Friction forged D2?

B

Bill1170

Joined
Dec 20, 2007
Messages
1,907
I have seen the website of the company that developed this method for treating D2 knives. The old URL seems to be down now. I have a question that the website cannot answer for me, and in all my time here I have never seen a thread on the topic. Who here would like to share their direct personal experiences using one of these friction forged knives? Strangely, it was the recent award of a Nobel prize in chemistry that got me to thinking about this.

Bill

After posting this, I found it on Google. The link I had bookmarked no longer worked, but DiamondBlade is still on the web.
 
Last edited:
Obsidian is still the sharpest edge, but I think the marketing guys mean "best" when they say "finest."

I found a post by Sal Glesser from a few years back where he mentions the friction forged material and that it did really well on CATRA testing. It appears that the ones holding the patents want to keep it an exclusive, or else they want more for licensing the technology than the market will bear. This is too bad. If they let Sal release a Mule Team in FF D2, and it was really all that great, then the marketing value to afi's would be priceless.
 
Bill1170 said:
I have seen the website of the company that developed this method for treating D2 knives. The old URL seems to be down now. I have a question that the website cannot answer for me, and in all my time here I have never seen a thread on the topic. Who here would like to share their direct personal experiences using one of these friction forged knives? Strangely, it was the recent award of a Nobel prize in chemistry that got me to thinking about this.

Bill

After posting this, I found it on Google. The link I had bookmarked no longer worked, but DiamondBlade is still on the web.
Click to expand...

If you perform a site search using Google Advanced Search, you will find that there were a number of posts about "friction forged" knives a few years ago.

Here is one of the better threads.
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/480424-Friction-Forged-test-blade
 
It is a very interesting approach to forging and heat treating the blade. The process allows for a very very hard edge with a much softer spine

Basically a high pressure round diamond bit spinning and cutting out the blade blank. Reaching critical temp at the edge while the spine stays softer.

I really wish I had thought of it.

I worked at a competitor to the company that came up with this process. (my company made diamond drill bits for the oil and natural gas drilling industry).

I would love to see some different designs out of the shop. I was at a picnic with one of their employees and we had a nice long chat about the knives and other applications (seamless welding of pipes using the same process).

All I can say, is that with an edge hardness of 65-68 rc and a spine hardness of 42-44, the edge retention should be spectacular!
 
Last edited:
knarfeng said:
If you perform a site search using Google Advanced Search, you will find that there were a number of posts about "friction forged" knives a few years ago.

Here is one of the better threads.
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/480424-Friction-Forged-test-blade
Click to expand...
Frank,

Thanks for the link. I had done a search, but did not make it to the thread you linked. I also got to see the behavior that got Cliff banned from BF. The take-away is that FF D2 is very good indeed, with good toughness at high hardness and good wear resistance. It may not be any better than some of today's wonder steels, but it is very good. I find it a shame that the FF knives are so very expensive.

I wonder if they have tried the friction forging process on other steels besides D2?
 
I own and use their summit fixed blade. I have taken deer from the field to the freezer with this knife, the knife is still razor sharp!! This is the sharpest knife I have ever owned and holds it's edge better than ZDP-189. I don't know how they do it but it works.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top