Titanium chef knife?

It's the same kind of knife you'd find in a grocery store shelf shrunk-wrapped to a cardboard backing = junk knife.
At least the grocery store knife only costs a few bucks.
 
shane45-1911 said:
Chances are it is just some crap steel with a titanium alloy coating over it. Titanium can be strong, to the point of brittle however.

I don't think I'd waste 50 (or 85) bucks on one.
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Yes that's what I thought too, titanium tends to be very hard, good edge holding ability but also brittle in most cases but then again I'm no expert on titanium.
 
gazz98 said:
https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/forever-titanium-hybride-knife-ght-16-cera-titan.1255619/

Curious what Larrin Larrin thinks about the Ti-Ag hybrid steel. I tried a few searches at Knife Steel Nerds and found nothing.

The claims of the steel seem quite hard to believe quite frankly. If it is that awesome a steel and can be manufactured and sold at $50 per chef knife, I would think the knife companies would be all over it.

Then again, I'm an idiot.
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Titanium isn't steel, it's a different metal/ alloy and doesn't contain iron. It's suppose to be extremely corrosion resistant from what I hear, this is why you may look for it in a chef knife but the claims about it being 5x more wear resistant than steel is questionable at best because while titanium might be hard, what steel are you comparing it too, there's a huge difference from say 420 stainless and S90V, I might be inclined to believe it's 5x more wear resistant than 420 but I'd be extremely shocked if it were 5x as wear resistant as s30v let alone s90v but like I said in a previous post I'm no expert on titanium and thus why I'm seeking opinions from those more knowledgeable than my self.
 
Iā€™ve never heard of titanium-silver alloys. A brief literature search brought up dental alloys where silver additions increased the hardness relative to pure titanium but not to knife steel levels. I donā€™t see why it would be used instead of other titanium alloys in knives. I think this is a case of unintelligible marketing. I have no idea if it is steel with some coating, a titanium based ceramic of some kind, a steel alloyed with titanium/silver for some reason; who knows could be just about anything.
 
Larrin said:
Iā€™ve never heard of titanium-silver alloys. A brief literature search brought up dental alloys where silver additions increased the hardness relative to pure titanium but not to knife steel levels. I donā€™t see why it would be used instead of other titanium alloys in knives. I think this is a case of unintelligible marketing. I have no idea if it is steel with some coating, a titanium based ceramic of some kind, a steel alloyed with titanium/silver for some reason; who knows could be just about anything.
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So titanium is actually not harder than knife steels then? does that mean it's a fairly tough material? If it can atleast reach 54-55 hrc I imagine it would still be good for most kitchen cutting applications as food isn't particular hard or abrasive to cut through.
 
Me when I get done grinding titanium alloy and fire up the forum for a nice relaxing read:

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šŸ˜
 
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Boker made Cera-Titan knives which got their wear resistance from included Titanium Carbides, and they also added some Silver to enhance ductility. It took me awhile to tumble to the fact that the TiC inclusions were very hard and required Diamonds or Cubic Boron Nitride to make a decent edge. The wear resistance is great.1E7068B6-2C86-4B52-B6C8-F1AFF5DD9E76.jpeg
 
Rockwelledge75 said:
So titanium is actually not harder than knife steels then? does that mean it's a fairly tough material? If it can atleast reach 54-55 hrc I imagine it would still be good for most kitchen cutting applications as food isn't particular hard or abrasive to cut through.
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This is a fairly complicated subject. Titanium alloys in the wild are generally not harder than a knife steel, not even close - that's not what they're made for. But you're right: some titanium alloys can be hardened into the mid-50s on the Hardness, Rockwell C scale, while retaining high toughness and a very fine grain, and as a blade, function better than you would expect at that hardness unless you start cutting highly abrasive things containing even harder particulates.

Some can be hardened into the mid 60s HRc but at that point you tend to see a lot of bad effects, such as embrittlement, and weird grain structures that can't get sharp despite being "hard." This is better for say, a sacrificial ballistic armor strike plate. The Air Force tested bi-alloy titanium armor plating for aircraft in the '70s that had a ti alloy at HRc 65 mated to a much tougher and softer 6al4v plate. The armor was stellar but cost too much to make and the project was canned.

It's a very shock-resilient material which is one of the reasons it's so good as a long thin blade, in addition to being a nice weight for the volume of a very large blade, among other things. There's a lot to it. I also think it would be just fine as a kitchen knife, too.

Otherwise, everything Larrin Larrin said above is spot-on. The only thing I would add is that I think those cera-titan type blades are a sintered material, that don't really equate to a real titanium alloy. I had one and thought it was surprisingly brittle but worked well, but then again I'm a terrible cook and a brute with knives in the kitchen. šŸ¤£

Silver is a "beta phase-stabilizing" element in titanium, meaning (among other things) it helps harden titanium in the solution-treated and aged condition. It's effects are probably not much different than any other such element, such as vanadium and molybdenum, other than silver isn't toxic to the human body and is thus good for dental work. Human joint-replacement implants made from titanium alloys have been substituting vanadium with niobium for this very reason.
 
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I recall some info from college or highschool and some experience as a novice machinist.

Titanium is known for creating hard and wear resistance titanium oxide layer due to its reaction with oxygen in air, similar property with chromium. This is why tools and knives are usually coated with titanium. I don't remember if it might get brittle and therefore decreasing the sharpness or not, much like the carbon steel corrosion.

The toughest titanium is somewhere around hcr 30-40, so it is surely not the one used for knife. I don't know about the other alloys.
 
Deino said:
I recall some info from college or highschool and some experience as a novice machinist.

Titanium is known for creating hard and wear resistance titanium oxide layer due to its reaction with oxygen in air, similar property with chromium. This is why tools and knives are usually coated with titanium. I don't remember if it might get brittle and therefore decreasing the sharpness or not, much like the carbon steel corrosion.

The toughest titanium is somewhere around hcr 30-40, so it is surely not the one used for knife. I don't know about the other alloys.
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Tools and knives are coated with a microscopically-thin layer of titanium nitride, which isn't quite like coating them with actual titanium.

Pretty much all titanium alloys in their mill state are around HRc 35, but that isn't to say that some of them can't be hardened a lot more than that, it's just that the main purpose for which they're made requires less hardness and springy, flexible toughness. Aerospace purposes, chemical industry stuff. There are exceptions. Some titanium alloy golf club faces are quite hard and can even crack which is virtually impossible for the softer "annealed" ti alloys.
 
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In conclusion: the right titanium alloy, with the right heat treatment, will indeed make a good kitchen knife, but it's a pain in the ass to do so and do it well.

As for the cera-titan type knives like the one in the OP, well, I wouldn't kick one out of my kitchen.
 
Mecha said:
Tools and knives are coated with a microscopically-thin layer of titanium nitride, which isn't quite like coating them with actual titanium.

Pretty much all titanium alloys in their mill state are around HRc 35, but that isn't to say that some of them can't be hardened a lot more than that, it's just that the main purpose for which they're made requires less hardness and springy, flexible toughness. Aerospace purposes, chemical industry stuff. There are exceptions. Some titanium alloy golf club faces are quite hard and can even crack which is virtually impossible for the softer "annealed" ti alloys.
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Thank you for correcting me, kind sir.
 
Mecha said:
This is a fairly complicated subject. Titanium alloys in the wild are generally not harder than a knife steel, not even close - that's not what they're made for. But you're right: some titanium alloys can be hardened into the mid-50s on the Hardness, Rockwell C scale, while retaining high toughness and a very fine grain, and as a blade, function better than you would expect at that hardness unless you start cutting highly abrasive things containing even harder particulates.

Some can be hardened into the mid 60s HRc but at that point you tend to see a lot of bad effects, such as embrittlement, and weird grain structures that can't get sharp despite being "hard." This is better for say, a sacrificial ballistic armor strike plate. The Air Force tested bi-alloy titanium armor plating for aircraft in the '70s that had a ti alloy at HRc 65 mated to a much tougher and softer 6al4v plate. The armor was stellar but cost too much to make and the project was canned.

It's a very shock-resilient material which is one of the reasons it's so good as a long thin blade, in addition to being a nice weight for the volume of a very large blade, among other things. There's a lot to it. I also think it would be just fine as a kitchen knife, too.

Otherwise, everything Larrin Larrin said above is spot-on. The only thing I would add is that I think those cera-titan type blades are a sintered material, that don't really equate to a real titanium alloy. I had one and thought it was surprisingly brittle but worked well, but then again I'm a terrible cook and a brute with knives in the kitchen. šŸ¤£

Silver is a "beta phase-stabilizing" element in titanium, meaning (among other things) it helps harden titanium in the solution-treated and aged condition. It's effects are probably not much different than any other such element, such as vanadium and molybdenum, other than silver isn't toxic to the human body and is thus good for dental work. Human joint-replacement implants made from titanium alloys have been substituting vanadium with niobium for this very reason.
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Do you recall which titanium alloy can reach hrc 65?

Most steels are quite brittle at this hrc too, or atleast they were before the powder metallurgy process came along and started producing steels like 4v which can get that hard while maintaining a decent toughness. Which makes me wonder are there any powder metal titanium alloys that increase the toughness of otherwise brittle hard alloys? If not, than what's the hardest you've seen a Ti alloy heat treated to where it still maintains toughness that would be acceptable for a knife, 57-58 perhaps?

This is all so interesting to me, I consider my self an amateur metallurgist and know my steels pretty well but learning about titanium has sparked insightful energy in me šŸ˜„
 
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