Anyone ever vaporize part of a blade?

SammyB

SammyB

Joined
Jan 17, 1999
Messages
539
Suffice it to say that today at work I had a choice to make between getting electrocuted and not... :O

I chose the NOT option
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but it cost my little WH spearpoint a run across -48v DC at about 50 amps...
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It made a very pretty flash and the tip (1mm-2mm) has disappeared along with a chunk of the bevel about 1mmx1mm half way down the blade.

Anyway of knowing if the heat treat of my knife is hosed? I have a bunch of edge to remove as it is just to get the burnt section out and the tip back in working order. I was wondering if it will be normal after that?

OBTW...Ozone smells great up close to your nose...

-Sam.
 
The heat treatment might be ok since the event was brief. You would most likely have soft spots right where the arc went into the blade. Since you are removing material repair the blade anyway, you could do some tests. Take moderately hard material like 12 gauge solid core wire (house wire from the hardware store). Strip the wire to bare copper. Cut the wire using various parts of the blade and see if you have soft spots. After this regrind and sharpen your edge.

If you have soft spots they probably go back into the blade less than 1/8". You may need to grind your point and edge back that far if you find soft spots.

I once took a metal pocket ruler and tried to measure the distance between the wire screws on the side of a wall outlet. I accidentally touched the screws and lost to scallops out of the edge of my ruler.
 
Wow, talk about a day when you should have been carrying a beater! You might want to check with the William Henry Co. and find out what they'd charge for a replacement blade.

Comrade Chang had a similar, unfortunate experience happen to his Benchmade Stryker:
http://www.bladeforums.com/ubb/Forum64/HTML/000795.html

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Dave

Let no one ever from henceforth say one word in any way countenancing war. It is dangerous even to speak of how here and there the individual may gain some hardship of soul by it. For war is hell, and those who institute it are criminals. Siegfried Loraine Sassoon
 
I once made a pretty big chip in my SAK blade with a transformator.... and ozone DOES smell great ( I know that from my physics course
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)

Seb
 
I slipped with a Dremel once, but it was just on an Opinel. Never managed to vaporize part of a high-end end.
 
I think I may have vaporized some of my brain twenty years ago in college, but those times are sort of hazy now...

I am old enough now to realize that stupidity and carelessness often have a way of making things disappear.

Par???????
 
I've seen a handful of knives returned "for warranty replacement" with vaporized portions...sometimes quite large portions. Half of me hopes the valued consumer
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is alright, the other half wonders if their brain was damaged in their bout with electricity.

It is amazing to see the damage that voltage can do to steel!

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Ron Andersen
Consumer Services Manager
SOG Specialty Knives, Inc.

Website: www.sogknives.com
Email: ron@sogknives.com
 
Sammy I agree that a call to Matt might make things all the better for you, unless you Like a stubby blade, cause the next time you do that YOU will be that much closer to the AMPS waiting for you
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G2

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"The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions!"
Take the time to read your Bible Now, don't be left behind...
 
I knew a guy in highschool who tossed a javelin into power lines and fried the jave. melted pain, burned holes in it..it never flew the same again. On a realted note, someone a while back cut a live wire with a knife and it melted the blade. You might be able to search for this post.

Someone beat me to that post
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[This message has been edited by Taz (edited 01-13-2001).]
 
Sammy, good choice! I bet you have several knives, but there is only one of you.

Never burned a knife blade, but I keep a pair of dykes with a 12 gauge hole in them around as a reminder to Think Twice, Cut Once!

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James Segura
San Francisco, CA
 
I've never done that to a knife, but I've fried quite a few single edged razor blades cutting around wallsockets while hanging wallpaper. It's always on those old fashioned kinds with the terminal screws on the front. Boy do those suck! Knock on wood, I haven't done it in awhile mostly because I've become hypervigilant on the subject. See, I guess electroshock therapy really DOES work!
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Peter Atwood

email:fountainman@hotmail.com
 
<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by stjames:
but I keep a pair of dykes with a 12 gauge hole in them around as a reminder to Think Twice, Cut Once! </font>
Click to expand...
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i'm sorry but my limited English makes me nervous here, my only understanding of "dykes" are as in homosexual females, i really hope that you don't have a few 12 gauged lesbians around
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Be well!/Jonas aka 2Sharp

"May all your detonations be expected"

The coolest bar in the world: http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Camp/8373/index.html
My knives!

[This message has been edited by 2Sharp (edited 01-14-2001).]
 
I have vaporized part of my spyderco cricket with 50 mJ 8ns NbYAG pulse laser focused on less than 1 mm^2 area (power/area is impressing, more than 6,25*10^12 W/m^2). It was my first days to work with lasers last spring. We use it to make LIBS (Laser induced brakedown spektroscopy) analyzis of different kind of materials. I wanted to see if I could mark my blades with it. Of course I could (I knew that it only takes about 10 mJ to form plasma with 8 ns pulse lenght and that kind of focusarea). I was stupid and turned the laser on and tried to put the desired area below beam. Not nice looking! I should have stopped the laser or at least used laser with less than 10 hz frequency. I 'blasted' about 10 pulses to one spot and then removed it. Blade actually doesn't look so bad (quite stupid ramdom spots) but zytel loosed color on 'target' areas...


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"Good tools to sustain life, or at least make life more convenient"
-James Mattis
 
2Sharp,

"Dykes" is a word that is mostly used only by folks in the trades and it refers to diagonal cutting pliers which as you know are often used to cut wire.

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Peter Atwood

email:fountainman@hotmail.com
 
About 1975, when I was 15, I cut through the white romex cable to a wall outlet in the bike shed with a fixed blade knife that was my Dad's. I cannot remember the make, I sure hope it wasn't a Randall or a Marbles, I vaguely remember leather.....It took a quarter sized ragged chunk out of the edge, near the handle, and the flash had me seeing a white spot for hours, pieces if hot dust stuck to me. Learned the hard way.

Kell

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A knife is by default a tool, it's only a weapon when a human chooses to make it so.
 
I have not vaporized a knife but I did vaporize part of a screw driver doing home repairs. Also, I have seen others do the same to screw drivers also doing home repairs.

I would be guessing but I think the heat treat is O.K except around the burn areas. If a lot of heat was transmitted through the knife and it affected the heat treat the blade would likely be discolored.

Will
 
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