Elmax one off

John Barker

John Barker

SUPERModerator & KNIFE MAKER
I was given this piece of Elmax a few months back to test out. I've been swamped with a million different things, but I managed to squeak out this sweet little EDC size tanto. It's based on my Tanto necker design but just a little bigger with a more modern American tanto grind. The blade has a 3.5" cutting edge and is 0.135" thick at the ricasso. Tapered tang with green canvas micarta.



I thought the Elmax was pretty easy to work with. I took the hand satin finish to 400 grit. It finished really easy. The Rockwell hardness with my heat treat was 61.5. I didn't even cryo it ;).



I'll be using more of this stuff I hope. I'll try to post some more pics in this thread showing how well it performs. Right now it is amazingly sharp. Comments welcome.

-John

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Looks great! Im about to work with Elmax for my first time this week, hope my results turn up as well as yours did!
 
Nice looking knife. Thanks for the information about Elmax. I was thinking of getting some but wasnt sure what to expect out of it.

Eric
 
Thanks guys. I expect a lot out of this Elmax. My understanding is it is like a stainless version on CPM 3V. I started doing a little cutting last night. I just wanted to get an assessment of how sharp the edge is initially.
Here's the little mess I made. I started cutting some styrofoam peanuts into slivers. Very clean cuts, no drag. The I made some cuts through some firm styrofoam blocks. I think styrofoam is really good to test how sharp the edge is, because it catches a dull edge easily. Anyway no problems. Then I made about 50 narrow cuts though a piece of cardboard box. No problems. I cut about a foot of nylon rope in tiny little segments. No problems very clean cuts. The nylon rope will only cut cleanly with a razor sharp edge because the fibers are so fine. Then I cut about a foot of weed eater string into 1/4" lengths. Most of the pieces popped off into the unknown. Then I cut a zip tie into 4 or 5 pieces. The zip tie is a good test to me, because it is a common object that I tend to cut often and it can be really tough to get a good cut. Then I whittled a 1/2" red oak dowel in half. The red oak is pretty hard. Then back to the stryofoam. I could not tell any difference in cutting the styrofoam from the cuts I made at the beginning. Still razor sharp. The edge looks perfect. No chips for flat spots. More to come...
-John
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