Cutting system wear is essentially “dullness” of the cutting system.  If the system is not kept sharp, the quality of the material being cut suffers, throughput is reduced, more energy is needed to operate the system, more heat is generated, etc.

In general, the harder the cutting edge, the longer it will remain sharp.  Unfortunately, similarly the harder the edge the more brittle and susceptible it is to breakage.  Therefore, in many of Lund’s products the cutting edge is selectively hardened, while the body of the part is maintained at a lower, tougher, more ductile state.

Lund pioneered the use of tungsten carbide hard coatings on its knives more than thirty years ago. The application of a thin coating of tungsten carbide to a knife edge established two levels of hardness on the working part of the knife. The tungsten carbide is even harder than the hardened edge of the steel. This differential in hardness creates a subsystem on the knife that causes the knife to actually wear itself sharp. That is, the hardened edge of the underlying steel wears slightly faster than the harder tungsten carbide coating, thus maintaining a sharp edge. This results in Lund's well-known "WEAR SHARP" edges.

Keep in mind, however, that the thinner the tungsten carbide coating, the sharper the edge remains.  In other words, it can never gat sharper than the thickness of the hard facing material.  Unlike its competitors, Lund’s approach to tungsten carbide edge treatments is to use very small tungsten carbide particles that can be closely packed in a relatively thin coating, as compared to large chunks in a thick coating (Large chunks also suffer from their susceptibility to be dislodged by impact, thereby leaving a large, wear inducing void).