Jason B.
Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
- Joined
- Jun 13, 2007
- Messages
- 11,196
Or did I?
Often you hear "I got a chip in my blade" but is it really a chip? Some are with out doubt chips when you see large sections of blade missing but what about the small ones?
I think it has become a general term to describe the average deformations and compressions seen on the edge and not what it really is. A chip simply put is a fracture of metal and the surface of this area will look like a crystal cave. While more normal edge wear will look shiny, flat, bent, smashed, and ground.
This is a example of comp/deform that most mistake with a chip.
And from the other side
You can see how the metal is actually bending and folding but not chipping, and that's a S30V blade
Truth is, I did chip my blade. I was testing out my Scrap yard S5 in SR-101 (52100) steel and decided to do things I normally wouldn't do to a good knife. Like hit it against bricks
After hearing talk of the differences of the busse steels one thing I kept hearing was how SR-101 would be more likely to chip. I wanted to see if I could create any small chips so I started looking for things to cut. I found some steel garden wire about 18-20ga in size and used a wood backing to chop about 6 pieces. This only created very small dents in the edge and nothing like you would expect from such cutting, surprisingly it looked more like a edge that had cut cardboard. This was impressive to me because I have done this test before with O1 blades that had thicker bevel angles and they showed much larger deformations. From here I really didn't know what to, I didn't want to be so abusive that I caused major damage but I still wanted to test the limits of the steel. A few feet from me was a unused garden brick so I decided "what would a few light wacks hurt" well it hurt. Not really but its time grinding I didn't really look forward to
With two wrist snap hits to the side/edge of the brick I created a very small chip in the blade and to the best of my knowledge it is my first
At probably less than 1x1mm I almost mistook it for just another deform/compress, I took the picture late and after I had already started grinding but its still worth a 1000 words.
This is a chip
Same image just enhanced
Often you hear "I got a chip in my blade" but is it really a chip? Some are with out doubt chips when you see large sections of blade missing but what about the small ones?
I think it has become a general term to describe the average deformations and compressions seen on the edge and not what it really is. A chip simply put is a fracture of metal and the surface of this area will look like a crystal cave. While more normal edge wear will look shiny, flat, bent, smashed, and ground.
This is a example of comp/deform that most mistake with a chip.
And from the other side
You can see how the metal is actually bending and folding but not chipping, and that's a S30V blade
Truth is, I did chip my blade. I was testing out my Scrap yard S5 in SR-101 (52100) steel and decided to do things I normally wouldn't do to a good knife. Like hit it against bricks
After hearing talk of the differences of the busse steels one thing I kept hearing was how SR-101 would be more likely to chip. I wanted to see if I could create any small chips so I started looking for things to cut. I found some steel garden wire about 18-20ga in size and used a wood backing to chop about 6 pieces. This only created very small dents in the edge and nothing like you would expect from such cutting, surprisingly it looked more like a edge that had cut cardboard. This was impressive to me because I have done this test before with O1 blades that had thicker bevel angles and they showed much larger deformations. From here I really didn't know what to, I didn't want to be so abusive that I caused major damage but I still wanted to test the limits of the steel. A few feet from me was a unused garden brick so I decided "what would a few light wacks hurt" well it hurt. Not really but its time grinding I didn't really look forward to
With two wrist snap hits to the side/edge of the brick I created a very small chip in the blade and to the best of my knowledge it is my first
At probably less than 1x1mm I almost mistook it for just another deform/compress, I took the picture late and after I had already started grinding but its still worth a 1000 words.
This is a chip
Same image just enhanced
Last edited:
,needless to say i was pissed