, I'd like to turn it in to something useful rather than a one-stop shop that I've essentially got the full baking recipe for my given project, requiring no original thought or knowledge.


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## ELHEAD (Aug 11, 2018)

Kind of a nut about old books myself. Have you looked at suvivorlibrary.com?
Dave


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## RJSakowski (Aug 11, 2018)

Most of the steel manufacturers publish detailed heat treatment procedures for their products. Steel vendors will also publish heat treating information although not as detailed.   Blacksmithing books also have that information.  Machinery's Handbook has a twenty page section on heat treating steel as well as a ton of other useful information.


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## SCLead (Aug 11, 2018)

I hadn't even though to look in machinery's handbook, maybe I'll pull it out this evening. I've got an EMJ catalog a friend just gave me because he got a new one, didn't really think to look through there either.

Blacksmithing...a hobby I've been aggressively avoiding, because I don't need _another_ black hole for my money. 

I haven't seen survivorlibrary, I'll definitely take a look.


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## benmychree (Aug 11, 2018)

"Tool Steel Simplified" is a good read, it was one of our required apprenticeship books, otherwise old books from the 1930s onwards are a good resource, and convey information in an easily understood way.


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## rgray (Aug 12, 2018)

"Heat treatment, selection, and application of tool steels"  By William E. Bryson
I like this one!


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## T Bredehoft (Aug 12, 2018)

I learned almost all I know about Heat Treating from the Machinery's Handbook.


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## SCLead (Aug 14, 2018)

I've begun reading the section in Machinery's Handbook. So far it's three pages of tiny-text dictionary treatment haha. I've got the others added to the shopping list. I appreciate everyone's input!


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## Hawkeye (Aug 14, 2018)

For a modern classic on the topic, try Number 1 of the Workshop Practice Series, Hardening, Tempering and Heat Treatment. Only 124 pages, but well written, with good explanations of what is happening inside the steel.


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## Janderso (Aug 15, 2018)

So, you are a brain surgeon?


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## MozamPete (Aug 15, 2018)

Agree, I always found the Workshop Practice Series are a good introduction on there topics.


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## SCLead (Aug 15, 2018)

Janderso said:


> So, you are a brain surgeon?



Only if the requirements end at "I know how to apply a band-aid, and I can point to where the brain goes on a mannequin."


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## PMartin (Aug 15, 2018)

I agree with Hawkeye. I recently borrowed a copy of that book and I learned alot. I still have more to learn and have to finish reading it. Currently at the cabin so I have the time but fishing comes first.


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## pstemari (Aug 26, 2018)

The ASM handbooks can be picked up used at reasonable prices, either in Amazon or eBay. However, I bought the one on heat-treating, and it's really more aimed at factory production. 

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk


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## gjmontll (Aug 27, 2018)

An old, public-domain book is _The Working of Steel: Annealing, Heat Treating and Hardening of Carbon and Alloy Steel, _by Fred H. Colvin and K.A. Juthe, published in 1921. 
I have it on my Kindle, but may acquired it from The Guttenberg Project (www.guttenberg.ord) or from archive.org. For my entry-level heat treating, the book has seemed to do its job for the little bit of hardening, annealing, and tempering that I've done. As the title notes, this book only addresses steel. The original book apparently had about 140 figures, these were not included although the placeholding captions are present. Thankfully, the many data tables are present in the electronic version.


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## Fitter Bill (Aug 28, 2018)

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20282


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## gi_984 (Sep 30, 2018)

I stick to the info from the steel mills/suppliers.  I second rgray's suggestion "Heat treatment, selection, and application of tool steels" By William E. Bryson.

Got it from the library at first.  Then bought my own copy.


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## SSage (Oct 4, 2018)

I read some books for a general knowledge base, but really what matters is the steel manufactures guidance. And the different metal sources do not agree with each other either. I use the manufactures or "brand" information as a starting point and let the end results tell me what to tweak. Its mostly trial and error, the books do give a starting point, thats all though. You also have to learn your HT furnace too, my current one runs little different than my last one. I make precision parts that have to fit together correctly, so maintaining the dimensions through heat treat takes some trail and error.


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