Liquid Metal is here! well at least some prototypes

I've got one of Boye's finish-it-yourself cast blades. The casting is fairly rough. His casting is primarily to get a particularly rough crystaline structure to the finished product. This is sort of the opposite of the intent with liquid metal which avoids crystal domain boundaries. Boye's blades should be a bit more brittle than other blades of the same material (440C). Liquid metal is stronger than other materials of the component elements. It sounds like it also casts much more precisely than the 440C. I assume a lot of that is its lower melting point. This allows you to use molds made of smoother materials.
 
R.W.Clark in an earlier post you said:
"I doubt that even in a thicker bar that it will be functional as a sword. It just does not seem to have the characteristics to make a good sword out of."

What characteristics do you think it does not have that it would not make a functional sword? Just curious. and will you post pics of it when you do finish it?
:D
 
For whatever it is worth. Earlier in the thread there was a coating question. Unless this stuff is effected by temps of aprox 250 far it can indeed be Boron Carbide or DLC coated.
 
Rob, for some reason I thought that the Boron Carbide and Diamond coatings were higher temps than that. Thats nice news.
 
But why coat it?
Click to expand...

It's not that I would, it is that it can be done. I just don't like to have limitations. So now the only differance between LM1 and any other material is the heat issue. However, that is only a problem for me. It has no bearing on the end user. How often does any knife user take their knives above 350c anyhow?
 
Rob, Kit,

My original question was if LM could coat knives the same way they coat geologic drill bits and if the coating could be done so that the surface was thick enough to sharpen repeatedly. Coating an LM blade with other materials, BC, etc., would only be for decorative purposes.
 
Please excuse my ignorance. I am a newbie both to this forum and to knife making.

My understanding is that Liquid Metal can be cast with features down to about 1 micron, and that the scalpels are being cast so that they don't need any processing steps to be sharpened.

The as cast surface is supposed to be a relatively high-mirror finish.

Being able to cast "pretty darn close" to finished high strength products with 1 micron features seems to open the doors to lots of applications that wouldn't be possible with traditional stock removal, forging, and filing.

The more complex the cast, the more manufacturing advantages Liquid Metal would have over traditional blade manufacturing.

Of course I have zero actual experience with knife making or Liquid Metal, and I'm merely regurgitating stuff I've read.
 
This material definitely sounds interesting. Do you have any comparisons between this material and other common knife blade materials showing how many foot pounds it takes before it begins to bend.

Thanks
 
From the Liquid Metal website (is the comparison to chrome relevant to knife blade coatings?):

Amorphous Metallic Coatings Prove Corrosion Resistant and Tough
A family of proprietary amorphous nanocrystalline metallic coatings, known as Liquidmetal® Coatings and developed in the United States by Amorphous Technologies, Inc., provide wide-ranging corrosion protection. Amorphous metallic coatings are further enhanced by their ability to resist abrasion wear and impact damage. These materials are applied using a thermal spray technique known as high-velocity-oxygen-fuel (HVOF) which produces dense, pore-free, hard, and tough coatings. The LMC materials are transformed into an amorphous nanocrystalline structure upon finishing or once they are put into service. When Liquidmetal Coatings are subjected to wear, once they have been put in service, they undergo the unique transformation that causes further hardening. Contrary to the traditional concept of wear resulting from usage, amorphous metallic coatings get harder, slicker, and more wear resistant as they are put into service. In addition, the surface hardness of LMC, after being transformed by service, has proven to be 10 to 20 percent harder than a hard chrome surface when compared and measured on a Vickers hardness rating scale.

Amorphous Coatings Outperformed Hard Chrome in Marine Setting
Amorphous metallic coatings subjected to laboratory simulated corrosive marine variables, such as fog and sea water spray, have outperformed hard chrome coatings. Seven-day tests conducted in a saturated sea water mist environment by Amorphous Technologies, Inc. demonstrate the superior performance of amorphous coatings. Samples of `as sprayed' and ground and polished amorphous coatings on steel and aluminium substrates were tested alongside samples of hard chrome-plated hydraulic rod and shafts (see photo). Post test examinations, using optical and scanning electron microscope (SEM) techniques, showed no indication of corrosive attack on the LMC-coated samples. Furthermore, a manufacturer of offshore value equipment documented the corrosion resistance of LMC in an ASTM B117 (American Society of Testing and Materials) Salt Fog Spray Test. An HVOF-applied amorphous coating of only three mils in thickness totally protected the substrate from corrosion during a six-day salt spray test by producing a barrier coating.
 
Overview of metallic glasses from JOM
The Thermophysical Properties of Bulk Metallic Glass-Forming Liquids

PowerPoint Viewer from Microsoft (needed for following PPT file if you don't have PowerPoint)

This is more readable than the title suggests:
Investigation of Energy Loss Through Bounce in Bulk Metallic Glass

Introduction to amorphous metals

Well, I'm not sure what you could do with 20 nanometer Nickel powder, but these guys seem to be in business of selling it and maybe it would be great for powdered Damascus:
Nanostructured & Amorphous Materials, Inc.

Professor Johnson at Cal Tech, and one of the key researchers in amorphous metals
 
Originally posted by Keith Montgomery
Glass continues to flow after it has hardened and this will lead to the dulling of blades made from liquid metal even if they are never used.
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:confused: :confused: Very interesting thread. The above quote has me a little puzzled, though.
 
Effectively, under the glass transition temperature it is a solid.

What I believe Keith is referring to is the tendency of plate glass in large windows to "creep" over an extended period of time.
 
The following is an excerpt (slightly modified) from:

Kuro5hin.org

Amorphous solid does not mean liquid.

Glass does not stay "liquid with a high viscosity" at room temperature. Glass does not "flow", not even over centuries (the common example involving old windows results from manufacturing limitations rather than the glass itself).

More technically, although it does not exibhit a first order phase transition (what we normally consider "freezing" in materials such as water), it *does* have a second order transition (meaning that, not only does it not stay a liquid, we can't call it a supercooled liquid either). This subtle difference gives rise to glass not having a identifiable temperature at which it "freezes", but it still turns into a solid below a given range nonetheless.
 
I have found the following : Is Glass A Liquid Or Solid? of help in understanding this issue.

Also, this one Is Glass A Liquid Or Solid?

They both indicate that the "Glass Creep" idea has no statistical support. The variations in thickness of antique windowpanes has nothing to do with whether glass is a solid or a liquid; its cause lies in the glass manufacturing process employed at the time, which made the production of glass panes of constant thickness quite difficult. When installing a windowpane it was easier to put the heavier/thicker side down.
 
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