Does WE Knives cast their Ti handles?

kylemiller

kylemiller

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I saw this on another knife forum with a less experienced crowd and wanted to get the opinions of the pro's here on Blade Forums.

This Boos Blades Mini Smoke has some pretty serious porosity showing. Reminds me of when Benchmade use to cast their Ti balisong handles.

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I mean, for the price you're paying for their stuff I guess it's still not a bad deal. I don't think they've ever said they don't cast their Ti.

What do you guys think? Does this indicate they are casting their handles and just milling away the surface? Does it even matter if they are?
 
I've seen similar on scales I know are milled. I imagine it's a bit sharpness/speed issue.
 
rover said:
I've seen similar on scales I know are milled. I imagine it's a bit sharpness/speed issue.
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Zoom in a bit. It's definitely not gouging. I'm mainly wondering if it's possible to get this in a sheet of 6Al4V Ti that WE advertises.
 
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I worked in a titanium casting plant. Aerospace industry. I'm not expert though but most of the titanium we got in solid ingots had defects and junk in them. Youd be shocked how many defects need to be fixed on every airplane engine before it goes out. So even if they bought small slabs just to mill them into shape they could have defects in the titanium from the company that made the slab of titanium. And then they mill it out and hit the defect ( which appears to be gas bubbles under the surface) and that leave a small void.

Does make me curious the quality of titanium these knife companies use. My wife still works there in the xray department....maybe i should have her take one my titanium scales to work and shoot it and see what defects are in it...
 
steelhead seeker said:
I worked in a titanium casting plant. Aerospace industry. I'm not expert though but most of the titanium we got in solid ingots had defects and junk in them. Youd be shocked how many defects need to be fixed on every airplane engine before it goes out. So even if they bought small slabs just to mill them into shape they could have defects in the titanium from the company that made the slab of titanium. And then they mill it out and hit the defect ( which appears to be gas bubbles under the surface) and that leave a small void.

Does make me curious the quality of titanium these knife companies use. My wife still works there in the xray department....maybe i should have her take one my titanium scales to work and shoot it and see what defects are in it...
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It makes sense when you look at the Ti knives selling for less than $100 now. If anyone would have the capabilities to throw together some quick sand casting it would be in the city WE is located in. Might be the most industrially developed city in the world today.
 
steelhead seeker said:
Also I'd send that knife back. It wont effect it functionally but those defects would drive me nuts.
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It's not mine. I saw it for sale actually and wanted to see if anyone else thought this was interesting. I'd be if you had it chromo'd it would even come back 6Al4V, or close enough to it.
 
Wouldnt matter what kind of titanium it is though. I mean if its advertised as one thing then of course it should be that but even if it is 6-4 or 6-2-4-2 it doesnt matter. Any titanium can get defects in it. Like I said even if they just buy slabs of titanium to mill out someone had to pour that titanium into that slab at some point and that's where foriegn debris can get introduced causing defects.
kylemiller said:
It's not mine. I saw it for sale actually and wanted to see if anyone else thought this was interesting. I'd be if you had it chromo'd it would even come back 6Al4V, or close enough to it.
Click to expand...
 
Some time ago I was checking out the WE model 609. I believe they're discontinued now. Looking at the inside of the handles there were surface imperfections that kind of resembled orange peel, but a bit rougher. It only affected the locking side I think, with the show side looking normal. I sent the knife for exchange about 3 or 4 times before just giving up, bc they all had the issue and I knew it would drive my crazy. Wish I took pictures of it now, but hope that helps you find answers
 
That knife looks like it was damaged after the fact. The fact that it’s on its third owner makes that much more likely than it coming from the factory that way.

As I mentioned in the other thread, I’m very skeptical that you could use a cast part for a framelock that requires flex and memory.
 
These are not machining marks from what I can see. I doubt if the slabs are cast, and they would be injection cast if they were, so there is no pouring of molten metal. It would be much too expensive and have no advantages unless it was an intricate part, which handle slabs are not typically. I would say these parts are either laser cut or water jet cut from sheets which are from a rolling mill process. Inclusions in the rolling mill are rare. I worked in a specialty rolling mill that made special order tool steel and titanium sheet from billets. I also worked in a machine shop that made knife blades for the steel industry. What this picture brings to concern is the quality of the materials being used. Materials quality inconsistency, especially in metals, is something that china is famous for. Someone said it won't affect functionality; well what if this type of inclusion is in the area of the lockbar where it flexes repeatedly? I think it shows a lack of quality materials.
 
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I followed you here from the other thread. I was thinking something way different when you said “porosity”. Those are voids, maybe big enough to effect structural integrity.

This is bad on both WE and Boos to let a knife go out like that.

I’ve owned a bunch of WE knives and never seen anything like that.
 
However that happened , it looks like pot metal ...not desirable even on much cheaper knives . :thumbsdown::thumbsdown:
 
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