Reheat treating AEB-L

Kevin McGovern

Kevin McGovern

Joined
Jul 31, 2015
Messages
3,118
I have a couple of Chef blanks that got a fair bit of warp during heat treat. i am doing another run soon and am considering just running these again instead of trying to straighten them (they were sub zero quenched and tempered at 325 already) Is there a problem with doing this? I do the D DevinT single oven HT protocol of 1725 prequench for 20 minutes and then 1975 for 8 minutes to the plates.
 
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Best to do a sub-critical anneal first. Wrap blades in stainless foil, heat to 1350’f for 12 hours, straighten and re-heat treat.

Hoss
 
I think I'll just try to straighten them with an additional temper cycle/ shimming. Thanks so much Mr. Thomas. You are always generous with your wisdom sir.
 
Kevin, search though my IG feed and look at the weapon I made for straightening blades. Doesn’t need to be as involved as I made it, but it works flawlessly, and it’s predominantly because of AEBL that I made it.
 
Matthew Gregory said:
Kevin, search though my IG feed and look at the weapon I made for straightening blades. Doesn’t need to be as involved as I made it, but it works flawlessly, and it’s predominantly because of AEBL that I made it.
Click to expand...

I saw that fixture. Do you put the whole shebang in the oven for a temper cycle after you have the blade in? Same temperature as the previous cycle?
 
Really only need to have three screws. Two on one side, and one on the other, between the opposing two. The Weapon is so long that i can do two smaller blades at once.
 
Behold The Weapon:


37922754816_c51183397a_c.jpg



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26200518799_278f15a66b_c.jpg
 
Call me confused cuz I thought the recipe to temper aeb-l was:
1950 20 min
dry ice alcohol or cryo
two treatments of 400 for one hour each
help please
By the way, love the weapon
 
Perhaps Hoss will weigh in, but I thought I got my recipe from him in a post on this website. I'm still confused. Certainly not saying your is wrong, just trying to grow the knowledge.
 
As best I understand, this is DevinT's heat treat info for AEB-L (DevinT is NOT responsible for any errors I've made below) This info is a consolidation of material by DevinT from this thread, and a couple other threads he's posted in.
https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/how-to-heat-treat-aeb-l-in-the-home-shop.1353014/
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It is highly recommend that you make 5 test coupons, heat the first one to 1900⁰F and plate quench, second to 1925⁰F, third one to 1950⁰F, 1975⁰F, 2000⁰F. This will give you a starting place for what temperature to use. Repeat this test with 5 new test coupons except do a sub-zero or cryo quench after the plate quench. With each set of test coupons measure the HRC and you should find a peak hardness at a specific temperature for your furnace.

It is also good to break each of the test coupons and see grain size and toughness differences. All furnaces are different, each will have a different soak time and or temperature required, even two ovens of the same make can be different.

After determining correct temperature to use, then Soak blade at 1725ºF for 20 minutes, plate quench – this is called the “Pre-Quench”. Second quench with only one oven set at 1950-1975⁰F. Place blade in oven and soak (austenitze) for 8 minutes then plate quench.

Cryo (dry ice) quench right after plate quench, continuous cool down. With an extended cryo there will be some nano sized carbides that precipitate, slightly better wear resistance with a slight decrease in toughness.

DevinT says: For HT'ing without dry ice, Lower the quench temp to 1925⁰F, keep the soak time at temp to ten minutes, quench in oil or plate quench, faster is better, put it in your freezer (-5ºF) right after the quench, this will keep the RA down. Temper at 325-350ºF

Per post #2 in this thread, anneal AEB-L wrap blades in foil, soak at 1350⁰F for 12 (edited to corrected from 4 hrs to 12 hrs) hours – does not require slow cooling. This is a very good condition to re-harden from. This is a simple sub-critical anneal to allow straightening before re-heat treating in cases of warpage
 
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Ken H> said:
As best I understand, this is DevinT's heat treat info for AEB-L (DevinT is NOT responsible for any errors I've made below) This info is a consolidation of material by DevinT from this thread, and a couple other threads he's posted in.
https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/how-to-heat-treat-aeb-l-in-the-home-shop.1353014/
************************************
It is highly recommend that you make 5 test coupons, heat the first one to 1900'f and plate quench, second to 1925'f, third one to 1950'f, 1975'f, 2000'f. This will give you a starting place for what temperature to use. Repeat this test with 5 new test coupons except do a sub-zero or cryo quench after the plate quench. With each set of test coupons measure the HRC and you should find a peak hardness at a specific temperature for your furnace.

It is also good to break each of the test coupons and see grain size and toughness differences. All furnaces are different, each will have a different soak time and or temperature required, even two ovens of the same make can be different.

After determining correct temperature to use, then Soak blade at 1725ºF for 20 minutes, plate quench – this is called the “Pre-Quench”. Second quench with only one oven set at 1950-1975'. Place blade in oven and soak (austenitze) for 8 minutes then plate quench.

Cryo (dry ice) quench right after plate quench, continuous cool down. With an extended cryo there will be some nano sized carbides that precipitate, slightly better wear resistance with a slight decrease in toughness.

DevinT says: For HT'ing without dry ice, Lower the quench temp to 1925'f, keep the soak time at temp to ten minutes, quench in oil or plate quench, faster is better, put it in your freezer (-5ºF) right after the quench, this will keep the RA down. Temper at 325-350ºF

To anneal AEB-L wrap blades in foil, soak at 1350f for 4 hours – does not require slow cooling. This is a very good condition to re-harden from. This is a simple sub-critical anneal to allow straightening before re-heat treating in cases of warpage
Click to expand...
I transposed two numbers in my preheat temp. It's fixed now. Fat fingered it.
 
Kevin, I corrected several typos in my previous post, and now your quote material shows the errors. Would you mind fixing them? 12 hours, not 4 hours at the end is the worst of the errors.
 
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