[HN Gopher] Scientists have found a way to harden wood to make a...
___________________________________________________________________
Scientists have found a way to harden wood to make a knife that
rivals steel
Author : curmudgeon22
Score : 177 points
Date : 2021-10-24 15:38 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cbc.ca)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cbc.ca)
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| That is a pretty cool result. The idea of a material with the
| hardness of steel but without the oxidizing issues is pretty
| appealing too.
|
| The mentioned that it became "squishy" and then they pressed it
| to become its final shape. Building boats this way would be an
| interesting application.
|
| And it would be interesting to understand its combustion
| properties. "Engineered wood" is all the rage in home building in
| North America because getting long structural timbers has become
| so expensive. If you add this to the set of techniques on
| engineered lumber, could you build better structural members with
| less material? Could you build those materials out of layered
| materials? (think oriented strand board (OSB) as 4 x 6
| equivalent).
| TomK32 wrote:
| "We use chemicals to partially remove lignin. And after the first
| step the wood becomes soft, flexible and somewhat squishy"
|
| "The compressed material showed very little tendency to bounce
| back to its original thickness."
|
| I love the soft and squishy part, wondering whether it could be
| pressed into a form to make a bicycle frame to get away from the
| complicated process of laying carbon layers or the heavy weight
| of steel. But yeah, replacing plastic throw away utensils should
| be a priority for a material like that.
| inside65 wrote:
| Didn't the kiwamijapan youtube guy figure out how to do this
| years ago? Really even then, it's not a new concept. Inmates in
| prisons turn toilet paper into daggers and I'm sure there are
| antiquities of sharp objects made from wood and other materials.
| I don't really understand the significance or newsworthiness of
| this.
| binarymax wrote:
| This is awesome especially since I make wooden knives!
| Specifically out of sugar maple, since they're nice and hard. I
| make them to look like steak knives as a joke, but they work
| great on cheese, butter, and steamed vegetables.
|
| If you ever want to get into woodworking you can pick up a
| bandsaw for a couple hundred bucks and they're a great first
| project.
| themdonuts wrote:
| Do you have a picture of that? Curious to see how it looks
| like.
| binarymax wrote:
| Funny enough I don't have a recent photo, but here's some
| early experimentation on style from 2.5 years ago. https://mo
| bile.twitter.com/binarymax/status/1452324029843529...
|
| Nowadays they look most like the ones on the right but are
| better refined and are serrated. The two left are pine
| (smells great but are soft), and the two right are maple.
| h2odragon wrote:
| May i suggest you find a bit of Cocobolo to play with? Awesome
| stuff. Also recovered barnwood white oak, if you can work it.
| It's like ceramic.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocobolo
| Tistron wrote:
| Fun days for airport security :)
|
| How do they handle people bringing caramic knifes today? Would
| wooden knives display clearly on their scanners?
| [deleted]
| vegardx wrote:
| Most ceramic knives have some metal in them for this reason.
| ksec wrote:
| Didn't know that. I wonder how if it would be the same for
| Wood knives as well.
| laurent92 wrote:
| Haven't they moved from Xray, which shows the difference
| between atoms thanks to wavelength, to ultrasounds, which
| show sharp edges and thus is suitable for anything iron,
| plastic or wood as long as it's sharp?
| salawat wrote:
| I'd imagine that would drive the chemical sniffing/bomb
| dogs absolutely insane.
| batch12 wrote:
| You can already bring scissors on a plane with 4 inch blades.
| That's two knives.
| nephanth wrote:
| Can you? I've had to leave my scissors at security at least
| once. It was in France though
| batch12 wrote:
| Was speaking for the US, sorry.
|
| https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-
| screening/whatcanibring/...
|
| > If packed in carry-on, they must be less than 4 inches
| from the pivot point
| reayn wrote:
| A scissor can't really compare to a proper forged and heat
| treated knife, and for the purpose of using a seemingly
| everyday object for a more malicious purpose there are better
| things imo.
| [deleted]
| falcolas wrote:
| Scissors are absolutely heat treated, and the best will
| have razor sharp edges. Many brands also forge them.
| batch12 wrote:
| Neither does a box-cutter compare to a properly forged and
| heat-treated knife. But for fun, forged, Damascus steel
| scissors are a thing.
| cogman10 wrote:
| Yeah, airport security is nothing but security theater. I
| wish we could eliminate it.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| There's a real need for security though, so while I would
| love to make it better (... by removing the theatre
| elements) that doesn't mean no security. We have lots of
| things that we know work but lack various wills to do so,
| ranging from the easy like "don't let anyone other than
| ticketed travellers anywhere near the terminal" to the
| crazy-sounding like "make flying 10x or 100x time more
| expensive".
| fiddlerwoaroof wrote:
| > There's a real need for security though
|
| I suspect this is overstated: preventing access to the
| cockpit from the passenger cabin solves a lot of the
| issues here: if a hijacker can't use the plane as a
| cruise missile, the need for security is about equivalent
| to attacks on metros or passenger trains.
| cogman10 wrote:
| > There's a real need for security though.
|
| Why?
|
| Do we need this level of security at a bus station or a
| train station? No? Why?
|
| Because planes can be flown into things? Lock the cabin
| door.
|
| Because there's lots of people on planes? Well, there's
| lots of people on trains, buses, or in random offices and
| hotels. Why are the plane people special? What about
| giant conventions or events?
|
| We have all this security because of 9/11, but only 1
| security measure (locking cabin doors) was needed to stop
| the next 9/11.
| batch12 wrote:
| But then who could I get to look at me naked while I do the
| YMCA?
| nephanth wrote:
| Theater can act as a deterrent though
| cogman10 wrote:
| Only so long as it isn't known to be theater.
|
| Consider, for example, the fact that there is now "pre-
| clearance". Or the fact that they no longer make people
| take off their shoes.
|
| Is there not still a risk of a shoe bomber? Couldn't a
| terrorist get on the pre-clearance list?
| thrwyoilarticle wrote:
| They barely deal with the people bringing metal guns.
|
| https://abcnews.go.com/US/exclusive-undercover-dhs-tests-fin...
| dafelst wrote:
| Getting knives past airport security seems not particularly
| difficult from the experience of my circle and other anecdotal
| sources. I've had friends and family accidentally get knives
| through security on many occasions, and I have also
| accidentally done it myself. To my knowledge none of them has
| ever been caught in the converse situation and had to give up a
| knife.
|
| I imagine if one were resourceful and deliberate about it, it
| would be even more successful.
| rscho wrote:
| I've had TSA confiscate my mini swiss knife (1 inch blade)...
| #-/
| TheDudeMan wrote:
| I've had to give up a knife on two occasions.
| hlehmann wrote:
| Back in my scout leader days we would buy Swiss Army knives
| by the bucketful at TSA auctions and give them to scouts as
| goodies after jamborees & what not. I swear the TSA must
| confiscate a thousand a day.
| csee wrote:
| This would be great for ML. A knife detection algorithm that
| alerts the officer when it thinks it spots one when the bags
| go in the scanner.
| nickpeterson wrote:
| It wouldn't be a hacker news post if ML didn't
| theoretically solve a problem.
| csee wrote:
| I was going to put a disclaimer because of the risk of
| sounding cliche/ironic/sarcastic, but figured it was a
| legitimately good idea so I decided to spare people.
| Shared404 wrote:
| Except then you get delayed because the model decides you
| have a knife and "the computer can't be wrong".
| csee wrote:
| They search people randomly anyway, and they search
| people if the human operator thinks they see something
| suspicious. If we can keep the number of searches
| constant and just increase the probability of finding a
| knife, it's a win for everyone.
|
| It's obviously not a win if there's too many false
| positives, but it's worth a try.
| gameman144 wrote:
| Is it a win for everyone though?
|
| If we have X cases where people brought knives onto
| planes, and no notable incidents of knife-enabled
| violence in the past few years, what's the motivation for
| reducing X by half?
|
| I'm sure that _some_ would-be-criminals are dissuaded by
| the TSA, but that seems to already be working today. It
| seems like a very reasonable outcome would be no decrease
| in airline violence /crime, but an increase in taking
| people's property.
|
| All said, if there _is_ still a scourge of knife-wielding
| criminals on airlines, I 'd be happy to be wrong here.
| Otherwise, though, this seems like it have a very
| marginally negative impact on the average passenger by
| taking away their belongings that they accidentally
| packed.
| csee wrote:
| Great point! Although I'd think P(knife
| hijacking)*Cost(knife hijacking) would be much much
| larger than the cost of knives being confiscated, even if
| P(knife hijacking) is very small, just given how cheap
| knives are and how big that Cost is. I think the bigger
| point is how much the software would cost and whether the
| reduction in X justifies that expenditure. Also need to
| consider cost savings of being able to fire some TSA
| staff. That reduces the theatre aspect perhaps, but maybe
| not if it's done the right way (I can think of a few
| ideas)
| Shared404 wrote:
| The scenario I see:
|
| Joe McRandom is heading through TSA, and is falsely
| flagged as having a knife by this software.
|
| Because the computer _ _can 't__ be wrong - a
| depressingly common view among anyone who doesn't work
| with computers regularly - the TSA agent flags our friend
| Joe. Joe's entire luggage is then unpacked, in front of
| everyone present - hope he didn't have anything sensitive
| in there!
|
| When he inevitably does not have a knife in his luggage,
| the TSA agent spends way too much time searching for the
| secret compartment, as well as digging through all the
| stuff. When there is _still_ no knife to be found, Joe is
| taken into custody - we've already seen that airport
| security can be trusted to abuse their power - causing
| Joe to miss his flight, be psychologically damaged (I'd
| be pretty shook up after that degree of search and
| detainment), and possibly lose his luggage (better hope
| the TSA did a good job keeping track of it, and decides
| you deserver to have it)!
|
| Is this situation likely, strictly speaking? Over the
| massive number of TSA agents working and travel being
| done, I would say yes. All of the negative effects of the
| TSA mentioned above already happen, a system like this
| just makes it more likely to be occur for no real reason.
|
| Also, while the average knife may not be expensive, some
| are. On top of that, many who carry knives form emotional
| attachments to them, so even if there's no "real" damage
| being done, there is some amount of harm being done in a
| much harder to quantify way.
| Ansil849 wrote:
| > Getting knives past airport security seems not particularly
| difficult from the experience of my circle and other
| anecdotal sources. I've had friends and family accidentally
| get knives through security on many occasions, and I have
| also accidentally done it myself. To my knowledge none of
| them has ever been caught in the converse situation and had
| to give up a knife.
|
| May I ask what your race, and the race of your circle, is?
| dafelst wrote:
| I am white but with black (and now slightly grey) hair and
| a beard with tan-ish skin. More pertinent to your
| implication I assume is that my middle name is of Muslim
| descent and can pass for being of middle-eastern descent,
| and I seem to get stopped for "random" checks and patdowns
| more frequently than my white-bread looking friends and
| colleagues. Observation bias perhaps on my part, but also
| maybe not.
| lowkey_ wrote:
| Are you suggesting that metal detectors are racially
| biased?
| Ansil849 wrote:
| No. I am suggesting that the discretion of airport
| security staff about whom to pay closer attention to is.
| And my suggestion is known as 'profiling'.
| lowkey_ wrote:
| Generally, once you get through the metal detector, the
| knife that was accidentally smuggled through won't be
| found by a simple body search, if that's your
| inclination?
|
| This happened to my friend (not White if that's so
| important to you) when an old pocket knife had gotten
| stuck beneath the bottom of her handbag. They kept
| running it through the detector, took everything out of
| it to check, couldn't find the source, and so eventually
| let her go.
| jackcviers3 wrote:
| I've accidentally gotten multi-tools through the body
| scanner before. I just forgot I had it in my pocket.
| implements wrote:
| Ceramic knives sold to the general public are supposed to
| have a metal core to make them detectable.
|
| All ceramics are available for people (police, military) who
| need a hard to detect self-defence knife, eg:
|
| https://gearward.com/products/ceramic-escape-knife
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| Ceramic knives seem quite fragile in the kitchen, I am
| skeptical they have a lot of potential as weapons, as even
| small amounts of twisting/shearing force will crack or snap
| them.
| salawat wrote:
| People should be terrified that the "undetectables" are
| reserved only for the "authorities".
| samstave wrote:
| I think it would be interesting to use the process for the
| extremely high tolerance-cut-metal blocks, where the items in
| the block are such tight tolerances that when inserted, you
| cant see them.
|
| Then - cut all the items you want into the hunk/hunks of metal
| such that you can pop them out in-flight and assemble your
| mechanisms of chaos...
|
| You can just have non-descript blocks in a case and say they
| are for scientific experiments but they look like un-machined
| pieces in the case. heck - even have a clear lid on the case
| with labels of different 'alloy make-ups' to make it look more
| like a metallurgical kit...
| salawat wrote:
| Please don't give them ideas. It's hard enough getting one's
| hands on scientific materials as is.
| infogulch wrote:
| Is airport security not totally overblown theater already? Why
| encourage it?
| irotinfkforktng wrote:
| They don't usually catch metal knives, much less ceramic ones.
|
| I used to (post-9/11, pre-pandemic) frequently fly with bags
| that get used daily, and I often forgot about fairly large
| flip-blades rolling around in the bottom.
|
| Several times, I had to surrender them to the TSA before a
| return flight, but usually I'd find them when I got back, and
| they never caught one on the first try IME.
|
| So your odds of getting a big metal knife through are likely
| better than 50/50, and there didn't seem to be any penalty for
| getting caught. Why bother with fancy materials?
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| Cutting cooked meat seems like about the worst possible
| demonstration they could have come up with because we already
| have disposable wood cutlery able to easily cut meat that you can
| readily buy by the hundreds at Target/Walmart/Amazon. The
| standard food demonstration for sharpness is slicing ripe
| tomatoes, and demonstrating toughness needs an uncooked winter
| squash.
|
| > _" Surprisingly, our wooden knife is actually three times
| sharper than the typical stainless steel dinner table knife,"_
|
| The typical stainless steel dinner table knife is slightly
| serrated, which means it doesn't need to be sharp to work well.
| Being sharper than something that doesn't need to be sharp to
| function properly is a very dumb comparison.
|
| Sharpness also has no relation to durability except possibly in
| the inverse. A typical steel dinner table knife will keep doing
| its job for decades and thousands of wash cycles without any
| maintenance. Meanwhile there's a great youtube channel where a
| guy makes razor sharp chef's knives out of random fragile
| materials like jello.
| agumonkey wrote:
| Just reminds me that paper moved fast enough can probably
| already cut meat
| danarmak wrote:
| I got a papercut and I'm made out of meat!
| agumonkey wrote:
| don't try this at home
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYfkhdKcEiE
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| That's amazing. I'm impressed by the ingenuity of people
| making videos like this.
| whyenot wrote:
| They also created hardened wooden nails and hammered them into
| wooden planks. That seems like a better example.
| netcan wrote:
| Not an example of the same thing, really.
|
| Nails don't need to be that hard. They're typically made from
| thin mild steel. If it's hard enough to be used as cutlery,
| demo it like every knife gets demoed. Slice up some tomatoes,
| chop roots, and see how it holds and edge. If it can still
| cut 2m slices, it's functional kitchen knife.
|
| You can cut a steak with the disposable softwood knives we
| already have.
| a1369209993 wrote:
| > Meanwhile there's a great youtube channel where a guy makes
| razor sharp chef's knives out of random fragile materials like
| jello.
|
| Do you have a link? Search isn't producing anything useful for
| me. (Particularly to the jello video, but I can't find the
| channel either.)
| davesque wrote:
| It may just be incidental or irrelevant, but I find the video of
| the steak cutting to be incredibly unconvincing. It looked like
| they just pushed apart a piece of well cooked meat like you could
| do with a spoon and slow cooked pork.
| mikro2nd wrote:
| Lovely idea. I would like to see a comparison of the energy
| requirement for hardening wood this way vs. making steel. Would
| give a better sense of whether this is a technology worth
| pursuing as one path toward decarbonising the future.
| excalibur wrote:
| Also what chemicals are used, where do those come from, how
| sustainable are they, are there adverse environmental impacts
| in their production
| ls15 wrote:
| Pyridine and DMSO seem to be the best solvents for lignin.
|
| https://bioresources.cnr.ncsu.edu/resources/solubility-of-
| li...
|
| DMSO is a by-product of cellulose production.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimethyl_sulfoxide#Synthesis_a.
| ..
| napier wrote:
| To dissolve lignin? I haven't read the paper yet but doubt
| it's anything terrible or too exotic. Probably a recipe based
| around sodium hydroxide (NaOH).
| pstuart wrote:
| If this is the same bit that's hit this page just recently,
| the chemicals used were sodium hydroxide and sodium sulfite
| (to remove the lignin) and then food grade oil to seal it.
| jackcviers3 wrote:
| So you can do this at home with a hydraulic press and a
| torch then? Would be kind of fun.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| Even if it were to take more energy it might still be a win
| since it would effectively lock up the carbon in a (basically)
| non-decomposing form. You'd have to look at the net emissions
| taking into account the amount of carbon dioxide that would
| have been released as that piece of wood decomposed (or you can
| look at it from the perspective of the CO2 removed from the
| atmosphere by that wood).
| mdpye wrote:
| Careful. Plastics lock up carbon in "basically non-
| decomposable form" and that is proving problematic. And the
| problem isn't that we mined the carbon.
|
| Death (decomposition) is a critical part of the circle of
| life...
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| From an emissions perspective, the problem with plastics is
| that they lock up a tiny portion of the CO2 that was
| previously locked up as petroleum (the remainder is
| released into the atmosphere as byproduct).
|
| If we had "mined" plastic directly out of the ground, it
| would be fine to use (again from an emissions perspective),
| though not a net win since it would have already been
| "locked up" whereas wood only temporarily locks up
| hydrocarbons until it is cut down, used, and then
| ultimately decomposed. This would break that cycle.
|
| From a _non_ -emissions perspective, wood doesn't have the
| same "microplastics" problem (although who knows what this
| bastardized wood might end up having).
| marcinzm wrote:
| I'd like to see specific comparisons in physical properties
| versus steel and specifically which steel they are comparing
| to. Including in physical dimensions since their nail seems
| fairly thick. Steel is, as I understand it, hundreds of
| different variants each with their own physical properties.
|
| For example, they say 23 times harder in the article than
| regular wood. Wood has a Brinell scale of up to 7 although most
| is less. Times 23 that comes out to 161. Mild steel is 120.
| However hardened tool steel is 900.
| klyrs wrote:
| It's safe to assume that they're comparing to mild steel,
| which nails and table knives are made from. That said, I'm
| amused by the thought of a hardened tool steel nail... make
| sure you wear safety glasses and gloves, because when that
| shatters, the shards will be sharp and speedy. Here's hoping
| it's the nail, and not your hammer.
| mdpye wrote:
| I had some questions about that too. It looks cool, to be
| sure, but I watched the video of the nail being hammered
| through some boards, and... let's just say I'm not so timid
| with steel nails!
|
| For what they were showing, if you were going for "equivalent
| to steel", I'd expect to see a tap to secure the nail and
| then probably only two strokes to sink it. They tap it a
| hundred times, which begs the question of what would happen
| if you actually hit it.
|
| Strength comes in many dimensions.
| marcinzm wrote:
| I was thinking "how would this do if fired from a nail gun"
| since as I understand it most commercial work is not done
| by hand nowadays anyways.
| ars wrote:
| Already exists: https://www.beck-lignoloc.com/en
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| dupe
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28945312
| tgorgolione wrote:
| I've seen this pop up on HN before. And I just read another
| article on HN about how Bamboo lumber is made and found an
| interesting intersection. In that article, during the first few
| months of their growth, Bamboo gets to their final height, then
| they start to, as the article says, "lignify" for several years.
| Would that mean that Bamboo has much less lignin in the
| beginning, and would that also make young Bamboo shoots a
| possible way to get cellulose without as much chemicals?
| rhplus wrote:
| > _three times sharper than the typical stainless steel dinner
| table knife_
|
| The video shows pretty mediocre cutting, but perhaps that's on
| par with a "typical table knife". There's a good reason
| restaurants will give you a steak knife, alongside a table knife,
| for red meat.
| mberning wrote:
| It did't even cut the steak. It assisted in tearing it apart.
| chmod775 wrote:
| Yeah. My first thought was that I could've "cut" it just as
| well using my elbow.
| mberning wrote:
| The video of them cutting the steak with the wooden knife shows
| extremely poor performance. The steak was torn apart more so than
| sliced. There is no way the knife in the video is "three times
| sharper" than a typical stainless steel kitchen knife as claimed.
| nephanth wrote:
| Unless the median knife happens to be a butter knife
| rhplus wrote:
| If I've learned anything from infomercials, the demo video
| shouldn't be steak, but a mushy tomato.
| Kagetora85 wrote:
| Dope.
| NoImmatureAdHom wrote:
| I would love to know what percentage of this material by mass is
| petrochemical-based resins.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Disrupting the metal detector industry?
| neom wrote:
| I'd like to see that steak video with a serrated version of the
| knife.
|
| Edit: I decided to do some research on if a serrated edge blade
| would in fact be better, leading me to a strange but interesting
| video of some Dutchmen unscientifically testing:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAzrz0nC9-M (tl;dw, serrated
| seems it would be better for steak)
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| This sounds straight out of a solarpunk scifi story. Beautiful.
| rob_c wrote:
| Its a shame it's not going to be any more real though. Whilst
| interesting work if it can be applied elsewhere and with fast
| growing plants, but it's a bit hyped up based on current
| limited results.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Also, the process to make a steel knife isn't really bad. If
| we were talking about how to make carbon fiber from wood,
| that would be cool, composites are really dirty to make and
| do not recycle.
|
| So, cool, but the best use I've considered for a wood knife
| is getting through X-ray, but now you are back to composites
| being an option.
|
| The market for green circumvention of security measures is
| probably very small.
| varenc wrote:
| discussion from 3 days ago:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28945312
| lgrialn wrote:
| The nature of attention and publicity is sad. Of all the things
| you could do with very hard wood, we lead with knives because
| knives can threaten us, and therefore attention.
| asah wrote:
| what's with the videos? baby hits on the wooden "nails" ? the
| steak knife is pulling apart the meat and not cutting it ?
| dan353hehe wrote:
| I had a good laugh from the nail video a few days ago. I
| imagined a house being built from these nails where all the
| carpenters spent 10 minutes hammering each individual nail into
| a couple of two by fours. I thinks is probably not as malleable
| as steel so it can shatter if hit too hard.
| varelse wrote:
| When I was a kid I used to launch Estes rockets. They came with
| mostly balsa wood fins that would frequently break on landing.
| The balsa wood also absorbed paint unless you hit it with a clear
| coat first. This for some reason gave me the idea of rubbing
| Elmer's glue on to it, letting it dry, then sanding it and then
| painting it. Not only did it paint easily but I never lost a
| single fin again. The closest I came to that was when a fin
| ripped itself off the cardboard tube of the rocket rather than
| break.
| philips wrote:
| Thanks for this tip! My daughter recently got into model
| rockets and it seemed to me that untreated balsa wood was
| unlikely to last more than a few launches.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I love tips like this. It's one reason why I watch those TV
| shows like "Detroit Muscle". They're full of things like that
| that make working on cars so much easier and more effective.
|
| For example, the usual method for replacing the gasket in an
| automatic transmission, which is on the bottom of the car, is
| to remove the transmission. This is because it is impossible to
| hold all the balls and springs in place to put the cover on
| while it is upside down. The trick shown is to use a bit of
| vaseline to "glue" the parts in place. The vaseline will
| dissolve in the trans fluid and won't affect it. Voila! You
| save a lot of time.
| pivo wrote:
| I remember reading something similar for the pins in an MG
| (or Triumph? not sure anymore) manual transmission. In this
| case the suggestion was to use peanut butter to hold the pins
| in.
| WalterBright wrote:
| One trick I discovered myself. When working on the car,
| your hands get very greasy dirty. It's impossible to wash
| it all off, it just has to wear off after a couple days.
|
| The trick is to rub your hands with Vaseline Lotion
| beforehand. Then the car dirt will wash right off.
| CrazyCatDog wrote:
| Then you! I used to stick to the alpha 3 as a kid because of
| the plastic tri-fin base, now I'm looking at you Big Bertha
| version n!
| themodelplumber wrote:
| I've noticed that steel in knives can easily be described as a
| waste. Cutting into food and opening packages doesn't generally
| need to require steel, for one.
|
| There is always going to be the emergency/contingency psychology
| calling for quality steel in every knife to "save your life
| someday" but TBH it's a relief that customers themselves get to
| decide exactly what that could mean to them...otherwise the
| raging debate would probably mean even more prepper content
| invading innocent hobbyist videos.
|
| I look forward to the coming cutting-materials range expansion. I
| would even look at a non-metal SAK for working people, if just as
| a recognition of human creativity...
| Enginerrrd wrote:
| I'm no fan of prepper content, but as an engineer, this
| criticism seems really weird and misguided to me. There's a
| reason we use steel in tools and knives. It's very difficult to
| find a material that can match the properties of steel. Having
| good edge-keeping while still maintaining toughness and
| avoiding brittle failure is REALLY hard.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| This is conflating people who want or need to use steel with
| those who don't. Look at the JunkFoodTasterDotCom YouTube
| channel for example. He always cuts stuff. He uses a plastic
| knife. He's not an engineer.
|
| That is more to my point: Steel isn't needed in a surprising
| number of knife use cases. I'm not surprised that an engineer
| wants to speak on behalf of steel and its properties. But
| that probably won't stop product designers from noticing a
| huge and tantalizing materials gap, around redefining what
| makes a knife useful to a consumer.
| convolvatron wrote:
| what?
|
| steel works well. its really cheap - both in economic and
| physical terms. it recycles perfectly, and if you do leave
| it in the ground on the water, its not going to harm
| anything. lasts a really long time, more with care.
|
| seems like a really great design fit. Maybe there are
| better opportunities elsewhere?
| themodelplumber wrote:
| I mean if you really want to defend steel, celebrate it,
| be my guest. But materials research and design for
| product development is a really cool area of focus and
| quite a different direction from what you are talking
| about. Especially in that we just don't know--it's not
| about the past, it's about the future. I hope to see it
| more with things like knives and tools.
| leetcrew wrote:
| can you give an example of a material you would prefer
| over steel and why?
| themodelplumber wrote:
| Hm... I don't think you're reading closely. The point is
| not whether I already know (IOW the properties of my
| subjective past are not needed). The point is that there
| are definitely possible future outcomes that I do not
| know. Can you see why that might be helpful in thinking
| about the future of technology?
| generalizations wrote:
| > "Surprisingly, our wooden knife is actually three times sharper
| than the typical stainless steel dinner table knife," he said.
| "It can achieve its purpose of cutting medium well-done steak
| very nicely without breaking."
|
| Cool stuff, but that's not very sharp. Still a long way to go?
| Redoubts wrote:
| Dunno, sounds great for everything but a kitchen knife.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| plus we should be eliminating well-done steak from the world,
| not providing more ways to cut it!
| gibsonf1 wrote:
| I think they referenced medium-rare steak, not well done,
| which is quite useful to cut before eating.
| lowkey_ wrote:
| The above comment referenced medium-well, which is close to
| well-done and far from medium-rare.
| cronix wrote:
| > "So the second step is that we apply pressure. We also increase
| the temperature. The purpose of that is to really densify the
| natural wood and also remove the water, reducing its thickness to
| around 20 per cent of the original natural wood."
|
| Very interesting. One question I'd have is what happens when the
| hardened wood is exposed to moisture over a long period of time?
| Humid climates? Does it reabsorb water which would take away from
| the hardness? The article did mention it could "survive a
| dishwasher" but doesn't clarify what that actually means. What
| happens over time when you use it as a nail if the wood you're
| nailing it into is moist?
| RhysU wrote:
| > WATCH A wooden nail is hammered through three boards.
|
| Having just spent the morning driving nails with a 10-year-old,
| it pained me to watch this adult use a hammer.
| greenail wrote:
| this reminds me of "Ya Dao De Bu Shen Zhe noJi mi!" or "kiwami
| japan" youtube channel. I also wonder if this channel was the
| inspiration for "howtobasic"
| mberning wrote:
| They probably should have consulted that guy. He has made quite
| a few wooden and cardboard knives that are significantly
| sharper that what was shown.
| greenail wrote:
| Yup! There is something hypnotic about the videos. The titles
| also help... "Sharpest Aluminum Foil knife in the world"
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