heat treats & edges

[Ankerson]

I've seen very few factory edges that the edge grind would be higher than a 320 grit belt and a finish polish. The excessive plastic deformation caused by the high speed belt basically turns the metal into a liquid and pushes this liquid like metal to the edge. This metal is not in the same state as if the edge were to be sharpened by hand on stones. Given that the factory is no better than a XC or C diamond stone this adds into the issue of why factory edges do not show proper performance, the coarse edge has "teeth" that bend and break making the edge much wider than a fine polished as it wears.

The reason you hear most say that after they sharpened the edge is was OK is because they are taking the edge to a much finer level therefor reducing the size of the scratch pattern making it harder for the object being cut to deform the edge.

This pic shows that "flow" of metal I was talking about.

Exactly the reason why one should sharpen the blade if it's a user and if it's a chopper or heavy use knife most definitely sharpen it 1st thing.

 

[Superdave1]

Nonsense. It is quite feasible to include cryo on a commercial scale.

Only a big company can do a salt pot economically.
My company used to use heat treat salt baths. When our production rates fell, we shut them down and used other methods. Too much thermal mass to turn on and off. Too expensive to leave hot and only use it a bit.

Knarfeng, thanks for chiming in. Its interesting to add a real manufacturing point of view to these musings. So it seems that some of these more 'optimal' heat treats would be more feasable (less expensive per unit) when done by large manufacturers as oppossed to going the custom route.

 

[DennisStrickland]

really i need to apologize to formites for my lack of communicating a point in heattreating. i'm particulary sorry to superdave that i could'nt get my point across. first this is not about how much better 1095 can be made with advanced custom treatments. nor is it about opting to m4 or cpmd2 made by a standard manuf.the point i'm trying to convey is any alloy can be improved greatly with tweaking by a custom maker. these involved heat treats can certainly be performed by the major manuf. but to do so even on a large scale would still make the cost of each unit very expensive whether it's 1095 or zdp189. a person desiring the upmost performance with any alloy will still need to go the custom route unless a factory chooses to duplicate the involved process . if the factory does this intricate process the unit cost will be 4 or 5 times more . this is due to the much more time consuming processes to achive the maximum possible performance whether it's 1095 or m4.