Stainless water qench?

csalt09

Well-Known Member
Just curios what your thoughts on water or oil quenching air hardening steels in the air/water tight pouch. Does stainless benefit from rapid cooling? I'm sure there is a reason not to do it but I do not have the knowledge to know. I know it wouldn't cool oil hardening steels fast enough but not sure with stainless.
 
Water can form a vapor jacket (trapped gasses) around a high carbon blade I can't think stainless would be better. Water can also crack high carbon during quenching. I don't use stainless much.

Sound advice right here
Just follow steel recommendation based on what you are using - They all have spec sheets
 
There would be no benefit and it would induce extreme stresses in the steel. Oil and water hardening steels have seconds to get below the Pearlite nose but air hardening steels have minutes. Oil is sometimes used on large pieces with a lot of mass but is not needed on blade sized pieces. It will harden in still air but plates speed the quench quite a bit and have the added benefit of eliminating warpage.
 
Any speed exceeding the speed necessary to avoid the pearlite transformation and get full martensite it is only increasing the risks of warps and micro/macro cracking the steel.
Leaving water out of the equation.....slow oils may be used for quenching air hardening steels with success.
 
For me personally u use water qench fot my stainless. It works perfectly fine for me. But who knows. Im still a newbie in knife making. Hope this helps
-js

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Perhaps the type of SS you're referring to would enter into the equation also. Sandvik says the Quench should be as rapid as possible with maximum time is for piece to drop to 1100Fº in less than 2 minutes. 2 minutes is a long time to get the temperature below 1100ºF - I expect just laying on table would do that. I clamp between aluminum quench plates to help prevent warping and will still mist with water to cool even faster.

Ken
 
I'm using 440c. I'm happy with the results of quenching with the plates but doing 4-6 blade at a time means I'll need more or bigger plates. I guess I could quench the plates in between the knives. I was really wondering if just doing a quick dip in water or oil while still in the pouch would be similar to plate quenching. I can try it but not sure about micro cracks or some other unknown negative.
 
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