blade finish before heat treat

A

AJH_Knives

Well-Known Member
How finished should a blade be before you heat treat? the latest blades I am working on I decided to sand them up to 320 grit paper, is this overkill?
 
Personally, since I mostly forge/heat treat my own, I recommend going to AT LEAST 120 grit PRIOR to heat treat.....any coarser and the risk of stress risers/cracks is very real. In some cases, depending on the steel type, and the method of heat treating, I will go finer....for example, when heat treating blades in the salt tank, I can take it to nearly finished (400-600) prior to heat treat (when the grinding is easier), and reduce a lot of finish grinding/work.
 
Thanks Ed, that is what I was thinking, get it as close to finished before the steel is hard. I am using O1 steel and I heat treat in my coal fired forge.
 
For O1 or any oil quenched steel hand sanding before HT is overkill. You will still have to grind it post HT to get the decarb off. I grind up to 220 before HT. Then back to 220 post HT to remove the decarb and get back to clean metal before starting the hand sanding. The better your post HT grinding is the easier your hand sanding job will be.
 
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