Tantung Steel?

Anyone hear of it? Someone asked me if it was a viable steel for knife making...as if I know.

I've heard of the stuff, but I have only seen it used on facing and boring bits, It is extremely hard and wear resistant, I asked around about it a long time back but finally gave up trying to find a piece big enough to make a knife with. Heres all the info a friend of mine who works at a machine shop could give me on it. Cast alloy, composed of chromium, tungsten, cobalt and a small amount of Carbon, Its non-magnetic and don't rust, and a file wont touch it.Wished I could be of more help.

I got an email once from a guy offering this material. Never heard from him again.

Here is a few treads:
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G'day
A long time ago I had to grind up some tooling to suit an Index automatic lathe which was making parts for sprinkler heads. It was a machining grade of copper which was very abrasive on tooling. I've only ever sen it in the fully hardened state, it came all preground like ordinary high speed steel. It is very hard and holds a good edge for a very long time. I tend to think it would be quite brittle in this state. I'm prety sure it came from Boehler Steels. Also as I was told by my boss it was very expensive. I hope this helps. Rob.

HMMMMM, THIS STUFF SOUNDS HARDER THAN ENCANEL(SP) STEEL AND THAT IS PRETTY CLOSE TO CORBORUNDUM. I WILL ASK MY SON-IN-LAW,CNC MACHINIST, IF HE KNOWS OR HAS ANY SPECS ON THIS STEEL.
KEN (WWJD)

www.fansteelvrwesson.com/...antung.htm

I got a sample of it, it works pretty hard, and is hard to drill, prob need carbide spade bits to drill it. But it's worth it. Edge it takes is absolutely wicked. I made a small knife with my sample, which was 1/4" thick, so it was convex ground with a straight edge to get it down to a reasonable thickness. I live near a tantung distrib, so I will try to get some samples if people are interested.

I called today, but they didn't have any barstock, it might be a special order thing.

Marion D Poff seems to be the man to talk to about this stuff. Everyone knows him

Roger