How thick to leave edge before heat treat???

Joined
Sep 17, 1999
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I a making a 9in blade bowie from 3/16 ATS34 with a convex grind. How thick do I need to leave the edge??

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Is chicken a vegetable?
 
Belstain,
I always ask my customers to leave a 1/64 flat on the edge of knives they send to me for heat treating. Since you are using a convex grind though, I would say you could finish that down to almost sharp, as your edge won't get to thin and burn off during the soak. If you need further information on my heat treating, you can contact me at the following email...... bearoates@aol.com
Hope this helps, Bearclaw

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You will get different answers to this question for sure! Some makers go with the "Forge thick, grind thin" axiom, making absolutely sure there is no decarburized surface left on the finished product. They also have powerful belt grinders too, you can be sure! Others forge much closer to finished form and take off less metal. You WILL adopt this aproach if you are under tooled and doing a lot of metal removal with files!!! Unless you are having noticable problems with decarburized edges on your blades, it just seems more efficient to adopt an in-between approach, not too thick or not oo thin. I leave mine about 1/32 Inch thick.
 
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