diamond embedded knife - possible/desirable?

[Raukodur]

I was thinking about diamond embedded files, and it made me think about whether it would be possible or desirable to have a diamond embedded knife blade?

In theory, would it work as a knife blade? If so, would it ever dull? Would it ever need sharpening? If so, what would you use to sharpen it?

Tried doing a google search, kept coming up with medical/scientific applications where they use tiny blades to achieve very thin sample of bone/teeth or other hard matter.

[RamoN]

I dont have a clue on how that would work but if it does as i think, i.e. a very hard edge it would be interesting for kitchen knives, of course you would have to compare if there would be so much a difference to justify production, ceramic knives are already very sharp very low maintenance.

[jekostas]

I was thinking about diamond embedded files, and it made me think about whether it would be possible or desirable to have a diamond embedded knife blade?

In theory, would it work as a knife blade? If so, would it ever dull? Would it ever need sharpening? If so, what would you use to sharpen it?

Tried doing a google search, kept coming up with medical/scientific applications where they use tiny blades to achieve very thin sample of bone/teeth or other hard matter.

They would dull, but not in the way you would think.  The material surrounding the diamond... particles, I guess, would get worn away with time and the particles would eventually simple fall out.

[jzmtl]

You could just buy a ceramic tile cutting disk and sharpen it to see how it goes.

[comis]

I would imagine it may not be sharp like the ordinary knife 'push cutting' sharp, but it might function more like a 'saw'.  The main issue I think is the steel/metal used for file might not be ideal as 'knife' material, and it could either be too brittle or too soft.

[Styerman]

Shedding grit is usually going to be the problem . I can't see it ever being very sharp .

Not to hijack the thread , I have owned a fey Ti blades , with carbides semi permanently bonded to the edge . They cut quite well if you knew what you were doing , cost a lot , and felt weird in use .

Chris

[jekostas]

Shedding grit is usually going to be the problem . I can't see it ever being very sharp .

Not to hijack the thread , I have owned a fey Ti blades , with carbides semi permanently bonded to the edge . They cut quite well if you knew what you were doing , cost a lot , and felt weird in use .

Chris

Titanium knives are little more than a novelty these days.  Legitimate uses are either incredibly, incredibly uncommon (how many of us really need non-magnetic dive knives?) or done better and cheaper by other materials like ceramics, H1 or even high-polish low/moderate carbon steels like 420HC/SAK steel.

I could see the same problem with a diamond grit knife.  Expensive to produce and incredibly limited in utility compared to more readily available materials.

[Styerman]

Lets just say , I was younger and more free with my cash . Tho , they made great neck knives .

H1 is a great steel , I have a Benchmade dive knife made out of it .

Chris

[Peanfahel]

There's actually a Japanese company that manufactures a kitchen knife made from a "diamond" material. The company is called Forever Co. Ltd.  My understanding is the blades are manufactured from a sintered titanium alloy that has diamond particles added to the sintered powder. A larger proportion of the knives the company manufactures are titanium sintered with ceramic powder. Both the ceramic and diamond titanium knives are also alloyed with silver for anti-bacterial qualities. My understanding, is that Forever manufactured some ceramic-titanium bladed knives that were sold by Boker a while back.

Some steel alloys have carbide particles that form in the steel with proper heat treatment. The carbides supposedly help cutting performance. The Forever titanium alloys were likely designed to produce a similar effect.

This is the companies website.

http://forever-k.com/en/products/titanium/

Some other websites have better descriptions of the alloy.

http://www.goodsfromjapan.com/titanium-santoku-chef-knife-p-967.html

[Raukodur]

So that is pretty much exactly what I had in mind in this thread, thanks for the information.

[jzmtl]

Oooh yeah, forgot about those Bokers, cera titan if I recall.

[Raukodur]

The thing is, the entire point I would want something like this, is to decrease the amount of care the knife needs, in fact, the entire point would be that the knife wouldn't need sharpening or sharpening very often, and would be a beater.

Because the material the blade was made off would be softer than the embedded diamonds, and so would wear away exposing the diamonds, which would mean you retain a suitably sharp cutting edge for a long time.

And I would have thought the entire point of having embedded diamonds or other very hard material, e.g. ceramic chips, in a softer material, would be that the entire blade would be tough rather than brittle.