Tungsten knives?

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Andrew Carlson

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Aug 31, 2012
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So I was at a bar game store the other day, and I saw some darts made of tungsten. I started thinking about how that would make a really cool knife. Tungsten carbide is too brittle to be used effectively, but could a blade made of straight up tungsten be useful, and if so, does one exist?
 
Andrew Carlson said:
So I was at a bar game store the other day, and I saw some darts made of tungsten. I started thinking about how that would make a really cool knife. Tungsten carbide is too brittle to be used effectively, but could a blade made of straight up tungsten be useful, and if so, does one exist?
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rock drills in mines use tungsten carbide bits inserted into the steel shank of the drill using a thin sandwiched sheet of bronze (a little like the composite blades of kershaw.) the bits are sharpened with a bevel angle of 90 to 120 degrees. no reason why you can't make a knife or axe using tungsten carbide. question is how effective will it be? i know that it wears surprisingly fast when drilling hard rock. sharpening it on the machine is also surprisingly fast (a bit like a mechanical edge-pro, using silicon and vanadium carbide abrasives.)

my guess would be a heavy chopper or an axe.
 
I've wondered why we haven't seen tungsten or tungsten alloy blades, but then assumed there was a reason (durability, cost) that we haven't.
 
Planterz said:
I've wondered why we haven't seen tungsten or tungsten alloy blades, but then assumed there was a reason (durability, cost) that we haven't.
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Tungsten is in loads of blade steels, maybe you have not been paying attention

The reason for not using tungsten carbide is that it can not support a usefully thin edge for a knife
Not sure about pure tungsten... i would like to buy a strip and see what i can do to it
 
I have wondered the same thing. It seems like a really great metal, it is brittle and heavy. My wedding ring is tungsten and Ive worn it for over 4 years now and there is only a few hairline scratches. I work construction and use the ring for a beer bottle opener so I think its held up really well.
 
I would think that if you do the Mora Of Sweeden lamination idea you could get it to work. Have tungsten as the core cutting edge, and then sandwich it between two pieces of S30V or some other steel.
 
I guess it is brittle and will not hold thin edge. It is like having a glass knife: you may have it laminated so it will not break, but the edge will simply chip off with use very fast.
 
Vicarious, perhaps you didn't pay attention to what you quoted or what you posted. Steel is an iron and carbon allo, not a tungsten alloy. Some steels contain cobalt, that does not make them cobalt alloys. Stellite is a cobalt alloy, stellite is not a steel. Same goes for steels that contain tungsten but are not tungsten alloys.
 
People in the fire service sometimes wear tungsten rings because they will shatter when crushed rather than crush around their finger should they ever get into a fix.
 
Maybe the poisoning thing would be good in some cases, I could see James Bond using a knife like that! Anyway, if anyone tries making a tungsten knife, I'd love to read a review on it
 
Tungsten liners might be interesting .. I wonder if they could make for a slimmer axis lock f'r instance
 
Just so we are clear about the weight issue, there is a reason that tungsten alloys are the best choice for armor piecing tank main gun ammunition if you don't want to use depleted uranium alloy.
 
There was a guy in Blade magazine's "The Knife I Carry" section that wrote in about his EDC. He had made a folder with a tungsten carbide blade, said he could sharpen his friend's knives by whittling their blade... no idea what issue it was...

-sh00ter
 
They use Tungsten in hollowed out gold bars to try to match the weight. Probably not the best choice for an EDC
 
The metal has to be sintered into solid pieces because the melting point is too high to melt in any container. I guess this is probably not a whole lot different than current CPM steels, although the CPM steels could be melted if needed; the sintering of powder is to keep a high alloy in solution with fine grains, not because of the melting point.

The density is almost exactly the same as gold (19.25 vs 19.30 for gold). Tungsten metal is hypoallergenic.
 
Maxamet steel alloy might be worth mentioning here. I think Zero Tolerance used it in a prototype.

Maxamet is 13% tungsten. It can reach 71hrc.
 
I would imagine it would be similar to ceramic blades. Brittle at high hrc and difficult to sharpen. It probably wouldn't be well suited for an EDC or work knife. Maybe a chefs knife?
 
have you ever tried to sharpen a tungsten bit ?

it isnt easy to find an abrasive thatll do it

this *may* have a contributing influence on it not being used much in cutlery .

I messed with tungsten a while ago , trying to shape it with a grinder , nope , itll shape bench grinder wheel tho .
 
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