mini Grip differentially heat-treated?..

allyourblood

allyourblood

Joined
Sep 3, 2003
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looking at my mini-Grip 555, you can see the blade is shiny, and somewhat satin-finished, except right near the edge, which is extremely shiny, and mirror-finished. is this due to heat-treat, just along the edge? what causes this difference in finish along the blade?

and for the record, i have not touched this part of the blade on any sharpener or anything, so that's not it. thanks gang!

abe m.
 
I don't know what Benchmade's heat treating process is like, but I quite doubt that it involves differential hardening. Several of my knives have what you descrribe - a well-buffed polish about three millimeters up the edge. I always assumed that the well-polished zone was a result of whatever final edge polish / buffing step was applied.
 
My guess is that it is a homogenous blade, same hardness at the spine as at the edge (correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not very familiar with this specific knife company's work). I'd say the flats were left satin finished because it doesn't show scratches or wear as easily. One theory is that the edge was polished to allow you to gauge where you've removed metal during sharpening, the actual edge will not reflect much light, wich would be hard to tell on a completely satin finished blade but would contrast against a mirror finish.
 
yes, differential tempering would involve a more complicated manufacturing process, which would involve more cost, which BM would not incur for the mini-grip b/c differential hardening really only makes sense for a bigger blade that will be doing impact work, not for a small pocket cutter.
 
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