Titanium alloy knives why or why not?

MyLegsAreOk

MyLegsAreOk

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I have a pair of plant clippers and scissors that say they have a titanium blade but why aren't there a lot of knives marketed with titanium for the blade? Is it because titanium can only be sharpened so sharp and doesn't keep it's edge? I mean these clippers and scissors aren't that sharp so I assume it's because titanium keeps a wide angle bezel well.
 
Titanium does not hold an edge very well.

There are a few makers that still use it and do well with it apparently. i forget the guys name here that uses them successfully due to his heat treatment or his alloy uses more than just titanium in it.

in any case, titanium can also be added as an element in steel just like other elements. it helps stainless properties and strength iirc. but i have not seen a knife steel use titanium element added to its composition. nor could i find which steel's did, as google doesnt see my query properly.
 
MyLegsAreOk said:
I have a pair of plant clippers and scissors that say they have a titanium blade but why aren't there a lot of knives marketed with titanium for the blade? Is it because titanium can only be sharpened so sharp and doesn't keep it's edge? I mean these clippers and scissors aren't that sharp so I assume it's because titanium keeps a wide angle bezel well.
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Welcome.

Because they don't have titanium blades. They have low quality steel blades under what they claim to be a titanium coating.
 
My guess is your plant clippers and scissors have steel blades with a titanium nitride coating (if it is a gold-yellow color, it is titanium nitride). Titanium nitride is very hard but the coatings are pretty thin, and once you wear through the coating you're left with the softer steel underneath. It works great for scissors and pruners that are never sharpened, but as soon as you sharpen down to the bare metal, it no longer provides any benefits to the edge.

Titanium nitride also provides a corrosion-resistant coating and isn't terribly expensive, so it is sometimes applied to help prevent rust.

There are very few blades made out of Ti or Ti alloys - it doesn't hold an edge that well. I have heard that titanium blades and tools can be useful for certain specialized tasks like diffusing explosive devices (since the blades are non-magnetic they will not set off a magnetic trigger), but other than that, it isn't typically used for the business end of a blade.
 
We might be getting closer to seeing titanium alloys become more available as blade material. My impression is that there are more varieties of titanium alloys available for knifemakers to play around with than ever before and that these cutlers are gaining more knowledge than ever before in the heat treat and engineering of titanium alloy blades. With the cutlery market so diverse nowadays it's possible that more makers will use ever better titanium alloys for knives aimed at specialists and/or collectors. There are a handful of knifemakers that already use it.

Mecha Mecha will know better than me.
 
Hickory n steel said:
Because steel exists.
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Actually, not really.

It's more a matter of that titanium is not the proper material for this application. It IS the proper material (much more so than steel) in many "bladed tool" applications....just not this one. There is no call for its specific properties for a garden clipper.

Claiming "steel is better" is incorrect.
 
marcinek said:
Actually, not really.

It's more a matter of that titanium is not the proper material for this application. It IS the proper material (much more so than steel) in many "bladed tool" applications....just not this one. There is no call for its specific properties for a garden clipper.

Claiming "steel is better" is incorrect.
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I never said steel was better , but we don't really see titanium knife blades Because steel exists.
Generally Steel is less expensive and it provides every property we need in a knife blade so there's no real need to reinvent the wheel.
 
I had a Hideaway knife in titanium in 2012, non-carbidized edge. I could never get it sharp enough to shave, for what its worth, and on the rare occasion I used it on cardboard, it seemed to dull comparatively quickly.
 
marcinek said:
Welcome.

Because they don't have titanium blades. They have low quality steel blades under what they claim to be a titanium coating.
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This ^

The titanium knife question is a lot more complicated than it's made out to be. To really understand it, firstly you must know that saying "titanium" is like saying "iron." Steel is an iron alloy. To make a good blade out of iron, it must be alloyed to greatly increase its various strength properties and make it heat-treatable. To make a blade using titanium as a base metal, it must be alloyed to greatly increase its various strength properties and make it heat-treatable.

The most common titanium alloy, 6al4v also known as Grade 5 (the vast majority of all ti alloy made is one of the half-dozen iterations of 6al4v, much of what is left is just pure unalloyed ti), is specifically made to NOT be able to get that hard, but rather is formulated to be flexible, resistant to deformation, to prevent cracking and breaking. It does work well for many blade tasks if it has a tungsten carbide edge applied. When someone says "titanium" they are basically always talking about the ally 6al4v. Titanium alloys that are NOT 6al4v are pretty damn rare.

The main reason you do not see ti knives much, is because it's difficult and not very economical to use it for a normal-duty slicing blade. As Hickory n' Steel said, it's just way more straightforward to use one of the many great steels available today. Steel metallurgy continues to advance like crazy, while titanium metallurgy is mainly embedded within the aerospace industry. Although it seems to enter the main stream as golf club faces, LOL! X]

There are about two-dozen rarely-seen titanium alloys out there.

Furthermore, the typical industrial heat-treatment for titanium alloys is the same. Structural alloys whose properties are fine-tuned through alloying, with basically the same HT applied. To make a good blade from a ti alloy, you must consider the alloying elements, and then apply a heat treatment designed to bring about the qualities you would want in a blade, not a structural member for a machine, or a chemical vessel, or a hiking spork. This takes a lot of study and hands-on testing, which somebody would have to be out of their fuckin' mind to bother doing. Pardon my French.

The diving knives you see are not a very good example of a fine titanium alloy knife. They generally have horrible heat treatment, the poor alloys are not good. Some folks still like them, but they are just a shadow of what a ti alloy blade can be. YMMV I find them a catastrophic embarrassment.

One thing I will continue to bellow from the rooftops: the bigger a blade gets, the better ti alloy gets as a blade. Once you pass 18" or so of blade, with the right design, ti alloy and HT, the result is an excellent edged hand tool that is unlike anything else.

 
TL; DR:

Some titanium alloys can be used to make a very nice blade (especially a large one), but it depends on the design and how the alloy it's worked, which is more of a bother than it's worth for most manufacturers and makers, considering the very nice steels available, and the large body of proven knowledge a steel smith has to work with.
 
View attachment 763934 I have had very good luck with Titanium bladed knives. The folding and straight models by Mission knives are high quality. The Boker Titanium straight kitchen knives come in 2 varieties: 1) a plainer Ti alloy and 2) a fancier Ti alloy called Cera-Titan. The plain models work well even without Carbidzing. The Cera-Titan models have TiC added for wear resistance and Silver added for ductility. The Cera-Titan models hold their edges much longer than typical steel kitchen knives in my experience.
In the picture of Bokers, the top knife is the the first type and the L/H edge has been Carbidized with Titanium Carbide. The lower knife has TiC added into the Titanium alloy blade.
 
Thank you, Mecha.

I always enjoy your posts on this subject. Always learn some new nugget I hadn't heard before.

Myself, I don't mind the titanium dive knives that are available, as I could use a sharp stick for most of the "knife" duties I've ever called upon (banging on the tank mostly). And you gotta admit, even these poor excuses for knives are as resistant to corrosion as the aforementioned sharp stick. Pretty much the numero uno attribute I look for in a dive knife anyways. Do I wish they were better? Indeed I do. But that would more than likely make them expensive enough to make me go back to the sharp stick.

But like ShinyEdges says, we're just hanging out waiting for you to go mainstream ;)
 
Velitrius said:
Thank you, Mecha.

I always enjoy your posts on this subject. Always learn some new nugget I hadn't heard before.

Myself, I don't mind the titanium dive knives that are available, as I could use a sharp stick for most of the "knife" duties I've ever called upon (banging on the tank mostly). And you gotta admit, even these poor excuses for knives are as resistant to corrosion as the aforementioned sharp stick. Pretty much the numero uno attribute I look for in a dive knife anyways. Do I wish they were better? Indeed I do. But that would more than likely make them expensive enough to make me go back to the sharp stick.

But like ShinyEdges says, we're just hanging out waiting for you to go mainstream ;)
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Ha! Thanks Velitrius. I keep learning new nuggets myself, all the time.

The dive knives are an example of how strong a ti alloy can be even if it's been cooked to oblivion with massive grain growth in attempt to bring its rockwell hardness numbers up. I put them in the gimmick category, but as many people say, they don't really do much with their dive knives other than dig and pry and for that they seem fine. When I lived in the Keys my dive knife was stainless steel, and also couldn't cut its way out of a wet paper bag. :D Wish they had those serrated Spyderco H1 knives back then.

When I'm done with a ti billet it has very fine grain. And thin is definitely in. This idea that has circulated around that a ti alloy knife has to be thick is dead wrong.

I've been changing things around since Blade show this year (which rocked my world), and have a plan to make a proper ti alloy machete available to a much wider audience. Gonna go orange again here shortly...with some special surprises in store as well!

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I have made many titanium blades, and think they are fine if you have realistic expectations.

They will never perform as well as a steel blade, but will perform adequately if the edge is carbidzed.

Titanium knives are an excellent choice for smaller dedicated defensive blades due to the light weight and corrosion resistance.
 
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