What's going on in your shop?

Got my first stainless steel blades back from heat treating and ground one this weekend. It's AEB-L. Man, what a pleasure to work with. Grinds very nicely and stays cool. Looks like a heat treating oven is on my shopping list for Blade Show.

Knocking off the 45s.
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I plan on using these scales.

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That looks really good Lucius. And glad to get confirmation on how easily AEB-L grinds. When I got mine back from heat treat, it ground so nice I was thinking that maybe they were too soft. But not so. Hopefully I will have time today or tomorrow to post some pics of progress on mine.
 
That looks really good Lucius. And glad to get confirmation on how easily AEB-L grinds. When I got mine back from heat treat, it ground so nice I was thinking that maybe they were too soft. But not so. Hopefully I will have time today or tomorrow to post some pics of progress on mine.
Yeah Sean, I was shocked at how nice it was to work with. After we got back from Easter celebrations with the family last night I ran out to the shop put a quick 400 grit finish on one side. It hand sands beautifully too.
 
Got the handles on this ...sharp object. I'm still unsure what to call this thing. It's too long for an EDC but not really large enough to call a fighter. Guess I'll continue to call it a stabby thing for now 'til I can come up with something better.

Any rate here's a couple progress photos. This is my first successful (I think) tapered tang. Black G10 with Corby Bolts. It was a real pain using Corby Bolts with a tapered tang. I got the smaller hole lined up correctly, but for the upper part of the bolt I ended up eyeballing it. Hopefully this all works out.
Black-G10.jpgBlack G10-2.jpg
 
Got the handles on this ...sharp object. I'm still unsure what to call this thing. It's too long for an EDC but not really large enough to call a fighter. Guess I'll continue to call it a stabby thing for now 'til I can come up with something better.

Any rate here's a couple progress photos. This is my first successful (I think) tapered tang. Black G10 with Corby Bolts. It was a real pain using Corby Bolts with a tapered tang. I got the smaller hole lined up correctly, but for the upper part of the bolt I ended up eyeballing it. Hopefully this all works out.

Stabby Pokey thing ;)
 
There was discussion on the other forum about heat treating AEB-L. The thrust of the discussion was about the cryogenic treatment after the quench. It appeared to me, from what I read, that time in a regular freezer was sufficient for a decent hardness.
 
There was discussion on the other forum about heat treating AEB-L. The thrust of the discussion was about the cryogenic treatment after the quench. It appeared to me, from what I read, that time in a regular freezer was sufficient for a decent hardness.

From everything I gather, the subzero quench adds about 1 point to the hardness, which you’re going to temper away. The other attributes such as toughness and edge holding may be the prime attributes that the subzero quench offers.

I’m actually heat treating a batch of AEBL as I write this. I do the dry ice subzero quench because it’s so easy to do, why not. Skipping the dry ice would save me about 20 bucks total, which is spread over the batch, which in this case is four knives.

One of these days I’ll make two identical blades and skip the subzero on one of them. Then test the knives in my kitchen for a few months (or until one of them gets dull.)
 
on a tangent, we just filled our 30liter dewar with Ln2 and it came to $46. We switched welding supply houses as the last one was charging anywhere from $60 to $75 depending who was working the desk.

This will last us around 6 weeks. We keep the dewar in a large roll around box lined with foam insulation sheets which adds 2 to 3 weeks before it evaporates away.
 
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