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Old 12-28-2010, 07:43 PM   #8 (permalink)
J.Schaef
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Originally Posted by alf View Post
Regular titanium is softer than hardened steel, so it doesn't hold an edge very well. There's something called titanium carbide which is harder, but I'm not sure what its other properties are -- wikipedia calls it a ceramic so I'm not sure if that'd be strong enough to use as an edge.

I looked up Batalean's marketing blurb and they claim the edges are made of "Titanal", which is a rather funny word. Presumably they've added something to the titanium in order to trade tensile strength for hardness. I couldn't find any info on Burton's site about their edges.

I guess I've been turning into a materials dork recently..


edit: beat'd by grizz. only one point of disagreement: if I have it right, titanium isn't brittle, it's just soft compared to hardened steels


edit 2: There are some pros for titanium as an edge material though: It won't rust and it's light.
Titanium isn't actually a lot lighter than most other metals. It just has a higher strength to weight ratio.

http://www.azom.com/Details.asp?ArticleID=1298

I'd say that the cons far outweigh the pros. Even if you could find some titanium alloy that would hold an edge well, the common person wouldn't want to purchase the tooling to keep that edge sharp. Any tools that are capable of cutting/shaping/sharpening Ti are very expensive. They wear out very fast as well, constantly needing replacement.
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Last edited by J.Schaef; 12-28-2010 at 07:55 PM.
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