Why laminate on small knives?

L

lreed

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Dec 7, 2001
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I just read through the post by lavan complaining about how easy his fallkniven U2's blade scratches. While reading the post, I can't help thinking about this question: What good does a laminated blade do on a small knife like U2?
As to my understanding, laminating hard steel into softer steel is to make a knife hard to break while still hold a good edge. Ancient Chinese and Japanese use this technique to make long swords. But laminating on a 2" blade? I just don't get it. I think that cutting will be the only task for such a short knife, and I don't expect it will receive any strong percussion to make it necessary to laminate.
Is it because of using a whole piece of hard steel blade is more expensive than a laminated one? I don't know how much the laminate process costs compared with a whole piece of steel.
 
The core is not only hard, but often high-carbon, prone to corrosion. The outer layers act as a coating, also. The technique also allows for a very thin, and therefore sharper, core of high RC steel, without deep hollow grinding to get a thin edge off thicker stock.

Helle laminates small fixed blade hunters, which aren't blades to be used for chopping, but which may hit bone, and benefit from some chip resistance, the outer layers bracing the fine edge for that.
 
The U2 may be a small knife, but you can't tell when an emergency may happen and you have to use that little knife a little harder than normal.
 
Also, a laminated blade should be easier to sharpen than a blade made from just hard steel. Much of the metal you are removing will be softer steel.
 
Pocket knives tend to get a lot of use prying objects open, and generally taking non-specific abuse. I can imagine a solid blade completely hardened to 62RC breaking in half under such day-to-day tasks. A laminate seems an ideal way to keep a supurb edge without sacrificing the kind of durability a good working pocket knife should have.
 
Metric said:
Pocket knives tend to get a lot of use prying objects open
Click to expand...


I do not pry anything with my knives, I generally use a screwdriver, if on hand (away from home and proper tools). But then again, a screwdriver is supposed to be for driving/removing screws, not for prying. I should EDC a small prybar. :cool:

oh a "BM Prybar" (Thrower or Bali-song) I think I would carry that if...maybe.
 
Well I don't see why it would help sharpening, you are sharpening only the edge!!! If you change profile to thinner maybe, however normal sharpening it won;t make a difference.
It does not seem wise to have soft laminate layers on a Gents knife!
 
If you sharpen the knife and maintain the same angle, you must remove metal from the entire width of the edge. That includes the hard layer and the two soft layers.
The soft layers on the sides of the blade may be easier to scratch than harder steel. That’s the only disadvantage to a laminated blade I can think of.
 
The Fallkniven knives come out of a scandinavian tradition. Scandinavian knives are commonly sharpened on the full width of the grind, frequently a half inch wide surface. It helps considerably to have most of that be soft alloy.
 
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