Are these cracks or not?

C

Cappe23

Joined
Dec 6, 2015
Messages
20
Hey everyone,

I was sanding a blade today and there where some strange lines that became visible.
It's impossible to see anything strange with the naked eye (at least I can't see anything), but when I am sanding, some of the fine steel dust seems to be 'sucked' towards these spots and they form those lines.
Could it be microfractures? Or is there a different explanation for this? Also, do you think it would harm the performance of this (kitchen) knife? If they áre indeed fractures, they're very small.
It's AEB-l stainless btw, and it's the first time I've used it.
clean blade:
blade while sanding:

Thanks in advance!
 
I wanted to do that first put there was no 'make new thread'-button. There are also no posts in 'General Knife Maker's Discussion'. Perhaps there is temporarily something wrong with that page or it could be me not looking in the right place :)
 
It doesn't look like cracks to me. If you have a strong loupe, you would get a better idea.
 
Take a picture of it and then click on the "enhance" button on your computer to see it up close, that always seems to work on TV shows
 
It's really hard to tell much of anything from the quality of the video. Can you take some macro shots with a bit more definition?
 
Was it used on a surface grinder? I’ve had blades do lines after surface grinding. I usually demagnetize them.
 
Some kind of magnetisation came across my mind as well, but I found it weird that it could be such a weird pattern or al line of magnetisation. I'll try to take some macro shots tomorrow. Is that demagnetizing someting you can easily do at home?
 
I bought a demagnetizer on eBay for $50. Great little tool if you think you’ll need it alot.
 
Fractures would not just harm the blade it would be the end for that blade. Who did the heat treating on that blade? I all of the tons of aebl blades I have heat treated I can say that cracks are really rare, Thy do happen but really rare. That last video looks almost like a torch mark artifact from straightening. Peters uses a torch to heat up the spine in spots to straighten bowed aebl blades. Normally this goes un noticed but just recently someone posted that thy had cracks in the hardness transition area.
 
I did the heat treating myself, it was the first time I did stainless though. I also think my oven was running a little hotter than displayed on the controller (around 15°C or 59F higher than it should have been.)
I ordered a jewelers loupe, so when that arrives I'll check the blade again. I really hope they're not cracks. They don't seem to be with the naked eye, but I couldn't immediately think of something that it could be instead.
 
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