AEBL heat treat questions

J

JBC69

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Feb 22, 2015
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112
My heat treater charges extra to foil wrap and cryo knives, to the point that it almost doubles the cost of the heat treat per knife. If I will be completely grinding the bevels after heat treat, is it necessary to foil wrap AEBL? What about cryo treatment--is it necessary to get a target hardness of 62RC?
 
yes and yes

edit: Any heat treater that knows what they are doing, I don't think the option of wrapping with foil or not wrapping with foil would even be an option. I'm certainly open to hearing other folks opinion on foil, but as a general rule, most any SS will be foil wrapped during HT.

On Cyro, that should not be much of an extra cost and I would certainly go with cold treatment, either -95ºF or even better liquid Nitrogen.

Ken H>
 
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Never try to save money on heat treating. Get the best heat treat possible.

Hoss
 
Hoss, you posted while I was editing my post - would you comment on my edit above please? Would any HT'er even have foil as an option for AEB-L? OR any other SS for that matter.
 
The only problem with not using foil is decarb. With aeb-l it will be about .003 thick. As long as you get under that you should be fine. Steels with tungsten or moly, and steels that heat treat at higher temperatures, will have more decarb.

I would never recommend going without a sub-zero quench.

Hoss
 
Hoss, Thanks for the input. I hadn't considered the decarb/scale layer being only .003" thick (each side for a total of .006"). I expect for a blade planning for a full flat grind the decarb layer wouldn't be an issue, and only the tang would require extra grinding..... Hmmmm, Interesting. I might have to test one just to see what it does.

Ken H>
 
I admit I sometimes heat treat without foil. When I put it back on the surface grinder, the sparks will tell you when you are under the decarb.

Hoss
 
AEB-L

If you want to do it right foil and LN Cryo is a must.

Yes the heat treatment cost often 3x the cost of the steel but with a piece of AEB-L at $5 and HT at $16 you are still under what other stainless steels would cost without HT.
 
Where do you send your knives to HT?

ETA: listen to Devin he is the man when it comes to AEBL and HT. I honestly believe he's one of the main reasons it's so popular so definitely take his advice seriously.
 
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Foil is $2

You will use more then $2 from the life of that belt to get that decarb off.
 
I get all of my AEB-l from Alpha Knifesupply.

Give them a call, Chuck as well as Devin have a lot of experience with it.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but my impression is that most heat treating specialists use a neutral atmosphere in their ovens during HT- no oxygen to mess up your carbon balance.
If you're insisting that they use foil anyway, of course they're going to charge you extra. They're not in the business of telling you how to do it, and they probably deal with plenty of knifemakers who have.....unusual ideas....about how it should be done and don't want to hear good advice.
Again, I'm only just getting to the point where sending out for HT makes sense economically.
 
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