Materials question

[MikeC]

Just read an article about making knives and the writer said Titanium would be too brittle. Did I fall on my head lately? I have several titanium knives and have read much about titanium used for knife making and other endavors. Brittle is not ever before been mentioned, the whole problem with Titanium be it alpha titanium alloys, beta titanium alloys, or alpha/beta titanium alloys is that you can only get them to about 50 Rockwell C, which is soft for a knife material, it is also incredibly tough due to its low rockwell, not brittle. Brittlness occurs at high hardness, correct. I thought the whole benefot of Titanium was its corrosion resistance and its toughness.

Am I wrong, did I miss something?

Thanks in advance

 

[liliysdad]

Brittleness is not indicative of hardness. Oftentimes, the harder a material is, the more brittle it is, but this is far from always the case.