Here is what I have on the go at the moment I have a goal of making 25 fillet knives in the next 2 months anywhere between 2 to 5 different designs and I finally got started today.
I'm using 154CM and I will be heat treating in my evenheat kiln. I plan to ramp up to 1200 let stabilize and remove any oxygen for 30 minutes then ramp up to 1950F. Insert the blades allow 5minutes to stabilize and 10min. Soak time. I'm plate quenching using aluminum plates then pretty much unmediatly flash temper @ 375 for 1hour followed by 2 two hour tempers @ 400F. Any other suggestions are welcome this will be a first for such thin blades? I plan to foil wrap and lay on flat fire brick in the kiln to prevent and blade warping.
Your a brave man! Lol I know nothing about heat treating stainless so forgive me if this is a stupid question. How well does a plate quench work when you already have your bevels ground in? Would you be better off grinding post heat treat?
I've found that the plate quench works pretty good metal only because of the plates being 2" thick solid aluminum and draws entire heat out of the blades in about 1 minute. Also having the blades wrapped in the foil during the quench seem to positively help the heat transfer to take place since the foil is also in contact with the ground bevels. Only down side is the amount of time needed to heat treat stainless as Apposed to carbon steels pretty much double the time or more. But if you get the blades from oven to quench in 3 seconds your in good shape.
Looking good. I won't be doing anything knife related for a while. I'm redoing my bathroom. Next is hardwood then after that is interlocking brick and landscaping.
We... Terrible word lol. The knives are coming along pretty quickly man! Do they have a nice springy blade?
you bet metal turning out pretty descent I can bend them about 80 degrees and they spring back nicely. Could probably bend a little more but I'm not brave enough...lol!
That's pretty bendy! they should work really well! That plate quench must be the best way to heat treat blades that long and thin hey?
Seemed to work good, had to blades will minor warp near the tip but straightened immediately after I pulled them out of the first temper. Re-tempered again and all seems well....bonus!
Well finally started getting back to this...lol!!! Here's the first two completed 154CM stainless 8" blade, 4 1/4" handles with various acrylics, brass dovetail bolsters and mosaic pin in the centre. Also got to try my new makers sheath stamp let me know what you think or any suggestions as I have 20 more to make ugh...lol!!!
