Tungsten Carbide Blade?

AsianBeerCan

AsianBeerCan

Joined
Aug 25, 2015
Messages
81
Hello Bladeforums,
I was wondering why no one has made a laminated blade using Tungsten Carbide as the cutting edge? It seems to me that it would hold an edge for a longer amount of time than steel or ceramic would.
Thanks.
 
AsianBeerCan said:
Hello Bladeforums,
I was wondering why no one has made a laminated blade using Tungsten Carbide as the cutting edge? It seems to me that it would hold an edge for a longer amount of time than steel or ceramic would.
Thanks.
Click to expand...

We've had this come up quite a few times. You might try a "Search" for previous similar threads.
 
I would guess because it would be very brittle, even if it was laminated with a softer metal.
 
AsianBeerCan said:
Hello Bladeforums,
I was wondering why no one has made a laminated blade using Tungsten Carbide as the cutting edge? It seems to me that it would hold an edge for a longer amount of time than steel or ceramic would.
Thanks.
Click to expand...

It is as brittle as glass , that's way nobody make cutting edge from Tungsten Carbide . But it is good for sharpening knife made from any known steel :)
 
Tungsten Carbide laminated may be too brittle, but I've found a couple folders with VG10 core and laminated damascus that are sharp enough to shave the hair off a gnats arse.
Rich
 
It is pretty brittle. But then again, ceramic is also brittle as glass. Both are routinely used in very high pressure cutting applications in machine tools business very successfully.

It's also pretty expensive material to make and shape into a knife. At one time, ceramic was pretty expensive to make into a useful knife. Now, ceramic knives are practically free shipped direct from Chinese vendors.

The way tungsten carbide is usually made seems like it would transform into a poor blade geometry. Unlike a machine tool cutter, knives obviously benefit from thinner and significantly more acute cutting edges. Sintered makeup typical of tungsten carbide might be more prone to microchipping, leading to reduced performance rather quickly. And it's extremely difficult to sharpen to levels commonly attained with even lowest end cutlery steel, using typical abrasives, even diamond.

The grinding dust from tungsten carbide is considered a carcinogen, though it's not clear how much dust a typical knife user would generate during sharpening unless he/she was using a diamond wheeled surface grinder. I've lapped a tungsten carbide machine tool on a diamond plate by hand with some water to wash away the swarf. Took forever to make the tiniest bit of difference, with enough dust/swarf to make something equivalent to a pencil mark. I did this out of curiosity. My curiosity over this operation has been sated.
 
You will chip the edge all the time , wont be sharp as steel, heavy, hard to work with, hard to sharpen for user ,expensive , not impact resistant, forget splitting wood and other stuff . Simply not practical.

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ExtremAddiction said:
You will chip the edge all the time , wont be sharp as steel, heavy, hard to work with, hard to sharpen for user ,expensive , not impact resistant, forget splitting wood and other stuff . Simply not practical.

Sent from my SM-N910T using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Pretty much this. It will give you pretty much all disadvantages, kind of like ceramic but all the wrong kind of bad. Edge retention would be great if you cut only soft things like meat without a hard surface like a cutting board. The edge would be virtually impossible to restore once gone, you pretty much have to have a CBN grinder. Tungsten is heavy as hell, nearly twice as heavy as steel. The whole thing would also be very likely to shatter, as bad or worse than ceramic.

There is an upside, the blade would be impossible to scratch. I think the pros outweigh the cons here.
 
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