Has anyone ever made a knife with a blade from a metal you would not normally expect?

T

tambrico

Joined
Jul 29, 2009
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So I know a knife made of any material other than steel is impractical in one way or another. But I was wondering if anyone has ever made a knife out of a metal that isn't really necessarily good for a blade.

I'm talking about something with a blade made from copper, brass, silver, scandium, pure iron, aluminum, nickel, zinc, platinum, uranium, gold, etc.

Again, these knives would not be practical knives, only made for their uniqueness.

So has anyone ever done something like this? If not, why not? I think it would be something really cool, unique, and creative.
 
Throughout history there have been knives made for monarchs out of completely unsuitable materials like gold. More or less useless other than as jewelry/status symbols.

There are a couple makers who build knives from a solid piece of G-10 or carbon-fiber, for their light weight and concealability.
 
I made a hunter from a piece of the USS Parche submarine a few years ago. It was decommisioned and the crew each took home a piece of the hull. The piece my customer got had about 50% welds from an unknown (to me at least) stick welder. I ended up doing a san-mai with a thin center of 1084. Here it is:
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My brother brought home a small folding knife from Vietnam that was sold on the streets there for a couple bucks and it is made from brass found on the ground there. The blade is brass also.
 
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My friend Rey Garza makes them out of Texas Ebony and they are very pretty. Of course they are for display only but he does a heck of a job on them.
 
Delana and Van Barnet did the "Scepter"(i think thats what it was called)....all gold.:eek:

One of these days I'm gonna make a copper knife.;)
Mace
 
I have made knives in walrus tusk, elephant ivory,bone, bronze,wood, stone, copper, silver, and in Argentium ( a sterling alloy that gets harder and resists tarnish).
I make miniature swords, knives ,and folders in gold, silver, platinum, and mokume of gold and platinum.

I am currently working on a bodice dagger completely in gold ( red and yellow gold fittings and green gold blade) with a scrimshaw narwhal handle.

Gold and silver can be hardened a fair bit with the proper treatment. Nothing like steel gets, but harder than jewelry. Argentium can be hardened to HV125 ( Vickers 125 is around Rc 25), which is about 25-30% harder than normal sterling silver.

Throughout history, most any fairly hard material has been used to make weapons.

Stacy
 
I see someone mentioned liquidmetal, which is very cool stuff, but would stellite be among the llisted materials? It's used, but not used a whole lot. And I'm sure there are a lot of knappers out there that have used a lot of nice materials, like petrified wood and coral.
 
I have 2 pieces of Stellite mystery alloy, The Haynes foundry is about 10 miles from me :D, Need to figure out what they are, anybody have any idea how?
 
JasonSCarter said:
I have 2 pieces of Stellite mystery alloy, The Haynes foundry is about 10 miles from me :D, Need to figure out what they are, anybody have any idea how?
Click to expand...

I use Stellite in Petrochemical Industry. We used to weld it on to surfaces to make them hard faced. We use to use it on the Seats and Plugs of Valves in Highly Corrosive Environments. I hope that helps.
 
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