A couple of pieces I've made during the pandemic

[argonsixar]

John Palmer bit the dust sitting by the pool in his Essex hideaway (Sandpit Lane, Brentwood, which is on my regular ride route).

Local police called it a heart attack until the funeral director turned up to collect the body and noticed the little holes in his back, made by the hitman's bullets.

 

[My_Teenage_Self]

AEB-L stainless steel, bubinga handle, Titanium pins.

A small trial piece for the wife to destruction test. I've said before I can't do stainless due to the complex heat treat... oops...

'Normal' carbon steels can normally be heat treated in a forge - heat to 800 ish degrees (a dull cherry red/non magnetic etc), and then quench and all good. Stainless is tricker. AEB-L needs to be held at 1050c degrees for over 15 mins in an oxygen free environment (with oxygen present, the steel sclaes, and loses the carbon).

That is Damn hot.

Once I figured out how to accurately hit that Temp for 15 mins with no atmosphere, it was easy comes out around 60rc after tempering. The blade is 2mm thick at the spine, and tapers to 0.3mm behind the bevel on the cutting edge.

So, hard & thin. She's a cutter.

 

[Iwasgoodonce]

Did you seal it in some sort of envelope? To keep the oxygen out? My making has hit a pause until cooler times. Have requests to make a couple then.

 

[My_Teenage_Self]

Certainly did - Stainless steel foil envelope. That was the easy bit. The fortune came when my wife was looking on facebook marketplace. we manged to bag an old but perfectly functional muffle furnace (basically a small, but super hot kiln/oven used to burn out investment casting moulds). It tops out at about 1100/1200c, which is perfect for what we need.

this little cutter is holding up well, and numbers 2 and 3 are in progress.

 

[Frankenorange]

That is a sweet looking kitchen knife there

 

[My_Teenage_Self]

That is a sweet looking kitchen knife there

Thanks. As it was mainly a bit of a test for the heat treat the finish is a bit rough in places. The next two should be even better