cpm154 grinding tips

E

emerald_knives

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Sep 1, 2014
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Im having issues grinding cmp154, I do have orange blaze belts en route so that could help, but does any one have tips to grinding powdered steel, Abe-l was a lot easier to work with, its just not cooperating for me.
 
Need more details - annealed, or not? Is there still some mill scale on it, or is it clean? What problems are you having - the more specific you can get, the more people on here might be able to help. I work with it a lot, and haven't had any issues working with it.
 
It is a different stainless and so it has different characteristics than the ABE-L There are a few others out there that even require more grinding time and good belts.
Frank
 
AEB-L grinds like butter in comparison to CPM-154 (or RWL34 that I´m more familiar with). Mill scale can be an issue, but in my experience more when we are talking about grinding the flats and less when grinding the bevels. You dont mention what kind of belts you are using now but Blaze will work fine as will 3M cubitron 977 or 984.

Brian
 
The steel has been heat treated and removing the scale has been tough, im using lower end ceramic and zirconium belts, so from m,y research the blaze belts should be my solution, but grinding the flats is taking forever, its gotta be my belts that cant handle the steel
 
I grind all of my blades post HT and use a lot of CPM-154.

Fresh ceramic belts and dunk after each pass. As soon as I see any stream on the blade its back in the dunk bucket.
I can't even imagine trying to grind HTed CPM-154 with O/X or Zirc cheap belts and you always want to get rid of scale before HT.The scale can even be harder than the RC you went for in Heat treatment.
 
Scale is tough to remove, it is often over 70 RC. Once you are past the scale hardened CPM154 is relatively easy to grind and finish.

I only buy precision ground steel if I can to avoid the scale issue.
 
There shouldn't be any scale to speak of after HT'ing CPM-154. If there is... something's very wrong with the HT procedure.

Leaving mill scale on and heat-treating it is sheer folly. If that's what happened, use the best ceramic belts you can get (Blaze, 977 etc) and order extra... you're going to need them. Once to get down to clean steel it's not that difficult to grind with good belts.

If your HT is good-to-excellent, and you protect the steel from oxidation (tool wrap or an oxygen-free furnace) you can take CPM-154 (and any other stainless) right down to final dimensions and finish before HT if you want to. Clean-up will be minimal.
 
CPM 154 is a lot like D2. Not particularly easy, but not too bad compared to stuff like Elmax etc.

I recommend you read the belt descriptions at Trugrit and get a ceramic designed for stainless and heat sensitive alloys. http://www.trugrit.com/
 
The steel scale can easily be remove by soaking in a solution of very weak muriatic (HCL) acid, a weak solution of ferric chloride, or even straight vinegar. The first two should be used outside.
Sometimes it's a good idea, when you can, to stay with a known styeel you feel comfortable to work with. Certainly the use of others will soon let you find out. In my opinion the ABL-E is a quality steel.
Frank
 
Thanks for all the advice, its a nice welcome to blade forums, ill put the blade aside until I get my new quality belts in, thanks everyone!
 
I do my first-pass roughing on CPM154 with fresh(cheap) 40 grit zirconia belts. In my opinion, it grinds much faster and easier than 1095, 5160, or 440C.
 
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