We made a sketch for the weight clamp that will carry the mass block on the end of the blades. This will be done in Solidwork tomorrow.

   We plan  to load a block of mass under the tip of the blade by using a pair of knife edge pieces so that the rubbing between the mass block and the blade is minimized.

 The edge of the blade cannot be too large, or it will be noisy when the blade is driven. On the other hands, if the blade angle is too small (sharper blade), the stress on the blade due to the weight will be too large and cause plastic deformation on the blade, which we don't want. We plan to make it flat ~ 1mm wide, with 120degree open angle.

 The yield tensile strength of maraging steel is ~ 1 -2 GPa. With the contact area at the knife edge we can calculate the maximum clamping force.

The width of the edge is ~ 5cm

The thickness of the edge ~ 1mm.

so the maximum force should not exceed ~ 1 GPa x 0.05 m x 0.001 m ~10^4 newton.

We will use spring washers to make sure that we do not tighten the clamps together with too much force and cause plastic deformation on the blade.