When investing in industrial blades for your business, you need to partner with the best manufacturer possible. Industrial knife manufacturing isn’t a simple line of work. It requires extensive engineering experience across a range of materials, industries and applications to identify the correct blade for any given need.
You want to choose an industrial knife manufacturer that can produce a flawless and precise industrial machine knife for your application. York Saw & Knife has the expertise to meet all of your industrial knife manufacturing needs and assist you throughout the process.
11 Qualities to Look for in an Industrial Blade Manufacturer
Whether you’re an OEM or an end-user of industrial machine knives, you have many national and international blade manufacturers to choose from. When looking for the right industrial knife manufacturer, here are the top 11 qualities to look for:
1. Blade Materials
For a wise investment that will yield long-term return, choose blades that are constructed with the most durable, high-quality materials. There are different ideal blade materials depending on the application. But all blades need to be manufactured from materials that address two main characteristics — hardness and toughness.
Hardness is the blade material’s density, and it’s measured on the Rockwell Scale. Blade materials also need to be tough, meaning how well they stand up to erosion and abrasion over time. The two ratings are inversely related — the denser a blade material is, the more brittle or less tough it is. Finding a blade manufacturer that can strike that balance between hardness and toughness is one of the most important factors to look for.
York Saw & Knife produces expertly engineered blades that achieve the ideal ratio of hardness to toughness. Here are some of the proven blade materials we work with to produce the correct industrial machine knife for your needs:
- High-carbon
- Stainless steel
- Solid carbide
- Ceramic
- 52100 high-carbon chromium alloy steel
- M-2 molybdenum high-speed steel
- D-2 air-hardening high-carbon, high-chromium tool steel
- CPM 10V high-vanadium tool steel
Learn more about our blade manufacturing process and how York Saw & Knife can produce or replicate the ideal blade material for your business.
2. Blade Types
When choosing an industrial knife manufacturer, they should provide the correct blade profile for your application, including specialty knife designs. Using the correct type of blade for the job is imperative to maintaining high productivity and reducing downtime.
Here are some of the different blade profiles that York Saw & Knife provides:
- Circular knives: One of the most common industrial blades used in many industries from textile to food processing
- Cutoff knives: Toothed blades designed to cut cleanly through a range of materials from foam to foils
- Straight knives: Straight-edge blades that provide a clean cut, score or slice within food processing or manufacturing applications
- Tray knives: Specialty knives that provide high-precision and efficiency customized to your needs
- Slitter knives: Beveled blades that have either a straight edge or teeth for making precision slits in paper or plastic products
- Guillotine knives: Cutoff knives used in repetitive swing-style processing and manufacturing operations
- Perforating knives: Specialty knives that puncture materials against a backing and perform repeated cuts for a set length
3. Blade Configurations
Knowing the type of blade and blade material you need is only one aspect of choosing a manufacturer. You also need a manufacturer that designs their blades with various configurations to give them an advantage over other knife designs. Knives can be designed with a variety of different edge geometries, whether they’re straight, beveled, toothed or a combination of such.
York Saw & Knife blades can be designed with a wide variety of configurations, including:
- Square edge
- Bevel edge single, double, blunt or sharp
- Double sharp or blunt
- Double single blunt or sharp
- Double double blunt or sharp
- Toothed edge with a standard V, vari depth V or hi/low V
When selecting the right blade for your application, our sales engineers can help you identify the right configuration for your needs.
4. Custom Blade Designs
Your industrial blade manufacturer should also be able to produce a custom knife design that meets your exact specifications. Having an in-house team of qualified design engineers and experienced machinists allows a manufacturer to produce the perfect blade for your needs.
At York Saw & Knife, customers needing custom blade designs will work with their dedicated engineering team to manufacture the best industrial blades for you. Our team can even reverse engineer a custom blade from an existing sample. By performing materials research and conducting engineering tests, we can determine which type of material your blade is made from, which allows our team to build you an exact replica.
Having an engineering design team you can trust is critical when finding the right industrial blade manufacturer to partner with.
5. Quality Assurance
It’s not just the product selection customers need to be concerned with when choosing an industrial knife manufacturer. They also need to consider the company and its processes.
Reputable industrial knife manufacturers have reliable quality assurance processes that guarantee their products’ performance. Quality assurance processes are repeatable systems that manufacturers follow to ensure they produce the highest quality end-product possible. It ensures every product produced adheres to the same standards, which the manufacturer becomes known for.
In industrial knife manufacturing, the quality assurance process is crucial because it ensures that a safe, durable, sharp and productive blade ends up in the customer’s hands every time. As a customer, it’s crucial to look into the manufacturer’s quality assurance process so you can have confidence in the product you’re purchasing.
York Saw & Knife adheres to a robust quality assurance process that ensures high standards of design and manufacturing are met at every stage. Feel free to reach out to our team to learn more about the steps we take to ensure product quality.
6. Precision Manufacturing
A high-quality blade manufacturer needs to rely on a precise manufacturing process to produce the best blade possible. Precision manufacturing uses technologies that make precise, accurate cuts into the metal stock to cut out the blade profile.
At York Saw & Knife, we use two different precision manufacturing processes, depending on the type of blade in question. Those include:
- A water-jet cutting process that uses highly pressurized streams of water up to 50,000 psi — strong enough to slice through the metal and cut out the blade profile.
- A laser-cutting technique that uses amplified light to cut through the metal stock. Rather than physically and directly cutting through the metal or material, a laser beam melts the material at its surface and through its cross-section to make a smooth cut.
Our team will evaluate the tooth geometry, material thickness and other blade factors to determine which manufacturing process is right for a particular product.
7. Diverse Industry Experience
Choosing an industrial blade manufacturer means finding a company with experience producing blades for your industry and application. A reliable blade manufacturer can showcase a variety of custom knives they’ve manufactured over the years for their customers across a range of industries.
York Saw & Knife has been manufacturing industrial blades since 1906, giving us well over a hundred years of diverse industry experience. We are uniquely suited to know the ins and outs of many different industrial applications, understanding the precise blade needs across various applications.
Some of the industries we serve at York Saw & Knife include:
- Leather and textiles
- Rubber and plastic
- Paper and corrugated cardboard
- Woodcutting
- Carpet and brush
- Food processing
- Medical operations
- Packaging
- Metal, manufacturing and converting
No matter the industry, our engineering team has worked with businesses like yours to find the right blade type, material and configuration that will produce the cleanest and most effective cut.
8. American-Made Products
Choosing an American industrial blade manufacturer saves companies time and money and mitigates safety risks, unproductive downtime and quality issues. American manufacturing adheres to higher quality control standards than many businesses overseas that aim to cut costs. Additionally, a more local manufacturer will provide your business with faster lead times and a quicker response to issues if any do arise. American production also shortens the supply chain. A longer supply chain creates greater room for error and delay, which most businesses cannot afford.
When businesses source their blade manufacturing overseas, it requires a significant time investment in conducting the due diligence necessary to select a high-quality brand. Choosing an American manufacturer saves this expense. Businesses in highly regulated industries need to know that the blade quality is guaranteed for safety and hygienic reasons, such as with fruit and vegetable processing, as well.
At York Saw & Knife, we proudly manufacture our blades in-house in the U.S. As one of the oldest industrial knife manufacturers in the country, we have extensive experience producing high-quality, American-made blades that businesses can rely on.
9. Flexible Order Volumes
Every business is unique, with different blade needs at different times. Whether you need a single blade or dozens, you need a manufacturer that can respond flexibly. In many cases, manufacturers require businesses to order a certain minimum amount to fulfill the custom request. On the other hand, some manufacturers cannot offer flexible pricing for high-volume orders. Both of these scenarios can hurt businesses of any size.
York Saw & Knife is proud to offer our customers flexible order volumes. For custom blade manufacturing, there’s no minimum order requirement, meaning you can get the single blade you need without having to order more than necessary. For large businesses needing to place a bulk order of new or replacement blades, we can offer volume pricing for your convenience.
And when a company offers flexible order volumes, they can grow as your business does. Start working with a company like York Saw & Knife to have a reliable partner on your side that can scale with your needs.
10. Fast Turnaround Times
Businesses can’t afford to absorb unproductive downtime in their manufacturing or processing operations. When you require new or replacement blades, you need to rely on a manufacturer that has the expertise and equipment as well as a team that’s available to respond quickly.
York Saw & Knife has an experienced team of engineers that offers 50%-70% faster lead times than other suppliers. The time saved on requesting a new blade order can make a major difference in a business’s ability to streamline its operations. In addition to fast lead times on new products, we also provide same-day shipping on in-stock replacement blades. Our stock includes the most common blade sizes and profiles, meaning you can get the industrial knife you need quickly.
11. Free Test Cutting
Test cutting is a crucial capability for an industrial blade manufacturer to provide businesses in search of the optimal blade. Finding the perfect blade that smoothly cuts a given material requires expertise and experience. When you invest in a new machine knife for your manufacturing or processing operation, you need to make sure it’s the best material, profile and edge configuration for your needs. A test cut allows you to send your sample material to the blade manufacturer so they can select the ideal blade for it.
York Saw & Knife offers free test cutting in-house. Our engineers will test cut or perforate your material sample using our on-site test-cutting equipment. We select the optimum cutting edge for your material based on our years of experience. When we return the test cuts to you, we provide you with a quote for the knife we determined was the ideal one of your material.
Choose York Saw & Knife for Your Industrial Blades
Your choice of industrial knife manufacturer is crucial to your business’s success. You need to find a long-term provider that can deliver high-quality blades quickly and provide excellent customer support throughout the process. If you’re looking for an industrial blade manufacturer to partner with on your next blade order, choose York Saw & Knife.
York Saw & Knife is one of the most experienced and reputable American blade manufacturers. Our team of design engineers prioritizes high-quality blade design and production. We have a proven blade manufacturing process that produces a smooth and sharp finished product every time.
To find out more about our custom industrial machine knives and our manufacturing process, request a quote online or contact us for more details.