need some advice on titanium blades

A

alansattik

Joined
Jul 5, 2000
Messages
50
I'm thinking of carring a line of knives that feature titanium blades and would like some pros and cons about the steel.

all of your help is appreciated.
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The hardest thing in doing business on the web is:
A firm handshake at the end of an excellent deal, the next best we can do is try to uplift each-others spirits with kindness. this, I’ll try my best to do at www.alansattik.twoffice.com
 
Well, to start with, titanium is not a steel. It has (very) limited usage in knives as far as most people are concerned. It is fairly soft, and blunts quickly. It is apparently hard to put a good edge on. It's really expensive.

On the plus side, it's very light, doesn't corrode easily (read, not in your lifetime). It's fairly strong, and doesn't set off magnetic mines (although most would argue that this is of limited value). Mission knives seem to be the best in general, i'm sure you'll hear more though.

James

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The beast we are, lest the beast we become.
 
There have been some advances recently. We have some titanium bladed kitchen knives from Boker that hold an edge better than most stainless kitchen kives. It's actually a matrix of titanium and carbon. Has some of the benefits of both titanium and steel. So it depends on what you're talking about.


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Fred
Knife Outlet
http://www.knifeoutlet.com
 
I played with Ti a couple of years ago. Messed around with forging, but decided it was not for me. Straight Ti will only reach an Rc of 48, much too soft to effectivly hold and edge. I have seen it TIN coated, but never understood why, since sharpening it would remove the coating and expose the soft Ti. Our demolitions folks carry a fix blade of Ti, because it isn't magnetic, and is a poor conductor. Most of them have told me that they only use it around demolitions, and carry a "standard" material type blade for routine cutting.

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Ed Caffrey "The Montana Bladesmith"
ABS Mastersmith
www.caffreyknives.com

[This message has been edited by Ed Caffrey (edited 07-21-2000).]
 
I have a Mission MPK made from a Ti alloy, unfortnately I have not used it much.

It is corrosion resistance (unaffected by salt or onions), and easy to sharpen (soft). It seems to hold an edge fairly well for slicing task. It held up really well for cutting meats and vegtables but was quickly dulled cleaning a 48" musky (a fish similar to a pike). I was able to finish the fish with it though. There are claims of extreme toughness for this knife.

A Ti blade is much lighter than a steel blade. This is not conductive to chopping but great for carrying, handling during cutting, and makes it fast as a weapon. I imagine a Ti blade would require freqent steeling to maintain a sharp edge during chopping.

Check out the Mission website and their form for a lot of information on Ti blades.

Will

[This message has been edited by Will Kwan (edited 07-21-2000).]
 
Wouldn't a Ti blade be extremely brittle and break if dropped or torked (twisted)?

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Cameron
"It takes a killer...to stop a killer"
uriel.gif
 
Actually, no, Ti. will flex a lot, and return to it's original position with ease. That's why Benchmade made the 97X series knives, and why it's most often used in integral locking knives, and liner locks.

-AR

[This message has been edited by Jackyl (edited 07-22-2000).]
 
Quite the contrary, Cameron. One of the benefits of Ti is that it is exceedingly resilient when encountering the types of stresses you describe. This is largely due to the fact that the tensile strength and yield strength values for Ti are very close to one another.



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Semper Fi

-Bill
 
Ti knives are often miss understood. When comparing Ti knives, be sure you are comparing similar Ti compositions.

For the Walter Mitty's among us (yes I tend to be one occasionally
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), Ti knives can be used on EOD mission, and in the hands fo SEAL it won't loose its edge to rust.

For real world use with something like the Mission line of Ti blades, edge holding will be similar to the 440 series of blades. Because it is so corrosion resistent, it has merit as a neck knife for those of us who sweat profusely. It's high strength (see Missions web site for specifics) pretty much guarantees that the blade will not snap or take a premanent bend in anything related reasonable knife use. Can you break it, bend it, etc? Sure, given enough force anything can be broken and/or bent.

I know I have put my Ti Marchon eye glass frames to the test and have been amazed at the abuse they have endured.

What's your target market/audience?

Stay Sharp,
Sid

Mission Knives and Tools dealer


[This message has been edited by Sid Post (edited 07-22-2000).]
 
Thanks all:
Allot of good input
There are allot of TI blades out there in production and I’m trying to wade through the
masses of them and find a good selection to carry, so my web store will be changing
knives from time to time.
Thanks again.

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The hardest thing in doing business on the web is:
A firm handshake at the end of an excellent deal, the next best we can do is try to uplift each-others spirits with kindness. this, I’ll try my best to do at www.alansattik.twoffice.com
 
Don't wade anymore, just carry the Mission line of knives if you want titanium, they have a lot of experience with ti. I have am MPK ti and it holds a good edge with cardboard cuttting, slices well, and cuts my bamboo very slickly. A quick touch up with an E-Zlap M brings any lost edge right back.
Originally posted by alansattik:
Thanks all:
Allot of good input
There are allot of TI blades out there in production and I’m trying to wade through the
masses of them and find a good selection to carry, so my web store will be changing
knives from time to time.
Thanks again.
Click to expand...



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Ron
 
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