RWL34 Heat Treatment

C

cutchu

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I am contemplating having an iMamba sent off to have the whole knife DLC coated. The place that does it applies the coating at a temperature of 540F. I am curious, what the heat treatment temp of the AB blade steels might be and if it would be safe to heat the blade to this temp for the DLC application?
 
I don't know about Arno Bernard knives specifically, but general rule is that when a knife is offered in both DLC and bare metal, you take one or two HRC off the DLC blade for this reason. I don't know of a knife company that accounts for this when they apply DLC coatings stock.
 
cutchu said:
I am contemplating having an iMamba sent off to have the whole knife DLC coated. The place that does it applies the coating at a temperature of 540F. I am curious, what the heat treatment temp of the AB blade steels might be and if it would be safe to heat the blade to this temp for the DLC application?
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Why would you even want to cover up that gorgeous polished finish though? They’re so beautiful as is?
 
Tsujigiri said:
I don't know about Arno Bernard knives specifically, but general rule is that when a knife is offered in both DLC and bare metal, you take one or two HRC off the DLC blade for this reason. I don't know of a knife company that accounts for this when they apply DLC coatings stock.
Click to expand...
Apparently this is a myth, or at least nowhere near as much of a difference as generally thought. This is in regards to hrc c, coatings that are only several microns thick at most will have a 0.3hrc difference. I think the temperatures required for coating just don't get anywhere near what would be needed to change the hrc. Here is some testing by a professional that does it for a living, and the Skylark poster in the comments extrapolates and is also a professional in the field. They started a small project on the side for knives because that is their hobby. They have a small database going and will accept knives to test for those who dare. There are several surprises in there. M390/20cv/204p in particular from alot of the Chinese oem's are getting not great heat treats. For instance a Reate made Sharp By Design was tested in the 58's. Bummer, but not particularly surprising, I'm still keeping mine! :p That steel in particular has a trend globally of not being treated optimally, I think it's a substantial investment to get the equipment required for optimal treatment. We/Civivi is incredibly consistent with theirs though, which is nice, but still only ~60.5. The major highlight for me is the Kershaw Launch 20 in Magnacut hitting 63.8. Impressive. Spyderco thus far is no surprise having really fantastic results with almost no outliers. And it's a bad time to be a Strider fan boy. No AB testing yet, but that could be arranged!


Knife Steel Hardness Database

steelhardnesslab.com steelhardnesslab.com

OP should still contact AB for guidance, I would like to know as well.
 
SACBALLZ said:
Apparently this is a myth, or at least nowhere near as much of a difference as generally thought. This is in regards to hrc c, coatings that are only several microns thick at most will have a 0.3hrc difference. I think the temperatures required for coating just don't get anywhere near what would be needed to change the hrc. Here is some testing by a professional that does it for a living, and the Skylark poster in the comments extrapolates and is also a professional in the field. They started a small project on the side for knives because that is their hobby. They have a small database going and will accept knives to test for those who dare. There are several surprises in there. M390/20cv/204p in particular from alot of the Chinese oem's are getting not great heat treats. For instance a Reate made Sharp By Design was tested in the 58's. Bummer, but not particularly surprising, I'm still keeping mine! :p That steel in particular has a trend globally of not being treated optimally, I think it's a substantial investment to get the equipment required for optimal treatment. We/Civivi is incredibly consistent with theirs though, which is nice, but still only ~60.5. The major highlight for me is the Kershaw Launch 20 in Magnacut hitting 63.8. Impressive. Spyderco thus far is no surprise having really fantastic results with almost no outliers. And it's a bad time to be a Strider fan boy. No AB testing yet, but that could be arranged!


Knife Steel Hardness Database

steelhardnesslab.com steelhardnesslab.com

OP should still contact AB for guidance, I would like to know as well.
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Very interesting, thanks for posting! Someone in there said that he did similar testing with results that corroborate OP's findings, but that he also found a larger difference with other DLC coatings. Apparently there are both high and low temp PVD and DLC coatings, so some can affect the heat treat more than others. Which isn't too helpful for us, considering manufacturers never specify anything about their coatings...
 
Tsujigiri said:
Very interesting, thanks for posting! Someone in there said that he did similar testing with results that corroborate OP's findings, but that he also found a larger difference with other DLC coatings. Apparently there are both high and low temp PVD and DLC coatings, so some can affect the heat treat more than others. Which isn't too helpful for us, considering manufacturers never specify anything about their coatings...
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That is all true, at the end of the day I still would defer to AB for guidance on this as they will know best. Shoot I'm even weary of using a heat gun/soldering iron to loosen up loctited screws, for fear of damaging the heat treat of the blade. It might be irrational, I don't know, but it's still in the back of mind.

If they get the go ahead from AB, it would be cool to see a coated piece since I've virtually never seen one.
 
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