My name is Stuart Ackerman...
In 2006 I started making investment cast 440C knives...
Here are some pics from the first batch being cast...
The ceramic shell surrounding the 16 wax knives.
The shell about to be baked, and the wax melted out.
The 440C steel melting,
The wax melting out.
The ceramic shell placed on sand, ready for the liquid steel.
Waiting...feed me!
Steel kisses the shell.
Almost filled.
One hour after the steel was poured.
Glowing....
Then I started to play around with the basic shape and grind new profiles for testing...
And a group pic of the bead blasted blades...before heat treatment...
And some testing with the first tester...
New 12mm hemp rope, oil and dirt soaked 12mm hemp rope, 18mm hemp rope, 8 tonne Spectra rope...
The normal VG10 steel blade did about one eighteenth the cutting of the cast 440C. It would slice paper roughly, but not shave hair off my legs. ( My arms are bare...)
The 3mm normal steel was sharpened on the med grey ceramic Fold-a Vee...
The 5mm cast steel, on the DMT med Diamond...
Both blades would shave print off a telephone book page, without piercing the paper...the normal steel a bit cleaner...
The cast steel cut the ropes faster, and with less effort, and lasted much longer...and will still slice shavings off a piece of oak plank, whereas the normal steel will start to slice, and then choke up.
The shavings below are a small proportion of the three shopping bags full of various rope shavings...
And some finished ones from the first batch...
In 2006 I started making investment cast 440C knives...
Here are some pics from the first batch being cast...
The ceramic shell surrounding the 16 wax knives.
The shell about to be baked, and the wax melted out.
The 440C steel melting,
The wax melting out.
The ceramic shell placed on sand, ready for the liquid steel.
Waiting...feed me!
Steel kisses the shell.
Almost filled.
One hour after the steel was poured.
Glowing....
Then I started to play around with the basic shape and grind new profiles for testing...
And a group pic of the bead blasted blades...before heat treatment...
And some testing with the first tester...
New 12mm hemp rope, oil and dirt soaked 12mm hemp rope, 18mm hemp rope, 8 tonne Spectra rope...
The normal VG10 steel blade did about one eighteenth the cutting of the cast 440C. It would slice paper roughly, but not shave hair off my legs. ( My arms are bare...)
The 3mm normal steel was sharpened on the med grey ceramic Fold-a Vee...
The 5mm cast steel, on the DMT med Diamond...
Both blades would shave print off a telephone book page, without piercing the paper...the normal steel a bit cleaner...
The cast steel cut the ropes faster, and with less effort, and lasted much longer...and will still slice shavings off a piece of oak plank, whereas the normal steel will start to slice, and then choke up.
The shavings below are a small proportion of the three shopping bags full of various rope shavings...
And some finished ones from the first batch...
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