Doug Lester
Well-Known Member
When this question has come up before I think that it has been said that the thickness of the steel counts for more in flexibility than heat treatment. It also is going to depend on how you define flexibility. Is it how many degrees you can bend the blade and have it return to straight or how far it can bend without breaking? I can build you a blade that will hold an edge and bend 90° with ease but it's going to stay at 90°. I can also build you a blade that will bend somewhere around 30° but it will come back straight and be as tough as nails Both of those cases were with a homogeneous heat treatment.
Don't get caught up in the ABS standards. They are asking you to build a knife for the performance test that will meet a certain standard solely to show that you have the skill and knowledge to make a blade with those characteristics. Remember it's allowed to break in about 1/3 of the way in from the edge, if I remember right. That would allow a break through the hardest section of the blade as long as it does not break through the softest. The easiest way to achieve this is to form martensite in the edge and pearlite or lower bainite in the spine.
Doug
Don't get caught up in the ABS standards. They are asking you to build a knife for the performance test that will meet a certain standard solely to show that you have the skill and knowledge to make a blade with those characteristics. Remember it's allowed to break in about 1/3 of the way in from the edge, if I remember right. That would allow a break through the hardest section of the blade as long as it does not break through the softest. The easiest way to achieve this is to form martensite in the edge and pearlite or lower bainite in the spine.
Doug