Heat Treating AEB-L stainless

[samuraistuart]

Right....don't quench in oil with the foil still on. I don't think the oil would make good contact with the blade with the foil on it, especially if there are air pockets in the foil (shouldn't be I don't think....but not a good idea regardless).

There could be a number of issues why a pre ground blade of AEBL didn't harden. And this came up on another forum just the other day (thought you were the same guy, JDALE, but I don't think you were after checking). This is just simple physics and is just simply NOT true. (that pre ground blades of SS will not harden at the edge). What makes SS so different than carbon steel? As a matter of fact, SS has pearlite nose of MINUTES, compared to some steels that have a pearlite nose of ONE SECOND, like W2 and 1095. People have been successfully hardening SS and carbon steel blades with pre ground bevels for a LONG time. I have done it since I started, when I only had files and basically HAD to have my bevels ground before hand. Carbon and stainless. Like I said, I send all of my high alloy tool and stainless steels to Peter's with the bevels pre ground, and they came back at the HRC i requested every single time. Only 2 aebl blades out of many were only profiled. The rest were beveled. And again, I was told Peter's doesn't use plates....just a straight air cool. Regardless of the method of cooling, if the bevels are cut and the edge is thus thinner, it will cool faster than the spine will.

Your plates may not have made good contact with the bevels, which would be on you, NOT the fact that they were pre ground. And again, if an edge is THINNER than simply profiled (bevels already ground), then that edge is going to cool FASTER than the spine, plates or air.