My M2 steel in some cases will heat up to a very light straw color. Visually my only frame of reference would be a color chart on how hot the steel got before cooling back down. Would this indicate that the temp only got up to 150-225C degrees or so? What would a loss of hardness be at that temp?
What type of damage would this cause to the metal and how could I differentiate between stress cracking or pitting?
In some cases I see both types of failures in different dies that we make. Some look like they have been chipped out along the tooth because of a push-pull work hardening and or a surface finish scratch that accumulated stress points along it until it failed. These types usually occur at the effective diameter or pitch diameter of the thread. Others have a sort of pitting where under magnification the cratering is apparent and uniform, and will occur at the crest of the thread.
Thanks
Jim
What type of damage would this cause to the metal and how could I differentiate between stress cracking or pitting?
In some cases I see both types of failures in different dies that we make. Some look like they have been chipped out along the tooth because of a push-pull work hardening and or a surface finish scratch that accumulated stress points along it until it failed. These types usually occur at the effective diameter or pitch diameter of the thread. Others have a sort of pitting where under magnification the cratering is apparent and uniform, and will occur at the crest of the thread.
Thanks
Jim