Question About Carbidizing

[clockman]

I have a big folder I got from a knifemaker in Croatia. The blade is 3V that's .220 and the ti scales are .210. The lock sticks quite a bit.....badly!

I have opened and closed the lock quite and there's been no change.....the lock is still very sticky. Sometimes if I thumb flick it with a little bit of wrist

flick to open the blade the last 20% or so the lock sticks so bad that I have to use a key or something else to release the lock.

A knifemaker that's made quite a few knives here on BF told me to lock and unlock the lock at Lot and this will smooth out the lock..............

The lock face has not been carbidized. Will carbidizing help with the sticky lock ? If carbidizing will help where can I get it done reasonably and done well.




The knifemaker that made the folder said he will pay for the carbidizing.

I know CRK and some other manufactures use carbidizing on their lock faces. There must be a reason they do it. I think it to keep the lock from sticking.

 

[kreole]

CRK does not carbidize their locks. Hinderer does, or so I've read. The benefit is you're having the tungsten carbide, which has an rc in the low 70s IIRC, wear instead of the softer titanium. It can help with sticking since the titanium is underneath that carbide layer, so galling can't occur. This guy has a video of him carbidizing his ZT 0560's lock bar to get rid of the sticky lock http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyu3_1TNtHE

 

[Obsessed with Edges]

Here's a description of the purpose of carbidizing lock bar faces, at least according to one company/vendor who's doing it. Per forum guidelines, I won't post a link; but I found it by Googling 'carbidizing':

Carbidizing puts a thin layer of carbide on to the Ti hence making it more wear resistant when the lock bar engages against the hardened S30V knife blade.

This seems to make sense to me, as carbides are known for being very wear-resistant. That would seem to be the obvious benefit of doing so. No idea whether it changes the 'stickiness' of the interface, though, but maybe it could (less wear is usually hand-in-hand with less friction, I'd think).

 

[Mahoney]

I don't know what post-carbidizing processing or polishing the knifemakers may be doing on the lock faces, but my experience with carbidizing cutting edges is that carbidizing leaves a surface considerably rougher than the mirror polish the bevels start out with.