Plate quenching

Thanks for the pic John, answered a few questions in my mind

Stabber, I'm guessing it's to quickly clamp the hot steel, by being wide open you have room to lay the blade in the correct place and the quick release gets the clamp closed sooner.

Leadfoot
 
I take my bevels down to around .040" before heat treat, and plate quench and have never had any warpage, this has been on 5/32" thick steel and hollow grinds. I will be trying a fillet blade, made from 1/16" 440C, and will do a little grinding pre heat treat, but not much. I will have my fingers crossed on that one.
 
Love the press

as a wood worker I have few of those vises on various benches but I think one is about to be relocated to the steel side!2thumbs
 
JDW said:
I take my bevels down to around .040" before heat treat, and plate quench and have never had any warpage, this has been on 5/32" thick steel and hollow grinds. I will be trying a fillet blade, made from 1/16" 440C, and will do a little grinding pre heat treat, but not much. I will have my fingers crossed on that one.
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Interesting. Have you grind all the way up before HT. I hold my thumb when you going to quench the 1/16 that could be difficult but it should work2thumbs. i am planing to make some kitchen knives and going to buy 3/32 440C. I going to try to grind down to 1 mm and almost all the way up, but leave some as far against the point as i can.

Seved
 
John Barker said:
I got the idea from J. Higgins when he was on BF a few years back. Made sure you get a vise with the quick release.
-John
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Nice to have an advocate, John! 2thumbs

You are right on about the quick release. I feel that it very quickly puts the plates in contact with the blade. Plate quenching is awesome for finicky steels like 154CM or ATS34. For me, it kind of takes the dummy factor out of the equation. It also worked very well on 440C, which consistently came out around 60rc every time.
 
just cause im a trouble maker i have plate quenched O1 in 3/32 and after temper got 62-63 hardness
move the steel fast to the plate and pres it hard and you can clear a pile of heatout of a blade
also the blades for heat were not ground sept for to cut 45 degree starter cuts on the blade that way to max out the contact with the plates
 
just my $0.02. I fully grind all my knives before plate quench with aluminum. Aluminum is a great heat conductor. I started out air quenching with a squirrel cage fan, when I swapped to the plates I noticed that the blades are room temperature alot faster. This leads me to believe that full contact is not needed for the quench. I flat grind all my blades and taper all the tangs, so I have minimal plate contact. I have plate quenched, CPM154, 154cm, S30V, and a lot of M4. Blade sizes from 2.5" capers to 10" CPM-M4 competition knives. The plates I use are over 1" thick. I have pondered milling "cooling fins" in them, but don't seem to need it. Just my experience. Oh yeah, I have all the steels I use tested pretty frequently. So far all have come out either dead on or 1 point above what I was shooting for. Hope this helps.
Donavon
 
Where are you guys getting the 1'' aluminum plates. Also the vise with the quick release is that something you can pick up at lowes or home depot.

Andy
 
ebay if your local scrap yard won't sell you any.
The quick release vise is commonly called a woodworkers vise. The quick release optional.
 
Check to see if you have a Metal Supermarket in your area.

I got mine from my local store here in Buffalo.
Worth a look. cool 1
 
that wood vise is a good way to go. Higgy showed a set up like that several years ago. I need to do that myself.
 
Tracy, do you think the slightly anged jaws will effect the plated meeting evenly??

i think it would be ideal to cut one of my plates in half for this set up.
 
balibalistic said:
Tracy, do you think the slightly anged jaws will effect the plated meeting evenly??

i think it would be ideal to cut one of my plates in half for this set up.
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One thing to consider when cutting your plates is how many knives do you plan to quench at one time. My thoughts are if your going to run the oven , quench and cryo and temper why not do as many blades as you can at one time. Just something to think about.
I can only fit four blades in my oven at one time so I made sure to buy plates big enough to quench 4 blades at one time.
 
balibalistic said:
Tracy, do you think the slightly anged jaws will effect the plated meeting evenly??

i think it would be ideal to cut one of my plates in half for this set up.
Click to expand...

If we're thinking of the same thing then I think it might affect them. the vice you show in the link should work fine for one blade at a time I think but if you were talking about a post vice where the jaw comes in at an angel but then meets flush when all the way close there could be some problems unless you figure out a way to keep the plates square when clamping them in the vice.

Did that make any sense at all?
 
balibalistic said:
I generally do 3 at a time, but i quench separatly. so i can cut mine to be 11" x 4" x 1.5" thick.
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Im not sure I follow you on quench separately. Does that mean you only heat the blades one at a time or have 3 different sets of quench plates?
 
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