The Many Uses For Hobby Blades

Give more detail to your next model build or craft project.

Hobby Blades have as many uses in today’s hobby and craft market as there are styles of

them. Not only are hobby blades used by hobby and craftenthusiasts the world over, but  they are also employed by industrial manufacturing companies from New York to California and all the way to China. Hobby blades are primarily used by hand for intricate trimming and precise dissection of small electronics, plastics, battery materials, woods, films, foils and many other products.

Artists use hobby blades for cutting, scoring, stenciling paper, wood, clay and wax.

They can be fixed in a standard hobby blade handle. Hobby blade handles come in a wide

variety of sizes and quality levels. Most blade handles will accommodate any hobby

blade. 

You have no doubt seen hobby blades used in today’s popular “extreme” cake making

competitions to achieve their fine detail and artistry. Wherever a standard kitchen knife or

box cutter just won’t do, a hobby blade can make the ordinary, extraordinary.

While sharpness and material quality always plays a role in the quality of a cut, with

hobby blades, much of the end product is in the hands of the craftsman or worker who

wields them. Fine precision and intricacy is a benefit of these light duty tools and a

steady hand always helps!

 

There are dozens of shapes and sizes to choose from when selecting a hobby blade for your particular craft or project. This is why many companies offer hobby blade kits with a wide assortment of blades to choose from. Good luck on your next project, and don’t forget to pick up some hobby blades and add that finished touch to your work!

Surface Grinding

Surface grinding is used to produce a smooth finish on flat surfaces. It is a widely used operation in which a spinning wheel covered in rough particles cuts chips of metallic or non metallic substance from a work piece to create a more polished, finished surface or create a functional surface texture.

A surface grinder is comprised of a wheel coated with an abrasive material, a chuck, which is a device designed to hold the part or parts in place, and a reciprocating table.  A chuck can either be magnetic to hold metallic parts or vacuum to hold in place non-metallic parts.   A reciprocating table is the work surface and has the ability to move back and forth.

There are three main types of grinders: horizontal, vertical, and disc.  In horizontal, the grinding spindle has the axis parallel to the table and is oriented to the back and forth motion of the table.  Horizontal grinders are used for high-precision work on simple, flat pieces.  The flat edge of the wheel comes into contact with the part, creating the flat surface.  In the vertical grinder, the face of the wheel is used on the flat surface and the spindle and grinding wheel travel up and down and side to side above the work piece.   This is the workhorse of the grinders, allowing quick, rough removal of a lot of material quickly.  Disc grinders have a larger contact area between disc and work piece and can be either horizontal or vertical in orientation.  Disc grinders can achieve very tight tolerances.  

Grinding wheels are manufactured of many materials, but the four most common are diamond, aluminum oxide, silicon carbide, and cubic boron nitride.  The type of wheel used depends on the material being ground.  Aluminum oxide, while economical and excellent on tool steels, would not be the right choice for carbides or ceramics.  For either of those materials, the proper wheel would be a diamond coated grinding wheel, bringing the material's surface finish to an almost glass-like polish. During and after the process, grinding wheels are "dressed", a process that removes collected debris and sharpens the wheel in preparation for its next use.  

Surface finish is determined by how a part will be used.  An industrial knife may require a slick, manufactured lubricity that will reduce friction between the cutting surface and the material being cut and extend blade life.  An engine part that will be lubricated by either a natural or synthetic substance, like oil, might be ground so that its surface is riddled with microscopic little pockets that capture the oil so it doesn't all slide away from the part.   

You may not be aware of it, but American Cutting Edge's parent company, CB Manufacturing & Sales Co., Inc.,  is proud to be one of the best equipped sub-contract grinding facilities in the US, and we boast the largest Mattison grinder (132" swing) this side of the Mississippi----one of only three of this size in the States.  Our grinder operators are craftsman with an average of over thirty years of experience and knowledge.  We have customers in every state of the continental US who ship their sub-contract grinding to us for the unmatched capabilities and capacities of our sub-contract grinding department.   A CB Manufacturing sales consultant is trained to help you make the best finish choice for your process.  Adjusting the small nuances of your blades may extend knife life, reduce downtime and save you money.

Hardness vs Toughness

Getting the Best of Both Worlds

In the world of industrial razor blades, hardness is a desired quality. Usually, the higher the hardness, the greater the resistance to friction and abrasion and the longer the life of the blade. How do we define hardness? How does this differ from toughness?

Hardness vs. Toughness: Generally as hardness increases, toughness decreases. Toughness is desirable when blades are heavily impacted, hardness when a blade is exposed to corrosive or abrasive materials.

Hardness is related to the amount of carbon in steel. Often the lower the carbon, the higher the toughness. Also, some steels do not perform at lower hardness as they were designed for use at higher hardness.

Indentation hardness tests are primarily used in engineering and metallurgy fields. The tests work on the basic premise of measuring the critical dimensions of an indentation left by a specifically dimensioned and loaded indenter.

Hardness is a characteristic of a solid material expressing its resistance to permanent deformation. The Rockwell or Vickers hardness scales are most commonly used in the industrial blade industry.

Toughness on the other hand is the maximum amount of energy a material can absorb before fracturing, which is different than the amount of force that can be applied. Toughness tends to be small for brittle materials, because it is elastic and plastic deformations that allow materials to absorb large amounts of energy.

The key with industrial razor blades is finding that magical blend of hardness and toughness that will give a blade long life and good durability to stresses and impacts depending on the application. Tool steels like M2, D2 have these most ideal properties. However, you can create ideal qualities with different alloys of stainless or carbon steel as well.

Hardness of steels is typically achieved by heat treating processes. The carbon in the steel combines with various elements in the steel like Vanadium, Chromium, Molybdenum, Silicon etc. to form carbides and other crystalline structures. Steel by its nature becomes harder (and more brittle…less tough) when it is heat treated and quenched.

With Steels, putting together the right mix of materials is key, but how you treat or temper the material also plays a role in the toughness and hardness properties.

As we explained in American Cutting Edge’s January/February newsletter on coatings, often the combination of a “hard” steel and a wear-resistant coating can offer the user the best of both worlds.

One great example of extreme hardness but little to no toughness is carbide razor blades. While they have high endurance for cutting, they withstand very little impact or side load pressure.

Even with “exotic materials” like this you can achieve some level of toughness by working with different binders like cobalt or nickel. Each will add toughness as their concentration increases in the material make up. But you sacrifice some hardness for this.

To combat its lack of toughness, carbide is often brazed onto softer steels, allowing the steel to absorb the vibrations and impact while the harder carbide can retain its extreme wear ability with out fracturing.

For American Cutting Edge to really help a prospect with material selection, we need to know as much as possible about the application: what is being cut, what type of process is being used (i.e. slit cut, crush cut, shear cut, etc), is the application corrosive in any way?, is there a contamination that may influence the process? In addition, what type of failure mode is being experienced now? In other words, is the blade chipping, getting dull, breaking, corroding? By giving your salesperson as much information as possible, we can recommend other materials that may perform better.

Coatings of Many Colors

Very thin surface coatings can be applied to nearly any knife or blade. Almost 20% of American Cutting Edge's customers choose to have an after-market coating applied to their blades before shipping. Why? The main purpose of a coating is to increase the wear life of the blade. Increased blade life is achieved through coatings in two ways; the coating will increase the hardness of the cutting edge and the coating will fill out the small valleys that form during the sharpening/grinding process. The reduction of these grind lines provide a more uniform and smooth cutting surface, increasing blade life. Because coated blades are both harder and smoother, friction is effectively reduced, performance and life are significantly improved. Coated blades increase production by reducing machine down-time due to build-up edges on knives; reduce tool breakage; reduce scrap rates by holding close tolerances and finishes; reduced tool costs by reducing the need for replacement blades; and increased productivity by increasing speeds and feeds by as much as 50% in some cases.

American Cutting Edge’s coatings are applied by a valued partner with whom we have worked for almost a quarter of a century. The proprietary process layers on very thin coatings only angstroms thick, building the final result and providing absolute control over thickness and uniformity. The processes and equipment used allow the blades to be coated at temperatures less than 250 deg, assuring that there is no annealing or softening of the substrate and no warpage to affect dimensional stability.

Why do we call them the “Coatings of Many Colors”? Because they are just that. In most cases, each coating has a very individual physical appearance that makes it stand out. Such as:

*   TiN: Titanium Nitrate has a bright gold* surface color. Customers will often call in and request a “gold blade”. TiN provides the least added wear life to blades, but can be a good choice when price is critical. TiN will typically cost less, depending on blade size and quantity, but the added wear life can be 5 to 10 times longer than a carbon steel blade.

*  TiC: Titanium Carbide has a gray* surface color. TiC can be a high performing surface coating and may add additional wear life of 20 to 30 times over a standard carbon blade.

*  Boron Carbide: is a black* colored surface coating that is often referred to as “ceramic” or “extreme”. It is one of our biggest selling coatings. The added wear life can be up to 20+ times longer than a carbon steel blade.

*  Teflon: this is usually a clear* coating that is generally used to increase the lubricity of the blade surface. Teflon can be good for adhesive cutting applications to keep the blade edge and surface free from “gumming up”.

A number of coatings are FDA approved and allow you to run tool steels in applications that would typically have been “stainless only” in the past.

American Cutting Edge is proud to have been one of the fore-runners in the offering of the cost-cutting products since their introduction into the marketplace. Our long relationship with our coating partner gives us the ability to work with customers to determine which, if any, coatings is best for their application. (As discussed in our previous newsletters, sometimes the re-engineering of a cutting angle or a different material can improve blade wear and performance.) Our product managers are well-versed in the different qualities of each coating and look forward to discussing customer’s needs, based on application, quality, and cost. If you think coating application might be something to consider to reduce your costs and increase your blade life, please contact us or give us a call:  888-252-3372 

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