Tungstem Carbide Knives

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XxDrAg0nxX

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Feb 26, 2006
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118
For those havent heard of it:
Tungsten Carbide is supposed to have a hardness of 9, while diamonds are 10.

I have been searching around to see if any knives were ever made of it, so far I have only come across tool bits made of it.

Have anyone come across any? are they Harder than D2 steels?
 
Hi,
Tungsten carbide is very hard, but extremely difficult to manufacture in pieces big enough to make a knife out of. The melting point is so high that you can't cast it in a conventional way - it has to be sintered which is expensive anyway. Grinding it is also problematic due to the need to find something harder to grind it with!
It is also too brittle to use as a blade - thin rods can be snapped by hand.
So, to summarise, yes it is much harder than D2 (80-85 rockwell I think, but that could be rubbish) compared to about 60 for D2. And no, no one would make knives out of it!
 
It was used for cutting edges on some knives. Warren Thomas did so, I believe. Benchmade applied a tungsten carbide edge to the titanium bladed 970st.
 
There is something very important you neglected:

Tungstene Carbide is used as cutting tools. We're not talking about a surface treatment here but a whole blade in carbure right?

A cutting tool is a material that is harder that the materiel it is to cut. What do you work the Tungsten Carbide with?

THAT is the hard part.

You don't need that material for a knife, steel is fine :)
 
Hmm, I thought with technology (lazers maybe?) eventually we 'might' see one?

If people are willing to pay thousands for a damascus, I dont see why wouldnt they for the hardest possible metal :D

I was thinking, if they could make drill bits (and I dont mean those small ones) out of tungsten carbide, y cant they make it into a knife?

If its brittle, how are they using then in those drill bits? would the knife edge chip?

Closest thing I found to a tungsten knife:
366tt.jpg


366f.jpg

Source: http://www.canemco.com/catalog/histology/glass_strips_&_knives.htm
 
Guys. Harder is one thing, shock resistant is another, stress resistant is another.

A diamond is hard, but if you drop it on the floor it will break.

And yes, Warren Thomas blades are COATED.
 
cybrok said:
There is something very important you neglected:

Tungstene Carbide is used as cutting tools. We're not talking about a surface treatment here but a whole blade in carbure right?

A cutting tool is a material that is harder that the materiel it is to cut. What do you work the Tungsten Carbide with?
Click to expand...

Diamond or boron carbide.

XxDrAg0nxX said:
If its brittle, how are they using then in those drill bits? would the knife edge chip?
Click to expand...

It would chip or break if you look at it wrong.

Hard=/=tough.
 
I have an exam next week with a part about this, I'll check in my books and come back to you.

or

Why don't you just get a INFI :P
 
we use TC in Metrology....all my probe tips are tungsten Carbide...they wont bend like steel so if its gonna bump something hard enough to bend it , itll break...better than checking a tool or fixture with a bent tip...thats bad!...lol
 
I have scribers with tungsten carbide tips. I can engrave glass or tool steel with them. I think the glassbreakers on MOD CQD Mk II knives are tungsten carbide also.
 
Tungsten carbide cutting tools are made with tungsten carbide particles bonded with cobalt .IIRC the cobalt is up to 10% depending on application...Somewhere I have a paring knife made with cheap stainless steel but on one side of the edge is tungsten carbide . You can cut anything with it !
 
I think we should consider the factors,when we choose the knife material :
a)hardness hrc
b)toughness (impact resistance )
c)stainless

if you only consider a & b , t1 (18% w[tungsten] ) steel ,will be the best choice.This steel is hss ,can be used to drill metal or use as planar knife for hard wood processing industry.

tungsten carbide is vey hard ,just below diamond & ceramic or aluminium oxide .but it has 2 disadvantages , it is brittle & it must be grinded by diamond (disc) only .
I had found that there was some kitichen knives made by tc ,but I do not use it because it must be grinded by diamond ,same as the need of ceramic knives .
If you need the 3 factors ,it should be :
zdp189/ats33 or 189/ats55 ,crowy x or y ...
but those above are very expensive , the knife will be about usd 200 to 300.
for r reasonable price & better quaility ,ats34 ,n690cobalt &vg-10 will be your choices .
 
Looks like you know what you're talking about, I searched some comparative results for a Charpy test, do you have those somewhere?
 
for the steel types :
a)t1 1.3355 18%w
b)m2 1.3343 6%w
c)d2 1.2379 13% cr

Those steels are used to made planar knives for wood processing .
Tungsten carbide tip are welded on the edge of saw blade to make tungsten carbide tip saw blades ,the colour of the tips are black .the saw blades is used for cutting wood ,al & copper .

if the knives , are not for serious used(metal cutting ) ,t1 & m2 are similar .
due to the cost ,m2 is used to made our knives.
d2 is a semi-stainless ,it can get the rust easily. I do not like this as the d2 knives are not cheap.I prefer to use slighly higer price of vg10 or n690co knives .
 
I have been in the cemented carbide (=tungsten carbide) business for a couple of years. I'll try explain a little about is and why it would not make a suitable knife material.

Cemented carbide is available in hardnesses of 800-2100 HV (Vickers Hardness, measured with an imprint of a diamond pyramid). Rockwell is only possible up to ~69, after that Rockwell method is not enough.

Carbide is used in drill-tips, mining drills, inserts for turning, milling, saw teeth in circular saw blades etc. All of these applications have very wide edge angles. 60-90 degrees, that is because of it's brittleness edges chips very easily.

The "softest"/toughest" grades are the ones with coarse carbide structure. So a tough carbide with edge qualites like a knife steel is impossible.

Carbide is made the same way as powder steels and are about 2-5 times more expensive. It's made of Tungsten-carbides and cobalt as a binder. Cobalt is between 3 and 30%. Cobalt is a very unhealth metal so this is another reason why it is unsuitable for knives. Carbide is very rare in any kind of food or medical industy because of this. So skinning a deer with a carbide blade would not be recommended.

All in all a pretty useless material for knifes. Kind of proves that hardness and wear resistance are not everything when making a knife blade imo.
 
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