question for tool makers

[Zahid Naqvi]

Can A2 tool steel, purchased from any of the on-line retailer, be used as a blade on hand planes (after grinding a bevel of course), or does it require further heat treatment. Such as this plate from Enco (http://www.use-enco.com/CGI/INSRIT?PARTPG=INSRAR2&PMAKA=422-0506&PMPXNO=7865249).

[Jeff Horton]

Yes and yes. It doesn't come hardened... well not enough.

[roy knapp]

A2 tool steel can be purchased online and yes it will need additional heat treatment to bring the steel to the required Rockwell hardness for the tools application.
The reason the tool steel is soft is so the tool steel can be machined and a rough ground profile be put on, and after this work is preformed the tool steel is heat treated.
The air hardening steel you showed would mostlikely be done in a electric furnace and cooled in the furnace under a controlled ramping of the temp.
The finish grinding to the blade is done after the heat treating.:) :)

[Zahid Naqvi]

I sounded too good to be true:(

[Dave Anderson NH]

To expand on Roy's post, A2 comes from the dealer fully annealed (a soft state) so that it is workable without carbide or harder tooling. Heat treating is not a home job with A2 unless you have special equipment. Because of the furnace used to harden A2, you have to harden the whole piece of steel and therefore have to make compromises on your choice of Rockwell Hardness (Rc) to allow for the opposing attributes of edge life and wear vs impact/ shock resistance.

Both oil and water hardening tool steels can be easily heat treated by the home toolmaker. Like the A2, these steels come fully annealed for workability. But unlike A2, they can be differentially hardened. As an example, on my awls I harden the 2" at the business end of the blade to RC62-62 so they will hold a sharp point and have good resitance to wear and dulling. The balance of the 6" overall length of steel is kept soft so that the shaft is ductile and won't shatter or snap if someone is crazy enough to use it as a prying tool. If I hardened the full length, the shaft would be brittle and the tool would be far more likely to break.

If someone wants to make tools from A2, I would suggest that they buy the annealed steel and make several tools at the same time using all of the stock. Heat treating vendors usually charge by either the pound or by the lot (sizes vary). You should be able to get a heat treater to do a small lot for $50-75, hence the reason to do several tools at once to keep costs down.