A2 Tool Steel Heat Treat

It s highly wear resistant and moderately tough.

A2 tool steel heat treat.

Like d2 it is incredibly resistant to distortion during heat treating and is moderately machinable and grindable. A2 steel is an air hardening cold work tool steel. The wear resistance properties and cost place a2 between that of o1 and d2 tool steel making it a good all purpose grade for many applications. A2 tool steel is an air hardening cold work chromium alloy die steel that is preferable to o1 tool steel in applications requiring greater size stability machinability and safer hardening.

By way of example a2 tool steel is annealed by heating to 1550 degrees f soaking for two hours at temperature furnace cooling 50 degrees f per hour to below 1200 degrees f followed by air cooling. Aisi a2 tool steel is high carbon high alloy tool steel designed to have excellent wear resistance and toughness. A2 is intermediate in wear resistance between o1 oil hardening tool steel and d2 high carbon high chromium tool steel. A2 tool steels are further held at 954 c 1750 f for 30 to 45 minutes and finally removed from the furnace and cooled.

By james croxon a2 tool steel can be difficult to heat treat. A 5 chromium steel which provides high hardness after heat treatment with good dimensional stability. A2 is also an air hardening tool steel but includes less than half the chromium 4 75 5 50 and a bit less carbon 0 95 1 05 than d2. These steels must be heat treated to develop their characteristic properties.

Heat treatment of tool steels tool steels are usually supplied in the annealed condition around 200 250 brinell about 20 hrc to facilitate machining. Heat treatment a2 tool steels are heated slowly to 788 c 1450 f and this is followed by increasing the temperature to 954 c 1750 f. A2 has a fully spheroidized structure and has exceptionally low inclusion levels. It is heat treatable and will offer a hardness in the range 57 62 hrc.

This widely used tool steel has low distortion in heat treatment good machinability good toughness for severe service high abrasion resistance and deep hardening properties in large sections.