Forged 440C ???

[Bobby B]

I have a question about a Boker I got a few years ago. It is similar to the Integral I sold in the US, but I can only find it on the German website. The description is here. The actual knife is the African Thuyia wood version, pictured here.

If my German is correct it says it is forged 440C...??? is this correct? That would be unusual, wouldn't it? I am by no means a knifemaker (or even knowledgeable on the topic ), but I thought one normally didn't forge the stainless steels, at least not as a rule???

 

[Carl64]

I saw a similar Boker in a store many months back. It had a black handle. I don't know for sure the method used, but the steel was definitely all one piece, including the very thick bolsters. It looked pretty nice.

 

[Mick57]

I have a question about a Boker I got a few years ago. It is similar to the Integral I sold in the US, but I can only find it on the German website. The description is here. The actual knife is the African Thuyia wood version, pictured here.

If my German is correct it says it is forged 440C...??? is this correct? That would be unusual, wouldn't it? I am by no means a knifemaker (or even knowledgeable on the topic ), but I thought one normally didn't forge the stainless steels, at least not as a rule???

Randall made knives are forged, including their stainless blades. So yes, it can be done.

 

[Bobby B]

I figured it could be done, but I thought it generally wasn't (cheaper?). My metallurgy is rusty, but I thought there were advantages to forging???

I had mine mirror polished, it looks pretty nice (I think).

 

[stevomiller]

Knives like this are forged using giant presses and trip hammers utilizing dies. They forge integrals because it wastes less material and it is quick to do once you have all the tooling. If you were to just grind and machine these, you would be throwing 3/4 of the steel that you started with, and you would wear out a lot of abrasives and cutting tools. Stainless is harder to forge than simple carbon steels, but it can be done with proper temperature controls etc..

Hope this was useful,
stevo

 

[Bobby B]

Makes sense, I guess.
Nice looking (and probably underrated) knife.

 

[Ravaillac]

These knives are advertised being drop forged.

Also see following link:
http://science.howstuffworks.com/question376.htm

"The reason why manufacturers want you to know that a tool is drop forged is because this tells you something about the strength and durability of the tool. The other two ways to make a tool would be casting it from molten metal or machining it (cutting material away) from a larger block of metal. The advantage of forging is that it improves the strength of the metal by aligning and stretching the grain structure. A forged part will normally be stronger than a casting or a machined piece. "

and sub-links:
http://www.ee.washington.edu/conselec/CE/kuhn/manufact/95x2.htm
http://www.ent.ohiou.edu/~raub/manufacturing/forging.htm#Board+Drop+Hammer
...

Forging advantages compared to machining, powder metal...:
http://www.forging.org/facts/wwhy3.htm
(to be taken with a grain of salt, this is "forging industry association" website).

 

[Bobby B]

Thanks, those are some good links.
Again, it seems an underrrated knife - anyone use one?