Can you buy a tungsten knife?

S

SamuelColt

Joined
Dec 2, 2012
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I was just curious if this type of steel has been used for any knives. Tungsten is extremely strong and very light, perfect for a fighting knife or EDC blade. Post any pics if you have any.
 
I had thought about using Tungsten in knives mainly folders though such as for the stop pin since it could take a beating or even a tungsten insert as opposed to the steel inserts we see on some Titanium frame locks
 
David Boye's Dendritic Cobalt knives have tungsten in them.

Boye blurb:
Boye Dendritic Cobalt is a super-performing, non-rusting cobalt-based alloy that excels on tough fibers such as hi-tech rigging line, deck line, and net. Not a steel, it is a mixture of cobalt, chrome, nickel, tungsten, silicon, iron, and carbon. It cuts aggressively and keeps cutting. It is completely impervious to seawater corrosion, and is non-magnetizeable.

Each Boye blade is permeated by a dense, branching, "dendritic" network of hard carbide crystals (see photo at right). At the cutting edge, these carbide crystals produce micro-serrations, which can be felt with the fingertip and heard when the knife slices through rope. The crystals help the edge keep its shape and integrity over time (i.e. exceptional edge-holding) and enhance its penetrating power, for deep cutting action.

Each sharpening exposes a fresh set of hard carbide micro-teeth.
 
I understand it is very brittle and only good as a slicer, no hard use, no chopping, no prying/sideways tension...

Farid made a tungsten bladed folder... It's just not a very all around use steel. Like a ceramic knife, good cutter but SNAP CRACKLE splat.
 
Tungsten is often used as tungsten carbide, but have not heard of it as knife blades. It can withstand very high temperatures, and is often used as the filament materials in incandescent light bulbs as well as in radiographic and fluorographic X-ray tubes.
 
tungsten as a pure metal is very heavy over 4 times as heavy as titanium, and not hard enough for a blade. Tungsten carbide is completely different beast, and is extremely hard and supper wear resistant. WC is also very brittle and not great for blades, although I have one that I like very much. Its kinda cool that you can scratch glass and ceramics, but the edge goes dull do to microchiping.
 
Tungsten is also used as a carbide former in "normal" tool and knife steels to increase wear resistance. Vanadium and niobium work better in that regard, because they're both harder and smaller, and do a better job of restricting grain growth.
 
I made a skinning knife out of tungsten, i like it but like Nebulae said, it goes dull and microchips. Its nice, i made a sheath that i can put around my neck with leather cord, wouldnt put it to hard use though. But it is nice, with a deer antler handle.
 
Tungsten is brittle: so I would pass on a tungsten blade. I have heard about some people making some compound blades of steel with tungsten particle inclusions: I believe there is nothing to it but marketing.
 
Poez said:
Tungsten is brittle: so I would pass on a tungsten blade. I have heard about some people making some compound blades of steel with tungsten particle inclusions: I believe there is nothing to it but marketing.
Click to expand...

M2 and M4 tool steel have 5-6 % or so tungsten content. These are considered by some to be among the best cutlery steels going. I have a RJ Martin blade made of M2, its scary sharp and holds an edge forever it seems.
 
Wow!!! I want one and I don't even need it :)

BladeScout said:
David Boye's Dendritic Cobalt knives have tungsten in them.

Boye blurb:
Boye Dendritic Cobalt is a super-performing, non-rusting cobalt-based alloy that excels on tough fibers such as hi-tech rigging line, deck line, and net. Not a steel, it is a mixture of cobalt, chrome, nickel, tungsten, silicon, iron, and carbon. It cuts aggressively and keeps cutting. It is completely impervious to seawater corrosion, and is non-magnetizeable.

Each Boye blade is permeated by a dense, branching, "dendritic" network of hard carbide crystals (see photo at right). At the cutting edge, these carbide crystals produce micro-serrations, which can be felt with the fingertip and heard when the knife slices through rope. The crystals help the edge keep its shape and integrity over time (i.e. exceptional edge-holding) and enhance its penetrating power, for deep cutting action.

Each sharpening exposes a fresh set of hard carbide micro-teeth.
Click to expand...
 
I worked with Tungsten Carbide anvils and back up anvils in very large cubic presses (up to a million PSI and very high temps) to make diamond drill bits, and change the color of natural stones.

The tungsten carbide is very hard, and dense. It is brittle like glass if it suffers impacts.

It will shatter and chip like glass.
 
SamuelColt said:
I was just curious if this type of steel has been used for any knives. Tungsten is extremely strong and very light, perfect for a fighting knife or EDC blade. Post any pics if you have any.
Click to expand...
Pure Tungsten is one of the heaviest naturally occurring elements, density is pretty close to Gold. (19.25 g/cm3 vs. Gold. 19.30 g/cm3) and iron being only ~7.9 g/cm3. In short, it's more than twice as heavy compared to steel.

Otherwise, Tungsten is present in many alloys(especially high speed tool steels), although due to its very high molar mass, even 20% Tungsten in the alloy doesn't result in significant quantities of Tungsten atoms in the alloy.
 
I believe you mean tungsten carbide, which is very hard and very brittle as others have mentioned here. You can get tougher grades of carbide (aka tungsten or tungsten carbide) that has more cobalt over carbide but I don't think it'll help much. Overall it just is not a good material to make a blade out of. It is extremely expensive to make. I'd guess a 3 inch blade .125" thick (1/8) (which would be too thin for carbide anyways) would cost upwards of...actually I just looked it up on a supplier site, the biggest flat blank they had was A 1/2" wide, 1/8" thick by 3/4" long costs $190. So three inches would be about three times as much for an unground blank. I'm sure prices will vary greatly but that is just what I found in a few minutes of looking.
 
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