A few general HT questions

Signalprick

Signalprick

Jason Ritchie
Gold Member
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Apr 3, 2009
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3,260
Hello guys,
I'm finally caught up with doing mods and am getting ready to dive into learning HT and blade grinding. I'm a little embarrassed to say but I've had my Paragon HT oven since June and haven't even plugged it in yet. Anyway my first question is kind of a dumb one. My shop is a small 9' x 13' space in my basement utility room. Is using my oven in this space gonna cook me out of the shop? Will it get hotter than heck in there?

Secondly, I need to get some quench plates. Looks like 1" thick aluminum blocks are what people use. I see you can buy them online from a few retailers but they aren't cheap. So really is there anything wrong with going to my local metal supply shop and having a couple sets cut to my specs? Is there a specific type of aluminum best used for quenching? If it matters I primarily plan to start off with A2 and CPM 154 and will be doing slip joint blades and springs.
 
Signalprick said:
Hello guys,
I'm finally caught up with doing mods and am getting ready to dive into learning HT and blade grinding. I'm a little embarrassed to say but I've had my Paragon HT oven since June and haven't even plugged it in yet. Anyway my first question is kind of a dumb one. My shop is a small 9' x 13' space in my basement utility room. Is using my oven in this space gonna cook me out of the shop? Will it get hotter than heck in there?
Click to expand...

Nah
Signalprick said:
Secondly, I need to get some quench plates. Looks like 1" thick aluminum blocks are what people use. I see you can buy them online from a few retailers but they aren't cheap. So really is there anything wrong with going to my local metal supply shop and having a couple sets cut to my specs? Is there a specific type of aluminum best used for quenching? If it matters I primarily plan to start off with A2 and CPM 154 and will be doing slip joint blades and springs.
Click to expand...

I just got them local, I liked the 2", stays cooler
 
I doubt the heat will be an issue in the small space unless you keep it running 24/7. I have to get really close to mine to even feel heat radiating from it. Of course, you are adding heat to the room, but with the insulation it takes a long time for the oven to cool down and dissipate the heat into the room.

I don't think you need a specific alloy for quench plates. Mine are regular 6061. I mounted my quench plates to a quick release wood working vise (Yost M7WW, about $70 on amazon right now).

We used to have a local metal supply shop where I could get aluminum. Sadly, they closed a year or so ago. If you have one in town, I'd say buy your metal there instead of online.
 
The ones I bought at a local metals supply are 16 x 6 x 1 and I always do 2 blades at a time to eliminate any rocking.
I kneel on the plates when quenching and have never had a warp. Good Luck, nothing like doing it all yourself.
 
I appreciate the comments guys! I do have a local supplier for metal. Matter of fact I just bought everything I need raw metal wise for an SGA attachment for my grinder for less than $100. A big block of aluminum for the mag chuck and it was pretty cheap so it got me thinking I should get my quench plates local too if possible. Thanks again.
 
I use 2x2.36x20" blocks, with a couple of quick clamps (900 lbs together). An alternative to vice-mounted plates, that lets you cool the aluminium between quenches in an easy way since they are mobile. You can actually dip the whole thing with blade and all in water if you want to. Also eliminates any possible problem with error in vice jaws' parallelism.
hAfAoyU.jpg
 
I run 4 quench plate set ups and I attach all my plates to the vise jaws with rubber. I have seen lots of guy struggle with keeping the plates parallel using shims. I just use super glue and glue rubber to the plates and then glue that rubber to the vise it’s self. This allows the plates level out selves when closing on a blade, Works super slick. There is no way I would be futzing with clamps while trying to handle a 1800°-2000° Blade, at least not with the volume we do. Then again we go through a 20”x100ft roll of 309 stainless foil every 2 months.
 
I pretty much copied what JT does from one of his older posts. I did not know about the superglue, so the plates are tapped and bolted to the jaws with rubber in between. It works great.
 
JTknives said:
There is no way I would be futzing with clamps while trying to handle a 1800°-2000° Blade, at least not with the volume we do.
Click to expand...

No worries there. You just drop the foil pack between the blocks (maybe 10 mm apart) and clamp.. I do max 3 blades at a time, every 2 months maybe. For your volumes I can definetly see it not optimal though.
 
Scaniaman said:
No worries there. You just drop the foil pack between the blocks (maybe 10 mm apart) and clamp.. I do max 3 blades at a time, every 2 months maybe. For your volumes I can definetly see it not optimal though.
Click to expand...
Yeah I can see that. We have started switching over to pneumatic plate set ups. The prototype has worked good so we are moving forward with our goal of having 10 sets of liquid cooled pneumatic plates.
 
Sounds like that could speed things up and save a little on the manual labour :thumbsup:

I need a rubber/plate/vice setup too though, for wider stuff like cleavers and the like. The block and clamp setup wont do that.
 
Another way around the vice jaw parallelism problem is using one of these. Its a heavy duty press screw with the bottom plate on a ball joint, hence "floating".
This particular one is going in a kydex press build though (where distribution of pressure also is an issue)
kNLOhC3.jpg
 
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