Liner lock final blade stop/lock fitting before or after heat treat?

[Alfazulu]

Hey guys, I'm in the process of making my first folder (liner lock, I'll post pictures later), and am wondering if I can do my final lock and blade stop fitting BEFORE heat treat. I know steel changes dimensions (to varying degrees depending on the steel) during heat treating. If I do my final fitting before heat treat, is it a good possibility that I will run into issues? I'm worried that if the blade shrinks the lockup may get screwed up. If it grows it wouldn't be a real issue. The blade is CPM 20CV, getting hardened to 61-62 HRC with 0.062" titanium liners. Any idea how that steel and approximate heat treat recipe affects dimensional changes?

I am just very anxious to get the thing all together properly and see how it works. At the moment, I don't have a kiln, so that month of waiting for the blade to be heat treated by Peters is going to be brutal. Plus, if I pay to get it treated, wait all that time, then find out something is wrong with the blade or lock/stop geometry, I'd be pissed. What are your thoughts?

 

[Daniel Fairly Knives]

You can get it close but I personally would not mess with it, I like to do as little assembly as possible with an unhardened blade. I feel the multiple times you have to put the knife together can slop out your tolerances unless the knife is hardened.

If you are doing this with a file by all means get it to early lock up!

You will not usually be able to notice the dimensional change, I'm good reaming to final size before heat treat. I like to have things close but the pivot hole is my only exact tolerance I shoot for prior to heat treat besides flat/parallel.

 

[Pittknife]

Do after heat treat. You have to surface the blade and get the surfaces flat again, not to mention grinding the scale to 600g on the lockface so you don't have lock stick. No one does lockup before heat treat.

 

[Alfazulu]

Thanks guys! I have the close and open positions set very close, but with room to spare. I'm not even going to mess with the lockup until after heat treat. It's all turning out nicely, I think. It also occurred to me that messing around too much with a non-hardened blade could mess with tolerances. Thanks again!

 

[Alfazulu]

Here are a couple of pictures of the progress so far. It is far from finished, obviously, but it is turning out nice. The blade is CPM 10V with 0.062" titanium liners. It was supposed to have a CPM 20CV blade, but I screwed that one up. Luckily, I had just ordered some 10V that was just the right thickness.