Tungsten knives?

O

O'Neil

Joined
Nov 14, 2019
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36
I have pretty much an unlimited supply of tungsten. Anyone used it? Is it worth the effort? I have already heated and started pressing for a billet, so it is workable.

Any ideas/suggestions welcomed
 
I would think it would be similar to about a mild steel for hardness and edge retention. great heat resistance though

I'd like to see how it goes
 
Pure tungsten, or tungsten carbide? Tungsten carbide has been used for blades by Sandrin, I've been very impressed with mine.
 
It is tungsten with small amounts of other metals. It does have some tungsten carbide in it, but not enough to make a knife out of
 
I have a bar of it still, YG8 cemented TC at HRC 80-90. I tried to make a cleaver out of it, I managed to get a hacking knife type of short bevel apexed using a manganese steel diamond 4.5 inch wheel. It does work you can grind it. I hated every second of working with it, it's like working with granite or crystal cement not metal. More like pure martensite without a temper. Brittle as breadsticks. I ended up snapping my cleaver in half with my bare hands with medium force.
I still have the broken bar in my junk drawer, and I vowed never again to ever work on Tungsten Carbide, even if I was paid extra.
Sure you can use some lamination process and bond it to other materials or make a steel tungsten alloy like Maxamet +++. But I hate this stuff as a mono material for knives or even anything except maybe small carving tools or drill bits. Anything long and flat will snap if it's straight TC.
 
Its straight tungsten with traces of other metals, and yes, its harder than anything i've ever worked with. My 25 ton press barely moves it lol.

discuss prices on what chrontius?

sorry for the late response
 
I like mine , it cut and cut and cut ...........................Now i m working on san mai tungsten carbide blade..........:)
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how is it you have an "unlimited supply"?

last I checked, a MTU of WO3 was $312 - which only yields 8 kilos of tungsten, or about 17.5 lbs.

So the raw price should be $18 per pound...
if you can get it 'free' - you are a millionaire many times over

what kind of volumes are you talking about?
 
We use it in mining operations for our cutting machines. Once the tip of each bit wears out, we change them and throw the old ones away because the tip of each bit is tungsten carbide and the rest of the bit is tungsten. As a rough guess, we change 50 lbs worth of tungsten every 24 hours.
 
that is awesome - you should setup a regular sale to a metal shop/fab/retailer... 50x18 = $900 every 24 hr :)
I have a suspicion you will more than double your income, gratz
 
O'Neil said:
We use it in mining operations for our cutting machines. Once the tip of each bit wears out, we change them and throw the old ones away because the tip of each bit is tungsten carbide and the rest of the bit is tungsten. As a rough guess, we change 50 lbs worth of tungsten every 24 hours.
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Do you have some pictures ? It seems weird to me that they use that combination ? What is the purpose of pure tungsten behind tungsten carbide ?
 
I've got a bit of tungsten carbide drill bit I use for a paperweight, a legacy of one of my various careers (long story...:rolleyes:). Terrifically hard stuff but I wonder how you'd sharpen it if you could make a blade out of it, as it's pretty close to diamond.
 
Alberta Ed said:
I've got a bit of tungsten carbide drill bit I use for a paperweight, a legacy of one of my various careers (long story...:rolleyes:). Terrifically hard stuff but I wonder how you'd sharpen it if you could make a blade out of it, as it's pretty close to diamond.
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Tungsten carbide is close to diamond in hardness as aluminium is close to tungsten carbide ;) Diamond work better on tungsten carbide then on hardened steel for me. I mean they are not faster but they make more clean cut on TC .
 
Natlek said:
Tungsten carbide is close to diamond in hardness as aluminium is close to tungsten carbide ;) Diamond work better on tungsten carbide then on hardened steel for me. I mean they are not faster but they make more clean cut on TC .
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it's pretty close to diamond when compare it to things like wax or butter but yeah without context the statement can be meaningless
 
Backyard said:
it's pretty close to diamond when compare it to things like wax or butter but yeah without context the statement can be meaningless
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What i was trying to say is that between 9 and 10 on mohs scale is huge gap/difference in hardness. 60 HRC steel will make visible scratch on 55HRC steel and you need to put some pressure to do that , but Diamond would scratch/cut Tungsten carbide deep and easy .No need to put any pressure just draw a line like we do with a pencil on paper.
 
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Its almost certainly tungsten carbide or just tungsten (ie. high speed) steel. Tungsten itself is very very dense, the reason its used in armour piercing projectiles so you can check it via its weight which is the same as gold.
 
Nsled said:
Its almost certainly tungsten carbide or just tungsten (ie. high speed) steel. Tungsten itself is very very dense, the reason its used in armour piercing projectiles so you can check it via its weight which is the same as gold.
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I know all that ,that s why it is used to make fake gold bar .I m not sure about what we are talking here ? Pure tungsten is not used for cutting aplications , we use cemented TC carbide .
Moh's Hardness of pure tungsten is only 7.5
Moh's Hardness of WC and W2C is 9 - 9.5 and that is what we use for cutting applications

I have made lot of knives from HSS steel with 18 % tungsten and grinding blade with ceramic belt is joke .But it is impossible to grind TC with ceramic belt .
As I already say diamonds are diamonds and we use them for cutting ,sharpening TC. OK there was CBN now that work also .
Gentle move and diamonds make scratches on this TC like nail in wood.
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I'll get some photos. Follow me on Instagram toneilblades. I have a video of the bit from forge to press. I'd say the reason for the tungsten behind the tungsten carbide is because the rest of the bit takes a beating as well
 
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