Which blade steel can be hardened the MOST?

jimnolimit said:
hitachi's claims that HAP72 can get to 70 HRC, but i've never seen it used for a knife before.

cowry-x is very close to ZDP-189, both should be able to get in the 66-67HRC range.

i don't know how it will work, but if you are really set on hardness, try to find a company that makes tungsten carbide blades for industrial machining. buy a knife design you like and send them the blade to be used as a model. it will probably be very expensive.
Click to expand...

Seconded on a blade made out of WC. I have two rings made from the stuff, my wedding band and my Masonic ring. I've gone knuckles-first into concrete while falling, and neither one has as much as a scratch. Gouged the concrete.

It would be expensive and heavy, but the hardest knife going by a mile.
 
Sword and Shield said:
Seconded on a blade made out of WC. I have two rings made from the stuff, my wedding band and my Masonic ring. I've gone knuckles-first into concrete while falling, and neither one has as much as a scratch. Gouged the concrete.

It would be expensive and heavy, but the hardest knife going by a mile.
Click to expand...

the design of the blade would have to be FFG, WC is about twice as dense as steel. i have toyed with this idea before, but i've always figured the cost would be hefty (more than im willing to pay).

another thought i had was to weld or bond the WC to another wear resistant steel (as the cutting edge), the same way kershaw bonds D2 to sandvik 14c28n. but to bond WC to maybe cpm-10v
 
When I talked to the Rockstead rep. at a show here last December they had a "secret experimental" blade in YXR-7 that the guy said was at 74 Rc. Most of the blades in that steel are at about 64 Rc but it's apparently a good bit tougher than ZDP-189 when brought up to those numbers.

I only have one small fixed blade in YXR-7 and a few folders in ZDP-189 so I can't really say either way how much better it is. The YXR-7 blade is a bit of a machine though and still shaves hair and push cuts paper after 6 or so weeks of use. :thumbup:
 
Haze, are you sure he wasn't talking about a coating? That's seems impossibly high for YXR-7. Joe
 
The Mastiff said:
Haze, are you sure he wasn't talking about a coating? That's seems impossibly high for YXR-7. Joe
Click to expand...

That is certainly possible as the YXR-7 blades do have the HPC Titanuim coating but that is on all the blades so it would be nothing special. Although there was a touch of language barrier the guy defo said they had brought the steel up to that hardness. That did raise my eye brows as it seems rather hard for HSS and even Hitachi don't rate it that high as far as I can see.

He could have easily just been blethering but I have met that guy a few times now and he seems quite genuine and knowlegable.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top