A little Help Prepping for Heat Treat

[Big Chris]

I have 2 camp knives I am working on in 52100. This is a bit outside my normal box as I have not heat treated any "Carbon" steels in 2+ years.
I hate having to straighten after quench so I generally do about 75% of my grinding post heat treat.
One knife is solid 52100 .220" thick, I have the bevels about two thirds where I want them and an edge thickness of about .080" right now.
The other is a San Mai Billet from Aldo with a 52100 core. It is in basically the same place as the other.
My question for those that use 52100 regularly is, about what edge thickness can I go to and not have to worry too much about wrinkling on me. I am thinking right now about reducing it almost in half to .050".
I will be quenching in Parks 50, and I want to be sure that I get a full hard cutting edge.

Thanks for your time.

 

[samuraistuart]

With a spine that thick (.220"), I wouldn't have any issues going to .030" or maybe even .025". .020" being recommended minimums, and I can say that .015" approaches bacon warping, on .100" thick stock. Parks 50 quench, too.

 

[Big Chris]

Thanks for your advice.
I thinned the edge out and will be prepping to heat treat in a few days.

Thanks.

 

[waterstoneblades]

Chris, .220" stock you could go as low as .020" if the blade height isn't over 1.5". I shoot for .025"/.030" even on .125" stock. Blades that taper to a finer point need added edge thickness. Normalizing cycles can help as well.

Matt

 

[i4Marc]

+1 on normalizing cycles. When grinding bevels pre HT I generally shoot for a thickness of a dime or quarter.

 

[Kentucky]

Stress relief cycle an I highly suggest Kevin Cashens suggestion on heat treat for 52100..Not hard to hit 66rc with it..Its a 10 minute soak @ 1475° instead of the usual 1500° aust temp..I too like a thick edge with 52100 because it gets screaming hard and can warp easy if left too thin.

 

[jdm61]

Also, if you did not forge the blade, i would do a couple of the higher temperature thermal cycles as suggested by Mr. Cashen and others as I believe that stuff is spheroidized and you need to break things up.

 

[Big Chris]

Thanks for the additional input.
I have kept notes for the last several months about heat treating 52100.
I will be thermal cycling for sure. I do not want to be one of the horror stories.
My plan is to grind the mono steel knife very thin after heat treat and test it quite extensively.