Good day. I have finally decided to try making a kitchen knife. I had a 5/16 piece of AEB-L out of which I cut out a couple of knife blanks. I have a simple propane forge setup at home, good for 1084, but not for anything more complex, so I will probably send it out to get heat treated by the professionals. My question is this - if a knife blade is about 2 inches tall near the heel and the blade is about 6 inches long, how thin can I grind it prior to heat treatment and not worry about warps? Or is it better to heat treat it as is and then grind everything?
Thank you!
Luka
Hello Luka, I have a couple of questions for you so I can better understand what you are trying to do.
I'm not sure I understand "good for 1084, but not for anything more complex". Does this mean the forge won't get hot enough to work the steel you are using? I admit, I am not familiar with AEB-L, and most of my kitchen knives are either 1095 or W-2.
How thick are you planning for the final knife spine? Mine typically come in about 1/8 inch (.317 cm). If you are planning on getting that thin after heat treat, and you start out at 5/16 inch, (.80 cm) that's about a 60% reduction in thickness and a lot of grinding.
Joshua States
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I've made some blades out of Aeb-l all kitchen knives. I would check with the heat treater my first batch I sent out I think he let me take it down to .02 inch they came back perfect. I think most people grind after heat treat(I do now) since Aeb-l is notorious for warping, if I want a .100 blade I buy .118 for example. I'm assuming you are not in the U.S. since I've never seen Aeb-l that thickness or I would say buy some more. By the way my first batch was 60-61 rc now I do 61-62.
Gilbert
|quoted:
Hello Luka, I have a couple of questions for you so I can better understand what you are trying to do.
I'm not sure I understand "good for 1084, but not for anything more complex". Does this mean the forge won't get hot enough to work the steel you are using? I admit, I am not familiar with AEB-L, and most of my kitchen knives are either 1095 or W-2.
How thick are you planning for the final knife spine? Mine typically come in about 1/8 inch (.317 cm). If you are planning on getting that thin after heat treat, and you start out at 5/16 inch, (.80 cm) that's about a 60% reduction in thickness and a lot of grinding.
Joshua, what I meant was that other steels require soaking for a certain amount of time at certain temperatures, and I found that it was pretty hard to keep a specific temperature for a prolonged length of time. Yes, I want to get down to about 1/8" and don't really want to do all the grinding after the heat treatment, so I'm curious how much I can take off prior to it.
|quoted:
I've made some blades out of Aeb-l all kitchen knives. I would check with the heat treater my first batch I sent out I think he let me take it down to .02 inch they came back perfect. I think most people grind after heat treat(I do now) since Aeb-l is notorious for warping, if I want a .100 blade I buy .118 for example. I'm assuming you are not in the U.S. since I've never seen Aeb-l that thickness or I would say buy some more. By the way my first batch was 60-61 rc now I do 61-62.
Gilbert
Gilbert, my bad, it's actually 5/32. The Imperial fractions are killing me. I will reach out to the heat treater, that's a good idea. Just curious, where did you send yours to?
Luka I used Paul Bos (Farner)heat treating (Buck knives) https://www.buckknives.com/about-knives/heat-treating/ check them out they're good if you have 20 plus blades. They did a good job and were good to work with. I'll message you an idea of someone else.
Gilbert
|quoted:
Luka I used Paul Bos (Farner)heat treating (Buck knives) https://www.buckknives.com/about-knives/heat-treating/ check them out they're good if you have 20 plus blades. They did a good job and were good to work with. I'll message you an idea of someone else.
Gilbert
Gilbert, got your message. Thanks for the info!
