LiquidMetal Revisited

[Ray Rogers]

A few months back I had a thread going concerning my experiences with making a knife from LiquidMetal. I had made one of my 10" chef's knives from it and sent it to one of my regular customers. He also has several of my kitchen knives made from 1095 including one that is identical to the LM knife. He wrote to me today with some comments on the LM knife after using it for a while:

i'm still using the LM knife a lot.....both to test it and because it's easy to maintain.I don't think I'd want another one,however,because I don't think it performs as well as my other knives,certainly not my favorites...the 1095's.It just doesn't want to hold an edge as well as the others

That pretty well fits in with what I expected, i.e., LM can fill a certain narrow niche in the custom knifemaking world but it isn't going to replace steel any time soon.

During that last discussion on LM I heard from Peter Atwood and from George Ticheborn that they were both going to make some LM blades. George, in particular, was going to make a folder blade and after my abortive attempt at making an LM folder blade I am especially curious to hear how that project was going.

Hopefully, Peter and George will jump in here and bring us up to date on their LM experiences .....

[Gabe Newell]

Kit Carson had a disappointing experience making a folder with LM1 documented on BladeForums. R.W. Clark is going to be making one in the near term.

From everything I've read, it seems like LM1 has tremendous value if are taking advantage of its finely controlled (~1 micron feature) castability. If you aren't taking advantage of that, I've struggled to come up with applications that weren't better served by other materials. LM2 should broaden the range of applications for amorphous metals in cutlery.

Of course all of my data is second-hand, so your mileage may vary.

[Ray Rogers]

I think you're right, Gabe. Being a castable material is one of LM strong points. Theoretically, they say a blade could be cast and come out of the mold completely finished and already sharpened. Very impressive. But then, if we use a blade like that we are no longer knife makers in the truest sense - we are kit builders. So, it may make sense for a commercial cutlery manufacturer to use LM but so far, I'm not seeing any benefit to a custom knife maker. That's especially true if the blade performance is no better than steel and perhaps not as good. ....

[george tichbour]

The propotype folder is complete, fairly smooth action, at least equal to Stellite 6K, some squeeking. Still evaluating edge holding and edge design to maximize the potential of the metal.

Price will be the problem with this material along with the difficulty in grinding, machining etc. I don't expect that too many makers will start working with it until it drops in price or is advertised more to get the demand up.

[Ray Rogers]

George,

I did a search on Bladeforums looking for that thread by Kit Carson that Gabe mentioned but didn't find it. I did find a thread where R.W. Clark wrote quite a bit about edge geometry for LM blades and how that geometry differs from that of a steel blade. If you can find that thread it might speed your progress in that area.

That sqeeking really bummed me out when I built my LM folder. Every problem has a solution but I don't know of an easy solution for that problem. And, as difficult as the material is to work with already, a difficult solution didn't seem worth the effort ...

[Terry Primos]

Ray,
I was going to direct you to the thread on BF, but I get a message screen that says I don't have permission to access. Hope I haven't been banned for some reason -- bummer.

[Mike Hull]

Originally posted by Terry Primos
Ray,
I was going to direct you to the thread on BF, but I get a message screen that says I don't have permission to access. Hope I haven't been banned for some reason -- bummer.

Terry, I've been getting the same thing today. Maybe they finally caught up to the two of us.

[Danbo]

Bwahahaha! You guys are BUSTED!


I'm getting the same message.

[Ray Rogers]

Thanks, Terry. Hopefully, that is just a temporary situation. Meanwhile though, if you would like to post the gist of what Kit Carson had to say on the subject, I'm sure we'd all like to see it...

[Terry Primos]

I just looked at it more closely. What the message say's is:

"You don't have permission to access / on this server"

The "/" in that message means root, which is the top level of the Unix system that BladeForums is running on. Nobody has access to that except for Spark.

So it doesn't have anything to do banning. It could mean that Spark has a big problem. The link to the main BF page should not be pointing to root.

[joeshredd]

Hey guys, we're all getting the prohibited message... And I believe the original LM thread y'all are refering to was originally by RW Clark, and the most recent one involves a review... and 'flames'... by Cliff Stamp... When BFC gets back up, both of those thrteads have a lot of info on LM...
Hope that helps...

[PeterAtwood]

I still haven't tried out the material but I should have my new shop up and running by month's end and then I may dabble with it. Moving is hell especially in this relentless heat and humidity. It would have been bad enough just moving my house but add the shop and it becomes a huge task. Add to that I am swamped with work for my regular job and also contracted a nasty flu virus. It's all making for a very crazy summer!

Ray, I think I figured out a way around the squeaky detent problem....build a slipjoint!

[Ray Rogers]

That sounds promising, Peter, but I wonder if the back spring rubbing on the blade as it opens would also squeek?

Like I said before, there surely is a solution. I'm just having trouble finding a justification for looking for it. Is there really any advantage to having a LM folder? Outside of some covert or military application - which does not apply to any of my customers - I don't seem to be able to dream up any reason to go to the trouble .....