Stainless steel without cryo treatment

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wingnutgabber

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Aug 7, 2024
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Looking for a stainless steel to make knives out of that doesn’t require cryo treatment. I’ve heard people making ice baths with dry ice and isopropyl alcohol to get cold enough but that can get very pricey.

Also whats a good vise to make a plate quench from? I can get aluminum bars locally for fairly cheap. I made one plate quench so far but the vise isn’t the best.
 
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Nitro-V works pretty good and doesn't have to be cryo'd. NewJersey Steel Baron's site gives options for both ways in the heat treating instructions https://cdn.newjerseysteelbaron.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Nitro-V-Heat-Treat-7-20.pdf . Also find a read Larrin Thomas's article about cryo its pretty informative https://knifesteelnerds.com/2022/01/11/how-cold-for-cryo/ . I don't use a vise for plate quench. I use clamps or just by welding gloved hand. If you have a deep freezer it helps. 1) I can get my aluminum quench plates to -10f before my plate quench and 2) you can clamp your quenched blades up and put them in the freezer overnight which according to the mentioned article does help. FYI- when I freeze my plates and take them out of the freezer just before quenching you can handle the packets without gloves in under 3 minutes without using compressed air.
 
oldschool45 said:
Nitro-V works pretty good and doesn't have to be cryo'd. NewJersey Steel Baron's site gives options for both ways in the heat treating instructions https://cdn.newjerseysteelbaron.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Nitro-V-Heat-Treat-7-20.pdf . Also find a read Larrin Thomas's article about cryo its pretty informative https://knifesteelnerds.com/2022/01/11/how-cold-for-cryo/ . I don't use a vise for plate quench. I use clamps or just by welding gloved hand. If you have a deep freezer it helps. 1) I can get my aluminum quench plates to -10f before my plate quench and 2) you can clamp your quenched blades up and put them in the freezer overnight which according to the mentioned article does help. FYI- when I freeze my plates and take them out of the freezer just before quenching you can handle the packets without gloves in under 3 minutes without using compressed air.
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Thanks. NJSB is my go to metal store. I read their instructions and they say if you don’t cryo, you won’t get as hard of blade.

I have the knife steel nerds book but it’s to complicated for me to understand.

How many blades can you do at a time with your method of keeping blade cool since you don’t use a vise?
 
Dry ice and alcohol in most areas is really not that expensive and will give you the most out of most simple stainless steels like nitro-v or aeb-l, I know pricing can vary but in northern Kentucky I can find dry ice as cheap as $2 per pound and you really only need 5-8lbs depending on how many knives you are quenching. Liquid nitrogen is also fairly cheap after the initial investment of a dewar. I can get a 20L dewar filled for $60-$100 depending on where I go. Smaller mom and pop welding supply shops often have great prices, you can store liquid nitrogen for a couple of months pretty easily if you don’t heat treat often. Majority of stainless steels really need to get below 0 F to fully transform to hardened steel and the closer you can get to -95F the better in most cases.
 
wingnutgabber said:
How many blades can you do at a time with your method of keeping blade cool since you don’t use a vise?
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Cooling is not a function of the vise but of the mass (size of your cooling plates). I have two 1 inch thick, 4inch by 24 inch aluminum plates. I can do about 4 paring size knives, 2 or 3 medium size kitchen knives or 1 very large knife (think 18 inch long 3/16 chopper) in one quech cycle. At that point juggling the packets out of the oven gets "interesting."
Josh is spot on about the dry ice slurry for cold treating. I use a half width 6inch deep stainless steel steamer(buffet) tray (roughly $32 on amazon) then 1 gallon of denatured alcohol(~$14 Menards, HomeDepot, etc) those 2 items are completely reusable. You are then down to the dry ice which we can get in retail stores around here for $2 per pound. People pack and ship venison, meat or other pershible items all the time plus its used for some cute kitchen/chef tricks. Some welding shops also sell peletized dry ice if you can't get it retail. So after your initial investment you are looking at maybe $1 per blade to add cryo.
 
Joshua Fisher said:
Dry ice and alcohol in most areas is really not that expensive and will give you the most out of most simple stainless steels like nitro-v or aeb-l, I know pricing can vary but in northern Kentucky I can find dry ice as cheap as $2 per pound and you really only need 5-8lbs depending on how many knives you are quenching. Liquid nitrogen is also fairly cheap after the initial investment of a dewar. I can get a 20L dewar filled for $60-$100 depending on where I go. Smaller mom and pop welding supply shops often have great prices, you can store liquid nitrogen for a couple of months pretty easily if you don’t heat treat often. Majority of stainless steels really need to get below 0 F to fully transform to hardened steel and the closer you can get to -95F the better in most cases.
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Thanks. Your dry ice is cheaper than my area. It goes for 4-5$ a pound around my area. I’ll have to see if I can find a better deal. I’d like to start doing allot of my knives out of stainless so I’d be quenching allot.
 
oldschool45 said:
Cooling is not a function of the vise but of the mass (size of your cooling plates). I have two 1 inch thick, 4inch by 24 inch aluminum plates. I can do about 4 paring size knives, 2 or 3 medium size kitchen knives or 1 very large knife (think 18 inch long 3/16 chopper) in one quech cycle. At that point juggling the packets out of the oven gets "interesting."
Josh is spot on about the dry ice slurry for cold treating. I use a half width 6inch deep stainless steel steamer(buffet) tray (roughly $32 on amazon) then 1 gallon of denatured alcohol(~$14 Menards, HomeDepot, etc) those 2 items are completely reusable. You are then down to the dry ice which we can get in retail stores around here for $2 per pound. People pack and ship venison, meat or other pershible items all the time plus its used for some cute kitchen/chef tricks. Some welding shops also sell peletized dry ice if you can't get it retail. So after your initial investment you are looking at maybe $1 per blade to add cryo.
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The vise is more for keeping the blade straight via pressure on the blade.

How long does it take to refreeze your plate before you can quench the next blade?
 
".... Your dry ice is cheaper than my area. ...."

Where is "My Area"?
You didn't fill out your profile, so we don't know where you live. The info would help us give you suggestions.
 
wingnutgabber said:
The vise is more for keeping the blade straight via pressure on the blade.

How long does it take to refreeze your plate before you can quench the next blade?
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I just clamp the plates together on a section of railroad anvil (I use cheap speed clamps from Harbor Freight). You don't need to apply a lot of pressure or be especially fast to get make them stay flat. Easier to freeze the plates than if they were mounted on a vice.

Do you grind bevels pre or post heat treat? Also making or buying a good straightening hammer helps.

I just throw the plates back into the freezer between quenches. My last "session" I did 18 blades in 4 or 5 batches. One batch being the most I could fit between plates at 1 time. I just shooting for the aluminum to be as much colder than room temperature as possible. My first time using plates I used them at room temperature and they warmed up a lot during quench. My deep freeze gives me about -10f, with those size plates its a lot of mass to absorb heat from the blades.

S Seedy Lot 👍 yep not cryo. It was a little late and a few beers when I made that first post.
 
wingnutgabber said:
Oh. I am in Oregon. I’ve only ever looked at prices at grocery stores. Never really looked into what other stores might carry it.
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Look for local ice cream chains and call and ask if they sell their dry ice. Majority of them use dry ice in shipping and will resell it cheap. Before I switched to liquid nitrogen that’s where I’d get dry ice. Also you can cool your plates but putting a thick bar of copper or more aluminum plates between your main plates if you can’t take them off your vice to dunk in water.
 
Joshua Fisher said:
Look for local ice cream chains and call and ask if they sell their dry ice. Majority of them use dry ice in shipping and will resell it cheap. Before I switched to liquid nitrogen that’s where I’d get dry ice. Also you can cool your plates but putting a thick bar of copper or more aluminum plates between your main plates if you can’t take them off your vice to dunk in water.
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I ended up taking the time to set up water cooling. I don’t even know how many blades it would take to outpace the plates. I can go from 2200 to cold to the touch in about 30 seconds max using 3/32 stock. It’s pretty great.
 
oldschool45 said:
I just clamp the plates together on a section of railroad anvil (I use cheap speed clamps from Harbor Freight). You don't need to apply a lot of pressure or be especially fast to get make them stay flat. Easier to freeze the plates than if they were mounted on a vice.

Do you grind bevels pre or post heat treat? Also making or buying a good straightening hammer helps.

I just throw the plates back into the freezer between quenches. My last "session" I did 18 blades in 4 or 5 batches. One batch being the most I could fit between plates at 1 time. I just shooting for the aluminum to be as much colder than room temperature as possible. My first time using plates I used them at room temperature and they warmed up a lot during quench. My deep freeze gives me about -10f, with those size plates its a lot of mass to absorb heat from the blades.

S Seedy Lot 👍 yep not cryo. It was a little late and a few beers when I made that first post.
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Thanks. I currently use a vise for my high carbon knives. Quench in oil then plate to keep from warping. I am planning on making a new set for stainless if I ever start making blades out of it. I don’t have a freezer near my work shop. Not much room for one either.

I grind most of the bevel before heat treat.
 
Joshua Fisher said:
Look for local ice cream chains and call and ask if they sell their dry ice. Majority of them use dry ice in shipping and will resell it cheap. Before I switched to liquid nitrogen that’s where I’d get dry ice. Also you can cool your plates but putting a thick bar of copper or more aluminum plates between your main plates if you can’t take them off your vice to dunk in water.
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The one time I ever purchased dry ice was from an ice cream shop about 12 years ago. It cost me 27$ for five pounds of it. It was for a job and the company never reimbursed me for it. Pissed me off for years. Will have to check what prices are today.
 
wingnutgabber said:
I grind most of the bevel before heat treat.
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If you can just profile the blades then heat treat and grind the bevels post heat treat. It helps prevent warping and minimizes the amount of straightening you have to do. My understanding is that when you grind the bevels pre heat treat you can't get even contact with the quench plates and this leads to warping where you ground your bevels.
The first time I'd heard of grinding post heat treat I thought people had "lost their minds." My expierence with just AEB-L and Nitro-V they grind pretty easily post heat treat you just have to watch out that you don't destroy the temper by overheating the blades.
 
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