New problems.

ArtinNC

ArtinNC

Well-Known Member
I'v started doing a plate quench and I do mostly tapered tangs. So how would I keep the tang stright when plate quenching or keep them from drooping . I like the plate quench I think it gives you a better heat treat.
Thanks Art
 
Art,

I was talking to Charlie and Harry Matthews a while back and one of them told me that they taper their tangs after heat treat. Other than using that method, I think you might be hard pressed to keep things from moving.

Carey
 
Yeah, that is what I'm afraid of that. I just heat treated one that I ground a grove down the center of the tang before HT and today I tried to taper it and that was not easy. I need to come up with something different.
Thanks, Art
 
Art what you just did is exactly the way I do it. Grind a groove down the center so it doesn't move one way or the other then finish after heat treat.
 
Is there an option of reverse tapering your plates?
So that they hold tight through out the whole thing.
 
Put hinges in the middle of your plates;)

Seriously, it seems like you could groove a section near the center of each plate out to be thinner and act as a "spring" or hinge, kind of like some guys do on the locking tab of frame-lock folders. With aluminum this will give you a finite # of flex cycles before it accumulates enough fatigue to come apart, but I think you would get hundreds of quenches before that happened.
 
Bob Loveless tapered his tangs before heat=treat way back in the 70's. According to his book, his HT was outsourced. I don't know if those blades were plate-quenched. Ask Brad in the Peter's Heat-Treating forum, I bet he will have some insight if no one else does.
 
How are you grinding the taper? I don't really do tapered tangs any more but the guy that told me how to do it said he did the whole thing after HT (nobody that I knew of was plate quenching back then) and he'd hollow grind down the center and then rough it out on the platen then go to the disk sander. I did it pretty much the same way except I didn't have a platen back then. I've never had too much trouble grinding hardened steel as long as I started out with new coarse grit abrasives and don't move on to the finer grit until you have it very close.
 
I ground just like I did before but I was sending them out for HT. And I didn't have any trouble grinding the taper before HT but abter HT different story. Come to think of it I didn't used a new belt. But I did have a new disc on the disc grinder. I'll put a new belt on tomorrow and see if I can save that knife.
 
Put a brand new 36 or 50 grit Blaze belt on your grinder and taper with that. You'll be amazed at how easy the steel comes off.
 
I'm in the same boat. I just started plate quenching and have been trying to figure out a way of plate quenching my tapered tang knives and keep them straight. I might try one after HT and see but I figured it would be a bear.

Roughing it out after HT isn't a big deal but it eats the discs on the disc sander when making them flat. I know that from just putting them on it when I have one move just a little.
 
This sounds like a lot of work. But I'm thinking about puting screws on each side if the tang and grinding them down to the thickness before it was tapered to hold the tang up between the plates. What do you think?????
 
I taper all of my tangs after heat treat . I hollow out the center part with a 4 " wheel & then taper on the platen , holding the blade with a magnet. I do it all with old Blaze or 3M 967'a ,60 grit, on Bader 3 , 1 3/4 hp .

Joe
 
So what is wrong with grinding your plates down to match the taper?

That way they will hold tight through out the whole knife.
 
Ernie , you will need a lot of plates unless you are making all knives of the same thickness or tapering the tangs to the same taper !

Joe
 
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