future knife predictions

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ajt125

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Sep 1, 2008
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what do you think in ten years time future knives will be like e.g. new technology, blade materials etc what are your predictions?
 
ajt125 said:
what do you think in ten years time future knives will be like e.g. new technology, blade materials etc what are your predictions?
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If our government overlords have their way they will be plastic butter knives. But I see all kinds of conflicting trends in knives. Assisted openers are likely to be targeted by our regulators. I see more and more traditional American made fixed blades coming out. Some folks are getting tired of expensive wonder steels and sythetic handles. Right now it is wide open and going all directions. This may be the golden age of knife making.
 
Thats hard to say but I would look for more improvement in SS for knives. It would be great to have the character traits of Carbon and the trouble free aspects of SS. As far as design, there isn't much that has not been already made.
 
Powder steel. Laminates. Innumerable alloys.

Oh, yeah, and laser-cutters. Not too far off.
 
Nitrogen replacing carbon as hardness driver in steels. Carbides (today) will then be replaced by nitrides. This allows very high hardness with superb corrosion resistance. Imagine ZDP wear resistance with H1 corrosion resistance.

This will only be possible with powder metallury, and it will be expensive compared to todays PM steels due to several extra production steps.

//Jerker
 
I'm mainly a Spyderco, Benchmade guy on modern high tech knives, but it looks like Kershaw is going to catch up. They have really got an impressive line up coming out! Look out big two it's looking like it'll be the big three! Competition is a great thing!
 
Well, since some municipalities are now targeting pocket clips as some indicator of the murderous masses, I see some other way of carrying a knife for easy, convenient access developing. Similarly, a progeny of the current assisted openers will probably be developed. to circumvent any laws in that area. I'm sure many plainly stupid policies/laws will drive future knife design.

Conversely, I can see more "combat" slip-joints in the future. (Boy, that is a bad turn of phrase, "Combat Slipjoint") The UKPK seems to be doing well and offers about 90% of the performance of its locked blade brothers (depends upon how much you value a locking blade - for some unsafe things I do, a lockblade is neccessary). Not too many bolted together slip joints out there yet.

Not sure on the steel front. There is a limit as to what is a useful hardness for knives (many bemoan the "difficulties" high hardness steels already cause). Perhaps a better sharpening material will be made for these wonder metals.

Don't see handheld cutting lazers and other such "Star Wars" stuff. Just what I need, a battery dead cutting implement. Further, as with knives, I don't see such things ever being legal to carry (what would CSI do for evidence?).
 
How about wider availability of high-hardness blade material such as zdp 189 DiamondBlade 'friction forged. Right now they are rare, boutique level. Only 3 or so companies use ZDP and only in limited fashion. To me the higher-hardness stuff does provide a step forward in cutting ability. Look at what happened with S30V. First only a few guys like Rob Simonich used it, and it gradually spread. Now you can buy an S30V knife at Wal Mart.
 
There will be more refinements and evolution like we have seen in the past ten years. Materials will become lighter and stronger, with more precision in fit and function.

With more metal detectors and anti knife propaganda, there will be further development in ceramics and possibly other materials for knife blades as well.

The last 10 years brought up interesting knife tech, the next ten years will be no different
 
Selection of commercially-available traditional slipjoint patterns will continue to decline. Good old-fashioned carbon steel blades will be harder to find. Stag prices will be higher, if available.

I'll still be getting ripped-off on eBay, but getting the occasional good deal.
 
Looking back to 10 years ago, I see not much change (dare not to say improvement)
has been done. Material of cutting tools resides in delicate balance of
things being cut and sharpening device, and it seems to me that
we already have the optimal solution, which means not much further
improvement is left to be achieved.

I mean, if more hardness is required, such a substance should be cut
not by hand but by tools externally driven with some kind of motor.
Then the edge should keep its hardness in higher temperature due to
the cutting heat. There already are two options for such purpose namely HSS or
carbides. Both of which is not usually used for hand-cutting tools.

So, I'm quite in doubt more hardness is achieved but
more toughness could be . There could be a material with
more corrosion resistance and chipping resistance, keeping HRc 60.
Such materials may not have traditional martensite matrix.
 
Bufford said:
Materials will become lighter and stronger, with more precision in fit and function.
With more metal detectors and anti knife propaganda, there will be further development in ceramics and possibly other materials for knife blades as well.
Click to expand...

This is what I was going to say. In the last few years, the development of knives, or at least tools, made of polymers, ceramics and the like has increased. This trend will only continue. Consequently, politicians will decry this development and "Saturday Knife Specials" will be demonized by the media, even though they will most likely be more expensive than regular steel, at least at first.
 
I don't think that too much will change, some things will be better, but I think that blades 50 years from now will be the mostly the same as today.
 
I think we will see the introduction of a hyper-vibrating blade. It won't need to be super sharp, but it will vibrate (separate from the handle) at such a high hertz that it will be able to cut into anything. The material strength will be more important than anything. Or maybe a Vorpal sword...
 
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