440c Profiled After Heat Treaded?

FlyBye

FlyBye

Member
I know that conventional wisdom suggests to profile your knife blank while it is in it's annealed state, but came across a fella that profiles 440c stainless after its been hardened. He uses 36 grit with his 2x72 grinder. He says he does this to avoid any slight bends/warps that often happen after heat treating.

Is that common in the knife making world or is it maybe just an anomaly? Do you profile your 440c in it's soften state or profile it after it has been hardened and tempered?
 
I grind all my 440c before HT all the way through 400 grit


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I've never tried it myself, but one of our customers orders bars of CPM S35VN just cut to length and heat treated. He does all shaping and finishing hard. I'm sure it costs him some extra belts and it would have to be kept cool, but his results are very good. He is a well respected maker. If it can be done with S35, 440C should certainly be possible.
 
Others who make thinner blades find that grinding after profiling and heat treating do so to prevent warping. It's the way it works out for you. It may, however, cost you a lot more in grinding belts. Especially with some of there super abrasion resistant wonder steels. I understand from those who have used S30V that it can be a mother bear to grind after heat treating.

Doug
 
Flybye,
I invented my Rhino Finger Skins for grinding harden steel!

I profile grind and drill, then have my blades HTED then bevel grind.
I get a crisp grind to finish and am really happy with the results especially on my thinner blades as Doug mentioned.

I use fresh Ceramic belts and dunk after each pass. Just watch your heat, I look at the water droplets on the blade as I grind and as soon as I see any steam start to form its back in the dunk bucket. The last temper on most of the air hardening stainless steels we use is around 400 degrees so boiling water at 212 degrees is as hot as you want to take it without risking, messing with the HT work.
 
Just a word of wisdom... please don't assume that the part in contact with the belt stays under 400 degrees just because you see evaporating on the opposite side and then dunk. The better way to grind post ht is to spray the belt with water and grind under a water film...when finally we are to put the final edge no dry grinding is very very important.
 
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