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An annoyance, but if they're heat treating in the printing step... that's 17-4 steel, but it will never be 17-4 PH, as there is no perception hardening step. A
by SV_BubbleTime 4y ago
An annoyance, but if they're heat treating in the printing step... that's 17-4 steel, but it will never be 17-4 PH, as there is no perception hardening step.
Also, "one of" should be emphasized there. 17-4 is very good common steel. But there are tons like inconel (a tradename for a 600 series), or maraging steels that beat in strength applications. It's good, but it's common good. Not common great. And certainly not exotic good.
As a machinist, you had better have a good plan before get into inconel. For 17-4, you can pretty much just have at it.
- kansface 4y agoThis isn't my area of expertise. The article mentioned that they could skip some sort of tempering/annealing step. Is that distinct from the PH step here?
- SV_BubbleTime 4y agoRight. There is no PH step here. That typically involves heating the metal and spraying it with a solution that contains different metals. Some steel is hard to heat treat in the typical way (heating/quenching), but precipitation hardening may work differently. It gets real science real fast. I don’t know all the ins and outs, but I suspect the article was taking liberties in “just as good” being “the same”. That was my point, they might have made something great, but without sprinkling it was copper or chromium or whatever solution, it’s not PH.
- jseutter 4y agoI think you meant precipitation hardening. The article mentions that they can 3d print material that has a similar structure to 17-4 PH steel, with similar strength properties. They aren't specifically heat treating while printing, they're effectively printing heat treated material. So I think you're right that it won't be 17-4 PH. It sounds like it could be just as strong without the need for heat treating. That's pretty cool.