Stainless liner question

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Lo/Rez

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Feb 10, 2013
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If I was using stainless for liners in a lockback knife, do they need to be heat treated? Thanks in advance.
 
Thanks. I'm going to be heat treating the blade to about 61-62Rc (AEB-L). What should I temper the lock bar to?
 
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around 50 will work.
Of course remember that flex is given by section (spring height in the flex portion), not by low HRC. On the contrary low (<48) hrc will promote plastic bending and long run loosing the sharp action.
 
Thanks. If I'm using AEB-L for the blade, I'm guessing I should be using the same material for the lock bar?
 
There's no reason you have to, other than color matching.

I've made a few with AEB-L springs and blades thus far, worked fine, although on one the spring seemed to gall more than expected and I could never get the action quite where I wanted it. I probably just didn't get the HT right, but I'm mentioning it JIC.
 
You are making a lockbar, not a slipjoint's spring. Heat treat the lockbar anyway because it would put the Cr in solution hence promote its stainless feature, but even if yours is integral spring construction, the thickness of the spring at the back is small, so even with relatively high hardness it won't snap that easily.
In case of separate spring lockbar construction (all considered, a simpler construction) i would leave the backbar at the same hardness as the blade, at least for simplifying the procedure ;)
 
Thanks. I was thinking of making the type with the pin stock (?) that is used for the spring. Not sure what the correct terms are yet. I ordered the book The Lockback Knife: From First Design to Completed Folding so I should have the correct terminology down soon. This is the best pic I could find as an example. What is the material and does it need to be heat treated also?

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Yeah, that part needs to be treated like a spring and spring tempered. HT'd to 50 or lower. Material can be whatever you feel comfortable heat treating that has the properties you want (i.e. stainless or non)

I think knifekits sells some stainless leaf spring material that's hardened already, but I'm not sure what it is or how good. It's flat, not round, but that's irrelevant.
 
I checked out the Knifekits website for the spring material. The shipping to Canada is prohibitively expensive for only ordering a few things and I don't really need to order anything else at the moment.
 
Yes 45-50 HRc. This could be a heat treatable type stainless or a cold rolled non-heat treatable type like 301 bought as 'full hard ' condition.
 
Good advice from Mete regarding stainless.

I'd just use whatever you have on hand that you're comfortable heat treating. It's important not to over complicate your first attempt trying to setup everything perfectly. There's a high chance something is going to get screwed up on the first one, no matter how much pre-planning is put into it, and you could be already starting on number two by now.

Obviously, if you decide to keep making them you'll want to refine your materials and process. So I'm not criticizing, just encouraging you to make due with what's available to go ahead and make progress. Any steel HT'd within the proper RC range will work, and it can be round, flat, whatever.
 
I was looking at the heat treat info for AEB-L on AKS and it only shows it going down to about 55Rc with no cryo and a 700F temper. Should I look for a different type of stainless for the lock bar? I do my own heat treating so I'm not too concerned about doing the blade and lock bar separately.
 
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