High Rc is all I want.

Depending on what you want to be doing with the knife the brittleness may or may not be an issue. I think that many true Japanese kitchen knives are on the hard side, which is fine for their purpose. If you can say that you will never be doing any prying or stabing with a knife it wouldn't need to be very flexible. So for a dedicated kitchen slicer a knife with high RC might work fine, just don't drop it or knock anything accidentally. That is really an impractical situation for a real user knife, which might see some prying or chopping.
 
The interesting thing is that there are many supposedly hard users out there with very hard edges using laminates. Carter has some large blades with 62+ hrc edges.

-Cliff
 
Jeff-
I honestly couldn't tell you what brand that file was, or what I use in my shop. But it's a wide assortment picked up over the years at hardware stores, auctions, flea markets, and even Wal-Mart. Now, I have broken the points off of some of my tiny needle files (I mostly make miniatures) when using them as improvised awls, etc., but I have never broken one otherwise that I can recall for any reason. Not saying it can't happen, of course, but it's not like they'll snap if ya just look at 'em funny, either.

In fact, on that little knife I mentioned- I attached a deer leg bone handle by just drilling a hole through the end of the file's tang for a pin, so it's basically a hidden half-tang design. One time when I was digging with it, I bent the blade a bit right at the guard, as the file tangs are not hardened. So the fully hard blade was still stronger than the unhardened tang. (and I left the file's tang at full width and thickness)

Oh wait a minute, I do recall a breakage now. I broke one of Dad's chainsaw files when I stepped on it, as it was laying on a bunch of junk on the floor. Though that probably isn't relavant here anyway.
 
If you want high Rc, get a ceramic blade. You may sacrice toughness, but it will get you up in the nosebleed section.
 
S-5 or S-7 can be hardened to the low 60's for knives and still be effective. Wootz steel will peform as though it is in the low 70's Rc, although different microscopic sections of the matrix would test to varying RC.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top