DELTA: A New Triangular Blade for Pottery Trimming

Many of you have been asking us to develop a triangular pottery trimming tool.

At first, it seemed like a relatively simple development, but the truth is that we've had to go through quite a few prototypes and improvements over the 16 months since we drew up the first designs.

We initially started with a larger cutting edge, with sides measuring 25 mm instead of the final 20 mm. However, we realised that we already had larger trimming tools capable of performing the same tasks. Moreover, what works well with steel blades doesn't necessarily work the same way with tungsten carbide blades.

That's why we decided to keep refining the geometry until we found a more specialised and balanced design.

The final result was a solid triangular tungsten carbide blade with 20 mm sides. A more compact, refined design that better reflects what we wanted to achieve from the very beginning.

Something interesting happened with the cutting angles: we initially used angles we were already familiar with from our other trimming tools, but we ended up having to adjust them much more than expected, as this was a completely different tool from anything we had developed before.

As for the width of the sharpened bevel, we started with a narrower bevel, as you can see in the black-and-white image. We eventually had to increase it to almost 3 mm, which we believe is the optimal width:

With a narrower bevel, the blade didn't cut as effectively. With a wider one, the cutting edge became too fragile. Remember that tungsten carbide, although considerably harder than conventional steels, is also more brittle and doesn't tolerate impacts well.

Sometimes, designs and geometries that work perfectly well with steel simply don't perform the same way when applied to tungsten carbide tools, so they need to be re-engineered. Otherwise, you could end up with a tool made from a theoretically superior and more expensive material that actually performs worse than one made from a less advanced material.

A Different Cutting Geometry

Unlike conventional loop trimming tools, DELTA features a solid triangular tungsten carbide blade, manufactured from a single piece without the central opening commonly found in many pottery trimming tools.

The result is a tool that combines a different cutting geometry with the properties of tungsten carbide, a material particularly valued for its exceptional wear resistance.

DELTA is now part of our pottery trimming tools collection. We hope you enjoy using it as much as we've enjoyed developing it.