Future: Ceramic blade and CF handle ?

[224477]

Recently I bought one of the cheap China made kitchen knives made of zirkonium dioxide ceramics. I am quite amazed by the material. It looks like a crossing between plastic and glass, it cuts well, I didnt try to mess around to test its britleness.

There are very few ceramic folding knives at the market right now and none of them represents a special style, mostly quite boring designs.

Would there be an interest of Sal & crew and second, the market for a ceramics blade Spyderco?

I think the CF is the hi tech material I can imagine to go well with that, as for handle.

[kitman22]

I think the britleness would make them limited in use for a folder and I believe ceramic would be a major bugger to sharpen up. Dont take my word on it tho, just remember someone saying you wouldnt be able to use say a sharpmaker to sharpen it coz of its hardness.

[The Deacon]

Not sure what your idea of a non-boring style would be. From what I've read, it's not really the best material for a tactical folder and, IIRC, Boker recommends returning their ceramic bladed knives to the factory for sharpening. Might work on a small, occasional use, folder like the a Kiwi, but am not sure many would find the downsides worth the limited benefits.

[skatenut]

Böker offers ceramic kitchen knives with a free sharpening service in Germany, you just pay the postage. In their newest catalog, they show a glass bottle being cut by a ceramic kitchen knife. I bought one in the nineties, hardly ever used it and I can get my steel kitchen knives a lot sharper than the ceramic knife ever was. The thin, translucent FFG blade doesn't inspire a great deal of confidence. Besides, there is the issue of brittleness.

[v8r]

I know there is a lot of "coolness" factor in a ceramic knife blade, but as Deacon said it wouldn't be practical.Ever used a Tungsten Carbide lathe bit? It will take a ton of material off turning a part on a lathe. The only downside is that if you bump it against something or drop it , it will surely break.I don't know much about ceramic blades,but would expect the same things would happen.Then again I could be wrong?

[224477]

Hahaha, good question Paul.

I am not thinking that much tactical, at least not for this one, as I consider the britelness factor, of course. Was more of an idea, and I want to know the reactions on it. Its definetely not something usual on the usual knife market and its something whats not in the Spydie lineup yet.
To me, Spyderco always represented designs which are 'not common' in the industry, I found those knives good looking even years ago when I was a kid and saw them on a small gun show over here. At that times they were VERY exotic and expensive for us. I like the design at the 1st look, later I discovered how comfortably and naturally you can hold one and use one. For me Spyderco products are like drivin` a Ferarri at the time the others drive Fords /nothing against Ford, its just an example./

Dont have any particular design on mind, just I guess it would have to be something not too pointy, the blade shap more of a sheepsfoot design, so you wont loose the tip after the 1st time.

As for the resharpening, never tried myself yet, but a certain gentlemen from Canada, who`s selling ceramic folders online (I guess they are in fact OEM-ed in China) recommends a wet diamond sandpaper in grid 600. I think it you avoid to chip the blade during the use, a small light resharpening on the diamond sharpener could be possible.

After seeing this vid for Kyocera ceramics, I am really a little confused about being brittle or not..?

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[ChapmanPreferred]

I love the idea. I would love a Ceramic Cricket or Dragonfly sized blade. I'm certain that Sal, Eric and the rest of the R&D team could come up with an excellent blade shape to take advantage of the properties and still allow for steller ergos.

[jimmytwoguns]

Apart from the big question, WHY use ceramics when we have steel? IMHO, one trouble with ceramics in folders or pocketknives as opposed to kitchenware, from a legal point of view, would be you can guarantee that it will invite unnecessary comments and criticsm from the type of people who don't believe you should be allowed to carry a knife of any sort, claiming this as an attempt to disguise or conceal the true nature of the item when carried in airports, and other zones. In my view Spyderco should "progress" backwards (as opposed to regress :) and make some realy high quality friction folders or slipits in the spyderco tradition but with quality carbon steel blades, which can be sharpened easily, and kept clean with a little love and care.

[aebfroman]

The ceramic blades still set off metal detectors; its kind of the main issue they needed to get around to sell them I would think.

[Bill1170]

Apart from the big question, WHY use ceramics when we have steel? IMHO, one trouble with ceramics in folders or pocketknives as opposed to kitchenware, from a legal point of view, would be you can guarantee that it will invite unnecessary comments and criticsm from the type of people who don't believe you should be allowed to carry a knife of any sort, claiming this as an attempt to disguise or conceal the true nature of the item when carried in airports, and other zones.

We cannot base all of our decisions on the opinions of the ignorant, only some of them. A ceramic knife does has a valid advantage as a tool, which is edge retention.

A ceramic folder could still have metal parts that show up in airport detectors, and the raw blade of a disassembled folder is less useful as a weapon than a ceramic kitchen knife that can be bought without metal parts in it.

If aebfroman is correct, and airport detectors can spot ceramic blades, then this concealment issue is a moot point anyway.

Of course, if Sal and Co. consider this, they will have to start out with a zirconia mule for us to test. I'd buy one, as I am curious about the stuff. For edge retention and corrosion resistance it should be tops. Brittleness is THE big question, isn't it?

Bill

[Frank_Zuccarini]

I'm no expert, but I remember reading once that you will never get a ceramic as sharp as a good steel.

Anyone know if this is true, and if so, is it because of limitations of the molecular level structure?

Frank

[JacksonKnives]

I'm no expert, but I would imagine it's not a matter of what's possible so much as what's practical--you can knapp flint or obsidian to a razor-sharp edge, but AFAIK nobody has figured out how to do that on a production-line scale. Manufacturing processes for ceramic knives are probably more "optimised" than that, but consider that makers are already pulling their hair out over hardness/wear resistance in S90V...

[phaust]

Apart from the big question, WHY use ceramics when we have steel? IMHO, one trouble with ceramics in folders or pocketknives as opposed to kitchenware, from a legal point of view, would be you can guarantee that it will invite unnecessary comments and criticsm from the type of people who don't believe you should be allowed to carry a knife of any sort, claiming this as an attempt to disguise or conceal the true nature of the item when carried in airports, and other zones. In my view Spyderco should "progress" backwards (as opposed to regress :) and make some realy high quality friction folders or slipits in the spyderco tradition but with quality carbon steel blades, which can be sharpened easily, and kept clean with a little love and care.

The blade is only one part of a knife. Using steel liners or any other use of steel in the handle would negate this :)


As for the topic at hand, I've used ceramic knives--though I haven't dealt with anything beyond that, like trying to sharpen them--and the ones I used were nice slicers.

Not knowing more, I headed over to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceramic_knife), and it sounds like there is an additional process available, hot isostatic pressing, that makes it tougher: "Several brands offer a black blade made by an extra firing or sintering via hot isostatic pressing (HIP). This process improves the toughness of the blade, the key limitation to using ceramics in knife blades."

My Google-Fu is weak today; I couldn't find anything about how tough HIP ceramics are. Anyone else have better luck?

I did find this interesting article on using HIP on a titanium-ceramic material: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_q ... n21349266/. Apparently it's been tested in knives: "Titanium composite knife blades are harder, stiffer, and significantly more wear resistant than titanium blades manufactured with conventional titanium alloys. In fact, CermeTi-B-5 (Ti-6Al-4V 5% TiB) has superior sharpness retention compared with high-performance steel knife blade materials" (which is cited: "Cutlery and Allied Trades Research Association (CATRA) Report 957439 prepared for Dynamet Technology, Inc. (2002)").

Not being able to find that CATRA report, I looked up Dynamet Tech, and they have a page about using it in knives that seems to show they're very good, definitely check it out: http://www.dynamettechnology.com/Knive%20Brochure.htm.

Perhaps if not ceramic, Spyderco could try out some CermeTi B5? Or have they already (from the last link): "A test of CermeTi® knife blades by an internationally known custom knife maker with a reputation for innovation showed that the sharpness retention of CermeTi® ranked best of the high-performance knife blade materials tested including, CPM 42OV, CPM 440V, D-2, BG-42 (Cr-Mo stainless steel), ATS-34 stainless steel, 440-C, Talonite and Stellite 6K."

[Dr. Snubnose]

I use Ceramic knives in the Kitchen daily...fact is they will probabaly never need sharpening...unless you abuse them...I'd like to see Spyderco make the Santuku in Ceramic...that would be cool.....Doc

[Dr. Snubnose]

I'm no expert, but I remember reading once that you will never get a ceramic as sharp as a good steel.

Anyone know if this is true, and if so, is it because of limitations of the molecular level structure?

Frank

Ceramic seems sharper to me than any steel.....Doc :D

[Domanfp]

would making a run of ceramic knives require tooling changes? Is the process of turning a steel knife blank into a blade the same as a ceramic blank?

[sal]

We played around with ceramic knives many years ago. We made some locally as well as importing from Japan. We did extensive testing both as kitchen knives, dive knifes and folders. I did many dives with ceramic blades and pry-bars.

It was the "hipping" process that showed promise at the time.

We acually produced a ceramic bladed folder with the late Tal Fukuda of Seki-City. I guessed we made it about 20 years ago. As I remembr, it had a magnesium handle. It was quite novel.

We found that we could get ceramic sharp, but not as sharp as we could get steel.

We felt that for Spyderco, we preferred more toughness than was provided by ceramic.

We felt that the customer would have difficulty sharpening the blades.

So we abandoned the path.

sal

[224477]

Thanks for stopping by Sal :)

[dialex]

It happens that I have a Boker Delta ceramic and it's a quality knife, good looking and neatly manufactured. I was always reluctant to actually use it, mainly because of the brittleness factor already mentioned.
The blade has a silky smooth feeling when you cut, but it was not as sharp as a Spydie and my efforts on the 204 were unsuccessful; considering the ceramic is as hard (if not even harder) as the triangular stones themselves, the blade was gliding on the whites like a pair of skates on a frozen lake.
A guy who used the same knife in his flower shop (only for his flowers, BTW) once told me that the blade cut well for about 4 months, till the edge got round (because it will eventually get dull). After this, the knife is unusable.
You can, of course, send the knife for resharpening, but I'd rather preffer to do the sharpening myself so... I stick to the steel.

[phaust]

It happens that I have a Boker Delta ceramic and it's a quality knife, good looking and neatly manufactured. I was always reluctant to actually use it, mainly because of the brittleness factor already mentioned.
The blade has a silky smooth feeling when you cut, but it was not as sharp as a Spydie and my efforts on the 204 were unsuccessful; considering the ceramic is as hard (if not even harder) as the triangular stones themselves, the blade was gliding on the whites like a pair of skates on a frozen lake.
A guy who used the same knife in his flower shop (only for his flowers, BTW) once told me that the blade cut well for about 4 months, till the edge got round (because it will eventually get dull). After this, the knife is unusable.
You can, of course, send the knife for resharpening, but I'd rather preffer to do the sharpening myself so... I stick to the steel.

When I was reading around yesterday, it sounded like it's diamond stone or bust when it comes to hand sharpening, and even that is rough-going.