Aluminum quench plate question

Natlek said:
When time comes I will use mild steel plates for stainless steel HT , anyway its purpose is only to keep steel straight
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Steel has additional benefit. When quenched, all together can be put in an oven and go for bainite. :)
 
Natlek said:
And if 1" cooper plate look to expensive , look at 1" 24 carat gold plate . I hear it conduct heat very, very fast and AEB-L can reach 70 HRC ;)
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Even better! happen to have any laying around you could send me?! Maybe as a Christmas gift? 😃
 
JoeBusic said:
What's the rush? It's air hardening. There is time for a coffee break to. :)
But, if it's done fast, O2 can be plate quenched. Maybe not a bad idea anyways. :)
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I prefer to try to get the steel out and quenched as rapidly as i can at the time i want to pull it, and from there, get it into cryo as quickly as possible, so i usually pick it up as soon as i can hold it in my hand, and dip it in water, then get it into the ln2 (or dry ice when i was using that).

I'm not saying me doing it like that will magically give the steel some performance boost or something crazy. I think its probably not a bad thing for properties, to take it out at an exact time, and cool it down fairly rapidly (as rapid as a plate quench will allow), and then getting it into cryo as quickly as i can. I can't for the life of me find what i read about this, that i'm thinking of. But its really not completely necessary for me to rush.

At the end of the day, I just do it like that because I feel better about doing it that way.
 
Steel quench plates will be more than adequate for stainless steel quenching.
Aluminum is just a bit faster and thicker plates have more thermal mass.
 
Brad Martin said:
Be interesting to have a real world test of the coolant plates V's solid plates.

Both are 25.4mm at the start and removing around 30% from one would have to effect the rigidity, along with bolts and gaskets as posiable failure points.

Coolant for batching is certanly more elegant than dunking the plates in water but at what cost to rigidity?

A bean counter could run the cost benifit analysis of the 2 methods.
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Don't you think that's an unnecessary exaggeration? A quick and simple way to increase cooling speed of plates is to drill holes in plates .Increase surface double and you will double cooling speed and plates would be still rigid .
Although I don't understand what the problem is with dunking the AL plates in water ?
 
Natlek said:
Don't you think that's an unnecessary exaggeration? A quick and simple way to increase cooling speed of plates is to drill holes in plates .Increase surface double and you will double cooling speed and plates would be still rigid .
Although I don't understand what the problem is with dunking the AL plates in water ?
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Someone else has gone to the trouble to machine plates for liquid cooling, he does like to grandstand and I have to admit to liking a lot of his knife builds. I would think blind holes would be a better choice to increase surface area over through holes and I am not sure if the loss of thermal mass will be completly compensated by the increased cooling speed.

I don't have a problem with dunking plates, in my case though the quick action clamp would be bolted to the bench and I think that the HT oven will limit the number of blades I can batch out to under the retained heat problem area. If heat was going to be a problem for me I would add fins to increase surface area and thermal mass I think.
 
Brad Martin said:
Someone else has gone to the trouble to machine plates for liquid cooling, he does like to grandstand and I have to admit to liking a lot of his knife builds. I would think blind holes would be a better choice to increase surface area over through holes and I am not sure if the loss of thermal mass will be completly compensated by the increased cooling speed.

I don't have a problem with dunking plates, in my case though the quick action clamp would be bolted to the bench and I think that the HT oven will limit the number of blades I can batch out to under the retained heat problem area. If heat was going to be a problem for me I would add fins to increase surface area and thermal mass I think.
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Let say that you have four knife in HT oven . How you would do that with plates which can clamp one knife at time ? How much time one blade need to be clamped between plates till it cool to room temperature ?
 
Natlek said:
How much time one blade need to be clamped between plates till it cool to room temperature ?
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20-30s depending on thickness of blade and temp of plates. But when in a hurry, cooling to dark is enough. That is under 10s. 1" plates with decent size act as a 10-12s oil, so even O series can be plate quenched.
 
Natlek said:
Let say that you have four knife in HT oven . How you would do that with plates which can clamp one knife at time ? How much time one blade need to be clamped between plates till it cool to room temperature ?
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With compressed air cooling I would think that 3 minutes at the start would be a fair call and it would take at least 5 minutes to get the oven back to tempreture.
Unless you use an open front oven you would have a cycle time every time you open the door. Gas fired PID kits are available here but most people are going electric for stainless.
 
JoeBusic said:
20-30s depending on thickness of blade and temp of plates. But when in a hurry, cooling to dark is enough. That is under 10s. 1" plates with decent size act as a 10-12s oil, so even O series can be plate quenched.
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20 30 sec to cool to what temperature ? Problems with warping and cracking in steel only occur when the transformation process to Martensite is going on , am I right ?
 
Natlek said:
20 30 sec to cool to what temperature ? Problems with warping and cracking in steel only occur when the transformation process to Martensite is going on , am I right ?
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20-30s to handling temp with bare hands. Warping can occur with every phase shift. It is rare with stainless and mostly it's because of the speed of cooling. If warping occurs after plating and is still hot, while batching, another clamp is a solution. Al plates are for the quench, steel profiles are great for straightness to cool in air, freeze and temper.
But for batches pure air quench is enough. Plates are a speed up and for security of straightness. I never had a warp leaving it to cool in air.
 
I have seen a wide range of steels look like trout cooking on coals after cooling, PM to stainless steels.

I use 2 sets of quench plates and clamp together using 3 inch C clamps.

I austenitize 2 blanks in oven at once and it takes me about a minute to have both blanks clamped in plates then I dunk plates in 5 gallon buckets of water, usually slushy cold snow water as I prefer to heat treat in winter.

I leave plates in the cold water for a minute or two then move the cold blanks into the dewar.
 
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