Les and I discussed this material a bit at the show. When he handed me his personal knife, I was all like "What the hell is this stuff? It's really cool!" "It's Titanium," he says. I'm like "C'mon, man. Really? A Ti knife? Why?" You non-knifemakers should understand that the standard Ti we use in knives Rockwells around 35 on the top end. Not an ideal material for a cutting tool. This is what I'm thinking until Les tells me that this stuff Rockwells at 60! Then I was all
. Then I read the slick from Summit... Double
.
I could not stop thinking about that knife, or the material. The gears were turning. So on the drive home, I got it in my stupid head that it would be cool to make an axe out of it. Out came the laptop, and I fired up my CAD software...
So needless to say, I called Summit as soon as I got home.
A hunk of the appropriate dimensions for what I want to do would run me around $700-$750. That's before I've done a single thing to it. It's not as expensive as gold, but...
About 10-12x the price of a similar quantity of high tech stainless.
Not convinced that it would be an ideal material for an axe, so of course I'd have to do one or two and beat the hell out of them...
