High hardness, corrosion resistant PM Nitinol implements and components

1. A manufacturing method for making components, comprising:

providing at least one of a prealloyed powder of a composition of Ni—Ti in the range of Ni-36Ti to Ni-45Ti or a mix of powders that forms a composition of Ni—Ti in the range of Ni-36Ti to Ni-45Ti;

loading at least one of the prealloyed powder or the mix of powders into a container;

hot isostatically pressing (HIP) the container to full density to obtain a compact;

rolling the compact in a mill above 1200° F. to avoid cracking with multiple passes to produce a sheet or other mill form material;

cutting blanks for the components from the sheet material to produce a component blank,

heat treating the component blank to achieve a low hardness HRC(27-35) for optimal finishing operations,

conducting finishing metal forming and removal or grinding operations on the component blank in the low hardness condition; and

heat treating a finished component blank to high hardness HRC(45-65) for fine finishing for edge retention and/or durability.

2. The manufacturing method of claim 1 , wherein the mix of powders is a mix of nickel and titanium constitutive elemental powders that forms a composition of Ni—Ti in the range of Ni-36Ti to Ni-45Ti.

3. The manufacturing method of claim 1 , wherein the container is manufactured from low carbon steel.

4. The manufacturing method of claim 1 , wherein the container has one of a rectangular shape and a round shape.

5. The manufacturing method of claim 1 , wherein pressures produced during the hot isostatically pressing (HIP) are between about 10,000 psi and about 30,000 psi.

6. The manufacturing method of claim 1 , wherein a temperature during the hot isostatically pressing (HIP) ranges from about 1600° F. to about 2000° F.

7. The manufacturing method of claim 1 , further comprising encasing the compact in an insulating medium after the hot isostatically pressing (HIP).

8. The manufacturing method of claim 1 , further comprising flattening the sheet material to produce flattened sheet material.

9. The manufacturing method of claim 8 , wherein the flattening is performed by reheating the sheet material and processing the sheet material in flattening equipment.

10. The manufacturing method of claim 8 , further comprising annealing the flattened sheet material.

11. The manufacturing method of claim 1 , wherein the cutting is performed by water jet, laser cutting, electronic discharge machining (EDM), or any combination thereof.

12. The manufacturing method of claim 1 , further comprising grinding a profile into the component blank.

13. The manufacturing method of claim 12 , wherein the grinding is performed using fast speed and relatively shallow pass depths while flushing the component blank with coolant.

14. The manufacturing method of claim 1 , wherein the component is a knife.

15. The manufacturing method of claim 1 wherein the prealloyed powder composition contains up to 5% of other alloy elements.