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Carbide platen...?

David, thank you (!!) for all the work you've put in on this. As always, I'm amazed by the talent you guys exhibit every day. As for one more purchaser, count me in. I've had my KMG for about eight months, and already the platen has some grooves that rival mine.
 
Ok, with me that's 3....makes the price $93.87, if it's just us.
 
Should we make a a new, specific "Group Buy" thread for these? We need to set a time line to keep the GB open before we cut it off and make payment. I'm asking Bill weather we can callin to make payment & shipping detail individually, or if it must go through one person. Once again, not a big deal if that is the case. I can collect payments, and even re-ship individually if needed. As long as everyone trusts me. (I'm pretty honest guys). I'll show each you my ID, my address, yadda, yadda. Whatever we need to do. So, what does everyone think? New GB thread? Moderators? Any ideas?
 
Buyers List:

1.)Myself
2.)A.Mcphere
3.)matthewhoffman
4.)wkfl

One more for the next price drop guys! And SirSpice, yes! It would need epoxied or secured to your existing platen somehow. There are several ways to accomplish this.
 
Are the edges going to be radiused, or left square and sharp? That's a big deal, for me.
 
They will not be radiused. Diamond abrasive will not have any trouble radiusing the plate. I'm sorry if non radiused edges ruin it for you. I just didn't see any need to throw in extras that I can do on my own.

Just for comparison. One other place gave me a price on the same size platen. They wanted $254 EACH!!:eek:
 
I have 2 of Nathan's chillers glued together to make a 12" platten. Ask him about a 2 x 12 x 1/8 please. Thanks.
Tim
 
tim37a said:
I have 2 of Nathan's chillers glued together to make a 12" platten. Ask him about a 2 x 12 x 1/8 please. Thanks.
Tim
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If you'd like, I'll give you their info. I'm sure they will make you one. But you can do a rough estimate on the price of these. It's going to be the single price, which is $133.30 for the 8". So being a 2x12, it would likely be the price of the 8" Plus half. So likely it'd be about $200. PM me your email, and I'll give you the contact info.
 
Talked to my coatings buddy tonight and awaiting contact info for the applicator's info he talked to earlier today. So far conversations are sounding very promising and cost effective, plus the application is not limited to a flat surface. Hint hint radious platens. We also discussed materials that deal with heat better but still have unbelievable wear characteristics. Gotta love aerospace guys.
 
Well, as my first post stated, I have someone that owns a carbide company looking into this for me. In my mind, it's not just about being carbide - I want it to be smooth, so it reduces drag, and I'm not sure raw carbide plate will do that, and then of course having accurately radiused edges would be nice. Easier to keep plunges even and shaped the same.
 
Matthew Gregory said:
Well, as my first post stated, I have someone that owns a carbide company looking into this for me. In my mind, it's not just about being carbide - I want it to be smooth, so it reduces drag, and I'm not sure raw carbide plate will do that, and then of course having accurately radiused edges would be nice. Easier to keep plunges even and shaped the same.
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That's exactly what my buddy was saying after talking to his coating application guy today. Carbide he doesn't think would be the best solution for our application due to the wear it would cause to the back of the belt and heat buildup. I don't make enough knives to really test what I'll be discussing with him personally, but manufacturing a couple prototypes to send out to a couple makers for case studies. so I'll be looking to send these to 2 or 3 makers to try as test cases once all the details are worked out and prototype are made.
 
LOL! I love it! Good luck guys! I've searched high & low. This was the most cost effective Tungsten that can be found. A Tungest plate can be both polished & radiused. Heat will be no more a factor on the belt than any other material.

Coatings seem to be a good idea. Until they aren't! The pronlem with coatings....any coating, is they wear off! I'm very familiar with coatings from the firearms business. Something else I have looked into is Nitriding/Melonite/Tennifer treatment. Whatever you like to call it, is actually Nitrocarburizing process, which treats the metals surface .003". The problem with this and all the coatings, IS that! It is only .003"! Coatings are even less! It is the same if you imagine a foil of Tungsten Carbide only .003" or less! It would become worthless in much less time than a 1/8" plate of the same material.


I'm still waiting for one other contact. Either Boron Carbide, or an Alumina Ceramic they make with super high hardness and compressive strength. This one I inquired about 1/4"x2x8". They claim the Alumina Ceramic can only be cut with a diamond tool. Depending on price...this might be a winner.
 
I agree with Matt. While $80 to $90 for a Carbide platen liner seems like a great deal, but if it's not smooth enough to limit heat/drag, and if it's just a square edge, I see no additional benefit over ceramic glass. I can get pyroceram liners all day long for $12.50 each that easily last me several months at a time.
On a related note, I'm also looking into some options of putting a radius on my existing pyroceram platen liners with a homebrew set up, consistency and smoothness being the end goal, of course. If I can make that set up work, the carbide platens would REALLY have to blow me away to seem worth the added investment.
 
BTW, thanks to everybody doing the legwork on the price quotes, finishing options, etc... Looking forward to see what comes forth.
 
DavidHoback said:
Coatings seem to be a good idea. Until they aren't! The pronlem with coatings....any coating, is they wear off! I'm very familiar with coatings from the firearms business. Something else I have looked into is Nitriding/Melonite/Tennifer treatment. Whatever you like to call it, is actually Nitrocarburizing process, which treats the metals surface .003". The problem with this and all the coatings, IS that! It is only .003"! Coatings are even less! It is the same if you imagine a foil of Tungsten Carbide only .003" or less! It would become worthless in much less time than a 1/8" plate of the same material.
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I'm not going to side rail this thread, the people I'm dealing with aren't familiar with these processes, they are the people that make the powders. The actual coating he is suggesting is alumina ceramic that is actually applied by an HVOF spray process and then surface finished. Yes, the coating is in the thousandths of an inch, however they hold up rather well inside gas turbine engines sprayed on critical rotating parts so I think it's worth looking into considering I have direct contacts in the trade and manufacturers. By all means if you can find plates at a decent price, roll with it. I'm not trying to detract from what you're doing. I've been thinking about this since January and this thread has prompted some motivation to move forward. I plan to make an investment, have a few made, put them in the hands of some makers to test drive and see how they perform. If the performance is good enough at a reasonable enough cost I will look into have more manufactured. A couple added benefits to a coating if it performs well enough, it can be re-applied, you can apply it to any shaped object (radius platens), I can think of a few more.
 
knife to a gunfight said:
I agree with Matt. While $80 to $90 for a Carbide platen liner seems like a great deal, but if it's not smooth enough to limit heat/drag, and if it's just a square edge, I see no additional benefit over ceramic glass. I can get pyroceram liners all day long for $12.50 each that easily last me several months at a time.
On a related note, I'm also looking into some options of putting a radius on my existing pyroceram platen liners with a homebrew set up, consistency and smoothness being the end goal, of course. If I can make that set up work, the carbide platens would REALLY have to blow me away to seem worth the added investment.
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Carbide platen liners sound like a neat idea but I do question if it would really be worth it... You can get 10-12 months medium to hard grinding out of a pyroceram glass platen from what I have heard and experienced, and it's not that difficult to replace with a blow torch to remove the old glass. That being said I am curious as to the results from others.

I am curious as to what people keep referring to the radiused corners on their platens, mine are slightly chamfered and I actually would like to move away from that to more square (only an extremely light chamfer) so I have support to the edge of the belt for tight plunge areas. With mine you can walk the belt off of the edge and still work the plunge fine, even though I prefer to have the hard backing behind the edge of the belt to work it, such as what I did below on the regrind. How radiused are you guys looking for? Heavy radius or small? I can certainly see how it would help in certain situations though :)

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razor-edge-knives said:
Carbide platen liners sound like a neat idea but I do question if it would really be worth it... You can get 10-12 months medium to hard grinding out of a pyroceram glass platen from what I have heard and experienced, and it's not that difficult to replace with a blow torch to remove the old glass. That being said I am curious as to the results from others.

I am curious as to what people keep referring to the radiused corners on their platens, mine are slightly chamfered and I actually would like to move away from that to more square (only an extremely light chamfer) so I have support to the edge of the belt for tight plunge areas. With mine you can walk the belt off of the edge and still work the plunge fine, even though I prefer to have the hard backing behind the edge of the belt to work it, such as what I did below on the regrind

placeholder_image.svg
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You're not alone, I brought up the idea of rounding edges on pyroceram glass a while back and plenty of people came in to say how they wouldn't like it. I have two air cooled steel platens, one flat and one with a 30" radius, and when I made them I put a 1/8" radius all the way around. I personally found making consistent plunges and plunge corners far easier on those than I was able to do on my sharp edged glass platen, so I ended up rounding the edges of my glass platen with a diamond file.

I find it's easier to track the belt IN on a radiused platen edge, so the very edge of the belt is supported, to get a tight grind, than to track the belt OFF of the platen, because of the varying difference in belts and how they flex. For example, my constant problem with a square edge platen was tracking the belt off and having plunges and plunge corners exactly where I wanted them with 36-60-120 grit ceramic X weight belts, the heaviest and stiffest belts I use, and then mucking them up with 220+ J weight or trizacts or really any other finishing belt, because they roll over the edge of the platen differently. With the rounded corners, they're all supported the same way.

But, I do understand how the sharp or nearly sharp edge can be advantageous for some things. Tracking the belt in to where the radius starts works for me but may not for others.
 
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