How do you handle two or more blades?

gull wing

Well-Known Member
I have a Heat Treat Oven ordered. Finally!
Say I have two blades, time to plate quinch them, I remove one and quinch.
What happens to the other during this time? Do I just close the door till I can get to it? Will the delay mess anything up?
 
Remove the first blade from the oven very quickly and then quickly close the door (helps if you have a second person to open and close the door for you).
 
What Murph said for oil quench. For air quench (plates) I do them all at once - up to six at a time on the plates. If your plates are only big enough for one, then 'what Murph said'. :) The problem with opening and closing the door is that it can lead to expansion and contraction of the envelope - and I believe that can contribute to welding of envelopes to the blade. The helper may reduce this effect.

Rob!
 
Thank You!
I think the plates I have comming are large enough for two.
I will go for one at a time for the first few blades.
 
When estimating if the plates are big enough for multiple blades remember the width of
the foil wrap is what's important. Also remember that you don't have a lot of time to
fiddle with placement of the floppy, glowing package on the plates.

That said, I have successfully placed pairs of packages on one set of plates.

My first choice was to lurk for a good opportunity to get a second set of plates. Didn't
take too long.
 
I've done as many as three at a time, they were all of the same pattern. I wrap them in foil together, using pins in the holes to keep them all aligned then just treat them like one big knife. I soak them 5 min. longer since they are all three 1/8" thick. There is no diffrence in the hardness, the one in the middle is just as hard as the ones on the sides.
 
I've done multiple profiled blanks to grind after HT side by side in a single package.
Ground, on top of each other would worry me about warping because the points wouldn't
touch due to distal taper. Sounds like you didn't have that problem.
 
I've done multiple profiled blanks to grind after HT side by side in a single package.
Ground, on top of each other would worry me about warping because the points wouldn't
touch due to distal taper. Sounds like you didn't have that problem.
I forgot to mention that I had not ground the bevels, dont try this with the bevels ground because the blades will warp.
I harden all my blades before I grind bevels.
 
I just did a plate quench yesterday and a tapered tang warped a little, that I was able to strighten befor the cooled to much. But I'm thinking about setting my plates vertical so I don't have a tang droop . what do you think about that???
 
Anyone having any trouble wih the plate quinch with the knife in the foil envelope drooping a little??? I had two out of the last 12. And I tried to strighten them and think I should have left them alone , they are worse than if I hadn't tried to strighten them. Any ideas on using the plate quinch vertical?? I may have had the foil envelope two small and it was pulling on the blade when the knife was between the plates.
Anyone else have this problem ?????? Just never had this problem before, and been doing this for 1 1/2 years and now the problem.
 
The trouble with the warped tang isn't gravity. It means your tangs weren't ground even to start with or you got the steel too hot when tapering the tang. One other thing is that your foil and pull the tang when it's cooling. Try not to make your pouch too small. Leave plenty of room around the blade.

So, try to keep the tang as even as possible when tapering it and don't get it too hot. If the steel changes color, it will probably warp.

But, you can easily straighten a warped tang during the temper. Just clamp the blade to a flat piece of steel with the warped end facing out. Then temper the blade as you normally would. It will get rid of 95% of the warpage easily. I use 3 clamps. One at the end of the tang, one just past the beginning of the taper and one at the tip of the blade. Let me also mention that I only taper the tang befor the heat treat, I grind the bevels after HT. Hope that helps.
-John
 
It means your tangs weren't ground even to start with or you got the steel too hot when tapering the tang. One other thing is that your foil and pull the tang when it's cooling. Try not to make your pouch too small. Leave plenty of room around the blade.

-John

I think The problem was I made the pouch to small and it is pulling on the tang. So you don't think the trouble with the warped tang isn't gravity, with the tapered tangs ?
 
Theoretically, its impossible to follow the strict, definitive and exact time/temp/quench numbers by heat treating more than a single blade at any one time. When heat treating multiple blades there is only one blade that is subject to the strict heat treating formulas we are all familiar with. I don't know how important is is to adhere (exactly) to times, numbers and heat treat dogma. If you can heat treat multiple blades simultaneously without ill effect then the gospel of heat treating needs to be re-written to allow for some "slack".
 
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