Heat treat AEB-L

S

Steve Beckwith

Joined
May 29, 2004
Messages
393
I have some .25 AEB-L that I intend to grind into 8" daggers and then send to Jarod Todd for heat treating. On thinner (.062) material I have profiled the blades, he has treated them and they came back nice and flat. I did all my grinding of the bevels post heat treat. With .25 material, doing all my grinding post heat treat would be a LOT of grinding. My question is, how close to a finished blade can I grind prior to heat treat?
 
The rule of thumb I’ve gone by and heard a lot is to not get the edge thinner than a dime (.05) prior to HT. It’s worked fine for me.
 
With stainless you can go down to 0.010”, and some have gone thinner. Contact your heat treater to see what he/she is comfortable with.
 
You are making daggers so there will be a distal taper and the aluminum plates will not make full contact and it may not come out 100% flat.

I would leave it flat and buy a few 36 grit and 50 grit belts and grind post heat treat.
 
You could partially grind the bevels, leaving a flat plane down the length of the blade... That way you'll have good contact with the plates.
 
A.McPherson, I've thought about that also . I suppose that if I left a flat plane to say 3/4"-1" from the tip, if the tip did warp I could grind the warp out.
 
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