Grinding AEB-L Question

i4Marc

i4Marc

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Oct 19, 2011
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When making kitchen knives out of the thin stuff I always grind post heat treatment. I wrap the blade in foil before austenitizing, quench in my plate quenching vise and into the sub-zero etc.

The question is, what is best practice with thicker blades? I'm going to be using 3/16" AEB-L for this one and wondering if I should use same practice as the thin stock. If I leave the grinding until after heat treatment that is a fair bit to grind off a hardened and tempered blade. Can I grind pre-HT and treat like a carbon steel by not wrapping the blade in foil? Heat and then quench in oil? I know there will be a bit of decarb but I can grind that off. What am I missing?
 
We do a TON of aebl and I would say 99% of it is not ground. Rarely are the edge bevels ground. If you can’t support the tip during plate quenching it will bow till it contacts a plat. I highly recommend not grinding anything but the profile on any AEBL blades. I would even recommend not flat grinding the flats. Leave the flats as rolled from the mill.
 
What JT said. I've ground 5/32" AEB-L after heat treat. It wasn't bad at all.
 
Aebl grinds actually rather nice after heat treat. Now if we where talking M4 or 10V that’s another beast all together.
 
I have ground a lot of AEB-L in 3/16", mostly tantos.
I grind 75% leaving a nice flat region for the plates in quench.

Then the grinding goes really easy.
 
i grind hardened cpm-154 bevels and tapered tangs from profiles with 3m 984f, and honestly i cannot tell the difference in speed between unhardened steel. i dont think it will add any extra work. i am curious if the 3/16" will warp during grinding like i have heard it does when doing kitchen knives
:cool:
 
On AEB-L that's thicker than 0.125" I will do partial grinding like Adam does.
You could at least knock the edges down pre heat treatment so your not shearing the grit off your new belts post heat treatment.
 
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john april said:
i grind hardened cpm-154 bevels and tapered tangs from profiles with 3m 984f, and honestly i cannot tell the difference in speed between unhardened steel. i dont think it will add any extra work. i am curious if the 3/16" will warp during grinding like i have heard it does when doing kitchen knives
:cool:
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I have some, but limited experience with this. One cpm 154 blade I ground too much on one side before switching to the other side ... slight warp. Once the other sides grind caught up, the blade straightened. On the couple other cpm154 blades since then I consciously switch sides more frequently... no problem. I know better.. I was just “in the zone “ with that one blade and did not want to stop...
 
Cushing H. said:
... slight warp. Once the other sides grind caught up, the blade straightened.
Click to expand...
That gives me some hope. Last weekend, I was grinding an AEB-L blade that warped a bit and I ran out of time before finishing the second side. I really hope it will straighten when I get the second side done.
 
For what its worth i don't even drill post HT. I find that AEB-L grinds well hardened in fact it grind more predictably when hardend. I did a few heavy blades and they came out great. I feel like doing anything to a AEB-L blade pre HT increases the chances of warping and a lot of the warps happen at points like drilled holes.
 
Hubert S. said:
Do you mean you drill after HT? If so, what kind of drill bits do you use?
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I just use cheap carbide bits from Amazon. The ones I get are a short 1/8" paddle bit. Once I have a pilot hole I can open it with a carbide burr or a carbide tile bit. Not the best way buy i don't have a good drill press and until i do this is easy and cheap. I almost think AEB-L both drills and grinds better post HT.
 
I send large groups of 100 plus AEB-L blades out to heat treat at a time. Sent off 108 yesterday and have another 18 with JT right now. I saw out, profile, drill, prior to heat treat. Yes some blades will bend when drilling a little but easy enough with a couple of taps on the anvil to straighten. I use to do much of my bevel grinding pre heat treat but have gradually quit that and now do all of it post heat treat on AEB-L. Here's part of a batch from a couple of years back. Drilling holes post ht seems needlessly laborious.

pdpcshg.jpg
 
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