Does steeling work harden?

Rusty

Rusty

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Just a quick question here:

Obviously steeling helps the blade last longer by pushing steel back into place instead of grinding it off. But does steeling ( and for that matter, chopping with it ) work harden the edge of a khuk?
 
Hi Rusty:

I am not enough of a metalurgist to be able to answer this with any degree of confidence. But we probably have a few forumites who can.

My guess would be no so we will see how good of a guesser I am.

Uncle Bill
 
My guess too, but then what do I know? (don't anybody dare try to ask OR answer that!)
 
While you can work harden steel, obviously, you can also weaken it doing the same thing. Steeling the edge causes a bent piece of steel to be bent again to straighten it out. This causes a fold line in metal which means the next time it will be easier to bend. You can see this quite readily as you need to steel more and more after each chopping session as the edge will have folded more each time until you are forced to resharpen it on a hone.

This is one of the reasons (edge weakening) that before I go do any serious work, say where I know I am going to do more than an hour or chopping or so, I take a ceramic rod and wipe it along the edge a few times to remove the weakest part of the edge. This makes the edge much more durable.

The shock of chopping I don't think has an effect on the blade as a whole, as I think you need to cause a perm. displacement for this to happen. It will of course fold / roll the edge, and while this does make the steel harder along the fold line, it does make it weaker in the plane of folding.

-Cliff
 
Hi Rusty

I am not an expert and could be completely wrong but here are the reasons why I think burnishing casues work hardening.

Work hardening is caused by the molecular structure changing due to elongation. The edge is hardened and will resist elongation. I doubt that you could work harden steel that is 57 RC without it snapping first.

Will
 
I think we are talking about work hardenning a bur or small roll edge on the blade. This is very minute and will not harm the knife. I think I would prefer to steel the edge often that take my ceramic or diamond to it, because it takes away little steel. Every time you use stones, you remove a lot of material and will eventually end up with a flat bevel instead of the convex grind the khukurie came with.
 
Cobalt, about steeling vs using a ceramic rod, I agree, I always steel until it stops being effective. As for changing the grind, it is possible to keep the convex grind if you want when sharpening with a hone. What you have to do is either use a very hollowed out hone (which wants to do a convex edge anyway) or sort of roll a flat one along the edge following the curve.

-Cliff
 
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