shot peening for more abrasion resistance.

[Karburized]

Generally metalworking question. Would shot peening the edge area before sharpening produce enough compressive stress to improve abrasion resistance? Would this help prevent chipping on thin edged (say 30 degree inclusive or less) 60+ hrc chefs knives?

 

[fast14riot]

No. Edge chipping is often limited to the sharpened bevel, and if you shot pein before sharpening, you won't have the alleged benefits in the area you are looking to improve. Also, it will help a carbon knife rust so much quicker.

Shot peining a knife sounds akin to edge packing, a fallacy.


-Xander

 

[Sandow]

Could see an argument for that work hardening the surface of some steels but that wouldn't reduce the potential for chipping. If anything, it would increase it. Wear resistance is a different thing though and higher surface hardness would improve it.

-Sandow

 

[me2]

For a blade thats already hardened that high, it may do more harm than good. For shot peening to work, the target has to be soft enough for the shot to dent it on the surface. At that high a hardness it will take a lot of impact to make a dent. There also needs to be some ductility in the target surface. At that high a hardness there will be very little left, so rather than surface peening, you may get surface cracking. The devil is in the details, and it may not be as bad as I make it sound. Basically, you have to hit a small target (an edge) with steel shot. You have to hit it hard enough to dent it, but not hard enough to crack it. The target is already very strong (compressive strenght for steels that hard are already over 300,000 psi). Theoretically it could be done, but the gain is doubtful, and you'd have to do it again after any significant sharpening.