Unique. I like it. What's your process for the kiln finish and preventing warping if you don't mind messing asking?
Hi Scott,
The blade goes into a stainless foil packet for heat-treat (with a light dusting of talc to prevent sticking). It comes out after the high-temp Aus-soak and is aluminum plate-quenched while still in the packet. When it gets down into the range where it can be handled with gloves, I cut the packet and pull the blade, then finish the plate quench down to room temp. It comes out of the packet with that surface finish. If the blade has been hand-sanded lengthwise to ~240 or higher before cooking (unlike this belt-finished one), the patterns can be really cool. Then into the cryo, and back to room temp. We've learned NOT to straighten between plate and cryo, despite the temptation of that interval of a room-temp pliable blade. Learned the hard way that you have no idea what your retained austenite is going to do in cryo!
Plate quenching keeps warping to a manageable level with flat parallel surfaces, but I often have to straighten AEB-L blade tips (or kitchen knives) after (during, really) tempering. And plate quenching isn't as great at preventing warps when you're dealing with tapered tangs AND tapered blades. At the moment, I think that a better arrangement for holding blades as upright as possible in the kiln would help. At the austenitizing temp of most steels, big enough (not very big!) blades will warp under their own weight. spine-down in the packet seems the most stable orientation. And I'd like to have vertical quench plates instead of horizontal, but that will require a dedicated vise setup.
Oddly, I seem to recall that this particular knife, which has virtually no parallel surfaces on it at all, came out perfectly straight without any additional "persuasion". Or maybe that was the 4" AEB-L one.
This series was meant to be low-finish/quick-finish, so as long as the surface didn't come out a mess, bolt the scales on and go.
