Jerry Busse
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- Joined
- Aug 20, 1999
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While trying to answer the question of how lasers can affect the edge holding of a knife I accidentally, hit a bad combo and deleted the entire topic. So, I will answer it here.
Laser cutting can definitely change a steels structure along the edge of a knife. However, the depth of distortion usually only travels about ten-thousandths of an inch from the edge. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this measurement, it is about as thick as 3 sheets of paper. This amount of steel is normally removed with an initial sharpening. However, at Busse Combat, we intentionally remove about fifteen thousandths and any other suspect steel along the edge before sharpening. Some blades can be affected more than others dependent upon the smoothness of the laser cut. So, there can be exceptions to the rule, but these exceptions are few and far between. If, however, you are one of the few who ends up with a knife that falls into this exception category, there is still nothing to be concerned about as this distorted steel will not cause any catastrophic failures. Edge holding may not be optimal at first, but it will certainly be fine. Hard use and a couple of resharpenings will remove any problematic steel that needs to go. I hope this clarifies any concerns about edge structure as it relates to laser cuts. The photo below shows how much steel is affected (dark areas next to the cut)
It is important to note, as demonstrated in the close-up pics of the edge to edge impact tests, that the thinness of an edge can cause far more issues, than will laser cutting. The asymmetrical combo edge that we incorporate allows for a very thin edge in spite of the blade thickness. If this edge is too far on the thin side, then gravel and other hard abrasive impacts will cause the edge to either slightly roll or indent. Again, with other cutlery steels, these indents or slight rolls would most likely translate into either major chipping or catastrophic damage to the blade. INFI laughs at abuse and sometimes simply likes to roll around just to show its appreciation for a good beating. In other words. . . . It likes it.
Yours in nuclasers,
Jerry Busse
Laser cutting can definitely change a steels structure along the edge of a knife. However, the depth of distortion usually only travels about ten-thousandths of an inch from the edge. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this measurement, it is about as thick as 3 sheets of paper. This amount of steel is normally removed with an initial sharpening. However, at Busse Combat, we intentionally remove about fifteen thousandths and any other suspect steel along the edge before sharpening. Some blades can be affected more than others dependent upon the smoothness of the laser cut. So, there can be exceptions to the rule, but these exceptions are few and far between. If, however, you are one of the few who ends up with a knife that falls into this exception category, there is still nothing to be concerned about as this distorted steel will not cause any catastrophic failures. Edge holding may not be optimal at first, but it will certainly be fine. Hard use and a couple of resharpenings will remove any problematic steel that needs to go. I hope this clarifies any concerns about edge structure as it relates to laser cuts. The photo below shows how much steel is affected (dark areas next to the cut)
It is important to note, as demonstrated in the close-up pics of the edge to edge impact tests, that the thinness of an edge can cause far more issues, than will laser cutting. The asymmetrical combo edge that we incorporate allows for a very thin edge in spite of the blade thickness. If this edge is too far on the thin side, then gravel and other hard abrasive impacts will cause the edge to either slightly roll or indent. Again, with other cutlery steels, these indents or slight rolls would most likely translate into either major chipping or catastrophic damage to the blade. INFI laughs at abuse and sometimes simply likes to roll around just to show its appreciation for a good beating. In other words. . . . It likes it.
Yours in nuclasers,
Jerry Busse