Is it possible to make a blade just from pure alloy metal such as vanadium/colbalt

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shqxk

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Mar 26, 2012
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By contained 0 steel on it. Something like 30%cobalt 30%vanadium 30%chromium 10% molybdenum blade.

And if it possible, would it be a nice performance blade? compare to ordinary steel blade.

I dont have any knowledge about this so please dont blast me.
 
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There are some cobalt alloys which are used to make knife blades, like Stellite and the corrosion proof dendritic cobalt alloy David Boye uses to make corrosion-proof marine knives.
 
welcome to the forums.

Dont quote me on this but i believe the guys at strider have done this. It was in order to make knives out of non-ferrous metals for EOD use.

I dont believe anything will outperform or even really compare to good steel though. Ill take a good carbon steel blade over the most exotic steels 9 times out of 10
 
Bronze knives and face razors were used in ancient times, and bronze contains no iron at all. Yes, it can, and has been done.
 
You could, but it doesn't really make much sense. Steel is perfect for knives with its harness/flexibility ratio. Any other metal or carbide would either dull too fast or break too easily.
 
shqxk said:
By contained 0 steel on it. Something like 30%cobalt 30%vanadium 30%chromium 10% molybdenum blade.

And if it possible, would it be a nice performance blade? compare to ordinary steel blade.

I dont have any knowledge about this so please dont blast me.
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In case you don't know this, steel isn't an element like all the other materials you mentioned. It's iron with some carbon in it, and can contain other alloying elements to alter the properties. Elements like carbon, tungsten, and vanadium can be used to form hard carbides that resist wear, but you wouldn't want a blade made entirely of something like tungsten carbide. It would be too brittle and prone to chipping, and the cost to machine it would be astronomical. You could make a blade out of various other materials, but it wouldn't perform as well as steel.

If you want to understand how steel works, it's made up of "grains." In between the grains are the grain boundaries, where the carbides precipitate. As long as you're below 40% of the melting temperature (which we can reasonably assume your knife will be), more grains mean more grain boundaries, which means higher strength and less chipping. The carbides in the grains act as barriers to stop shifting in the grains that we perceive on a macroscopic scale as damage to the steel, so more barriers help to reinforce the material. That's why powdered steels with finer grains are nice, and molybdenum can also help to make the grains smaller. To make the steel stainless, you add chromium. And so on.
 
No, he's using "alloy" to mean an element usually used to alloy with steel. "Pure alloy" would mean a pure element. Of course, that's rarely used.
 
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