questions

[Roy Steele]

I have 2 questions
 The first is I have 2, A2 steel knives I made. My first out of A2. I know it's air harden but I have no way of heating to the high temps it needs to be to harden. I know I can send it to someone to harden but would like to do it myself.
   IF I heat it to nonmatlic thats about as hot as I can get.(no forge) I know this is not getting all I can from A2. How would this do for harding.
  My next question is a general question. After hardering when tempering how cool are you surpose to let it cool before puting it in the oven.
  Plus some steels need tempered twice. Again how cool do you let the blade get before you do your second tempering.

[srtben]

Check this out, and remember the cross section on knives doesn't require as long of soak time.

 http://www.crucibleservice.com/eselector/general/generalpart2.html

[Roy Steele]

THANKS I guess I know when my knives are going. That answers #1

[kbaknife]

A quick semi-technical answer is that you can't and won't get ANY martensite, until you convert the pearlite - which is the normal condition of the steel - into austenite.
Because of the immense alloy content of A2, you won't get any austenite until that steel gets up to 1850 degrees and soak for about 15-20 minutes.
If you can only get to non-magnetic, which is at 1414, you're a long way off from doing anything other than just getting your steel hot.