I Tested the Edge Retention of 48 Steels

[John mc c]

Thank you for your effort for this and all your articles larrin

 

[Tim Pollack]

Thank you for all your hard work and info.

 

[Richard338]

Larrin my understanding is that you developed your 9 or 10 parameter formula prior to recording the data. The r-squared is already very good, but perhaps you can play with refining the coefficients now that you have all the data.

I especially like the toughness vs edge retention plots. One of my favorites, 3V, is nice and far from the origin. It seems to be within a factor of two on edge retention, compared with the champ Rex 121, yet is several times tougher.

Thanks again for all your work.

 

[kdnolin]

Thank you Larrin , incredible work!!!

 

[eric brinkerhoff]

That is really something right there.

 

[eric brinkerhoff]

I cannot see how knifemakers and buyers alike would'nt benefit from this...

 

[Mr.Wizard]

Larrin, your site is a phenomenal technical resource. Thank you for providing it free of charge. I am slowly reading through it and trying to put pieces of knowledge together.

I feel as though it should now or soon be possible to make a calculation of overall performance potential, hinted at by statements such as the one about toughness that razor-edge-knives quoted. What I mean is something like this:

What static stress As and shock Ak does application A put on an edge? Given steel X properly heat treated to hardness H, what edge thickness and angle Et and Ea are needed to withstand As and Ak? What is the expected CARTA performance of a blade of X at (H, Et, Ea)?

Sorry if that is poorly phrased but I hope you get the gist. Can that be done?

 

[Joel Collier]

Very fascinating and informative. Thanks for putting in the effort to do this experiment.

 

[Larrin]

Larrin, your site is a phenomenal technical resource. Thank you for providing it free of charge. I am slowly reading through it and trying to put pieces of knowledge together.

I feel as though it should now or soon be possible to make a calculation of overall performance potential, hinted at by statements such as the one about toughness that razor-edge-knives quoted. What I mean is something like this:

What static stress As and shock Ak does application A put on an edge? Given steel X properly heat treated to hardness H, what edge thickness and angle Et and Ea are needed to withstand As and Ak? What is the expected CARTA performance of a blade of X at (H, Et, Ea)?

Sorry if that is poorly phrased but I hope you get the gist. Can that be done?

To some extent, yes. You can calculate stresses applied to different geometries and compare that to material properties. The more complex the question the more difficult it is. I can do some simple modeling but more complex 3D simulations require computational modeling.