The Secret Heat Treatment of Frank J. Richtig

[Larrin]

An article about the secret heat treatment of Frank J. Richtig including analysis of the studies that have been published on it so far. Richtig became famous for chopping his knives through steel to show their excellent properties, and he was featured in Ripley’s Believe it or Not. I propose a different possible heat treatment than those in the journal articles, and provide what I think the real source of the good performance was. https://knifesteelnerds.com/2019/07/08/frank-j-richtig/

[curlyhairedboy]

Great read on some fascinating history!

I'm looking forward to more destructive testing on your own Richtig blade.

[VashHash]

I read about this guy a while back. Glad to see you're covering this topic.

[Chris_P_Bacon]

Makes you wonder is it possible that his real secret was possibly annealing the steel he intended to cut (prior to arriving at a demonstration)?

At any rate, very interesting read. Thank you for posting it and looking forward to your future findings.

[A.S.O.K.A]

That was a great article about a man who dared to show how powerful a blade can be with the right geometry and stock in a time where knives chopping steel would be considered strictly fiction

[SpyderEdgeForever]

The article is good. I am still convinced that there was nothing mundane about it. I believe there are two possibilities:

1 Richtig was given/revealed an ancient secret of forging steel and iron that enables it to have these exquisite properties.
2 Richtig stumbled upon the above. To the untrained AND trained metallurgical eye, it appears to be normal hand-forged carbon steel, mundane and nothing special. The secret is in the molecular interactions of certain elements and how they are arranged and aligned. Basically what Richtig had was plain carbonized iron/carbon steel that had a super diamond edge that did not suffer from brittleness. With this he was able to cleave right through the hardest tempered steel.

There is a 3rd possibility that is more esoteric and ties in with some ancient concepts of energy:

There is a process called "Conditioning" that is not accepted by the mainstream establishment scientific world. The basic idea behind this process is that certain material processes are USER-DEPENDENT: Certain persons possess some ability to impress their personality and will upon what appear to be mundane normal materials, machines, mechanisms, and other devices and things. In this scenario, Richtig's knives worked the way they did because of Richtig, not because of any particular metal or alloy. Once Richtig died the effect was gone, or, would fade away over time.

There is a claim that this conditioning process functioned on some machines that were perported to produce more energy than it took to start them; they were conditioned to operate in a certain location and once they were removed from that location, or, once the original builder died, or, if someone else attempted to reproduce copies of them elsewhere, they would not work any more like they originally did.

I know this sounds dangerously close to some form of magic or sorcery, which I am very much against and do not advocate.

[Larrin]

Very funny, thanks for the laugh.

[ZrowsN1s]

Cool article Larrin.

[Chris_P_Bacon]

To get to the bottom of it, you'd also need a sample of the steel or alloy that he cut. I think there was some tom foolery going on, where he was cutting soft alloy that was fashioned to look like something it was not. Call me a healthy skeptic.

[spoonrobot]

Interesting that this sort of showmanship has been revived by modern day Russian knife makers, who exist primarily on Instagram. Same presentation: pound a knife through steel, cut some paper, hype link to website in bio to purchase.

[TazKristi]

Interesting article, and thank you, Larrin for sharing. I'm going to move this over the Off-Topic.

Kristi

[Bloke]

Thanks Larrin! :)

Most goes over my head :o but interesting non the less.

[Bloke]

Richtig stumbled

[SpyderEdgeForever]

All very fascinating and such. Larrin, I think realistically, it was some sort of good heat treatment that keeps the blades durable and tough but also with a very hard edge. Nothing "strange and exotic".

[The Meat man]

Very interesting article Larrin. Thank you!