Towards 0.1 Micron Archive - Shill free zone

SP10 VS. cow leg bones. (5 replies)

dingy — Mon, 25 Feb 2019 22:33:31 +0000

Hi , cliff and you all.
recently i bought some cow leg bones for stewing soup , and use my favorite chopper sp10 to slash them into pieces .
this is second time i chopped cow bones with sp10 and get a big wound on the edge.
from the pics , there are coarse grinds has shown on the wound.

i post my pics and Qs in the OKC sbfroum on BF. and what i get as :

Dingy,

Ouch! When chopping into anything with a knife, one has to be careful. Especially if the material is frozen. Material that can be potentially harder than the steel edge (or close to the same hardness) can destroy the edge and beyond. Even so called soft pine/fir wood has knots (filled with calcium carbonates). Kephardt, Kochanski, et al; have expounded on the issues with Juniper/Hemlock knots and destroyed edges on axes and knives.
"Proper tool for the job" is a concept that is usually hard earned. Most butchers would use a band saw to cut thick cow shin bones.
If you do change your mind and want a replacement, you can call or e-mail customer service.
Hope this helps.
Best Regards,

Paul Tsujimoto
V.P. of Engineering
Ontario Knife Company

Toooj is a kind guy , answered my Qs with pacient ,professional.
but what do you think what i did of chopping frozen cow bones with a thick edge knife , is it abuse for a chopper like sp10?
and what do you think the wound , is it normal ?

Blade Coatings... Barf (15 replies)

YESH — Sat, 15 Dec 2018 05:06:56 +0000

So, this has become one of the most nauseating 'features' for me personally that is becoming almost commonplace in the knife community. The argument being that it resists corrosion and is therefore needed on simpler steels, or that it keeps cost down by being a cheap 'finish' to apply. Me personally, I'm not buying into any of this nonsense. For one, any knife will require grinding of the main blade grind in order to preserve the edge geometry so as to retain it's cutting ability and ease of sharpening. This is simply impossible to do on a knife with a coating, unless of course you remove it (which defeats it's own 'purpose' of course). The coating chips/flakes/wears off during heavier use or impacts, which again kinda defeats the point of having a 'rustproof' knife.

These coatings are also often so thick as to significantly hinder cutting ability due to much higher friction in cutting stiffer materials. Not to mention, powder coating is essentially toxic and I don't want it in contact with any foods that I intend to consumer for myself or family. It is also a real pain to remove as it basically requires some pretty nasty chemicals that pretty much require outdoor use and any skin contact will likely result in burns. Not to mention, again, we have the same chemicals on the blade issue present after removing coating since we can't be sure the stripping material has been removed. It has come to the point where I refuse to buy anything with these coatings anymore as I don't want to deal with any of this personally. Friends don't let friends powder coat or cerakote knives... rant off.

Condor Enep and bloody fish pics (6 replies)

Any Cal. — Sun, 07 Aug 2016 18:51:58 +0000

Will add more text later, but short story is that my good fillet knife disappeared, so I tried using my full size Enep. It worked fine, and I learned a bit about traditional tools.

Case Jumbo Stockman (8 replies)

Bugout Bill — Sun, 05 Jun 2016 21:48:11 +0000

The best value knife that case makes:

Carbon steel, main blade slightly over 3 inches, and ground as a pocket knife should be.

The size of the main blade allows for a great deal of work to be done, from the kitchen to the field. For box cutting, the sheepsfoot blade has proven to be quite effective in a retail setting in not terrifying customers. I have not found an effective use for the spey blade.

The build quality is excellent, as was the OOB sharpness. For $50, this is easily competitive with the premium brands like GEC or Queen.

Krein regrind Spyderco Paramilitary 2 in S110V initial thoughts (17 replies)

gunmike1 — Sun, 28 Aug 2016 18:05:45 +0000

This is a long post, I'll leave a TL;DR summary at the bottom.

For the previous 5 years I haven't really bought many new knives, and this year I've decided to hop back in and get a few new ones. I wanted to try a steel that I haven't used before. I decided to try CPM S110V, as I've read a lot of hype about it on the forums, and wanted to see for myself what I think of it. I bought a Spyderco Manix 2 lightweight in S110V, but disliked the ergonomics of the handle and ended up buying a Paramilitary 2 in S110V. This is a very early, mostly first impressions post of that knife.

Here are the specs for the Spyderco Paramilitary 2 in S110V:
Specifications
Blade Length: 3-7/16" (87 mm)
Cutting Edge: 3-5/64" (78 mm)
Blade Thickness: 9/64" (3.5 mm)
Overall Length: 8-9/32" (210 mm)
Closed Length: 4-13/16" (122 mm)
Hole Diameter: 9/16" (14 mm)
Blade Steel: CPM-S110V Stainless Tool Steel
Weight: 3.75 oz. (106 oz.)
Handle Material: Blueish/Purplish G10
Made in Golden, Colorado, USA.

The Paramilitary 2 has a full flat grind with a full distal taper, which makes it a good slicing blade despite its relatively thick stock of 3.5mm. I abhor thick edges on EDC knives, and the factory edge was not overly thick, being .022"-.023" behind the edge, and around 14 degrees per side. It could easily shave arm hairs and had good slicing aggression. Sharp, as is normal, from Spyderco. The geometry isn't bad at all for a factory offering, but with such a hard to grind steel I wanted the edge much thinner for better cutting ability and ease of sharpening. I sent it off to Tom Krein and he thinned it out to .006"-.007" behind the edge, and he sharpened it to around 12-13 degrees per side. It was popping hairs off of my arm, and had both good push cutting sharpness (push cutting newsprint) along with good slicing aggression. In the past Tom told me he uses a worn 120 grit belt, followed by a quick pass on the buffing wheel, and I've found his edges to be among the best I've ever experienced from a factory or custom maker. Looking at the edge under magnification I didn't see a notice any noticeable burr, and it shaved evenly with both sides of the blade. The blade is quite thin towards the tip after the regrind, with its full distal taper producing a needle like tip. It pierces great, but with such a brittle steel I don't think the tip will be forgiving of hitting something hard, or twisting a little bit out of a cut into wood or very thick cardboard without popping a piece off. I plan to be careful with it.

Ergonomics:

The Paramilitary 2 is a good size to me for an EDC blade, as I generally like to carry a knife in the 3"-4" range clipped to my pocket, usually with a Krein regrind ZDP-189 Caly Jr. loose in my other pocket for smaller jobs. For a knife with a 3 7/16" blade along with a 4 13/16" G-10 handle with skeletonized liners, the weight is very good at only 3.75 oz. The S110V Paramilitary 2 has dark blue handles that look like they are purple at times, hence they are called "blurple" by many people online. The G-10 is grippy but not overly aggressive, so to me it is a nice compromise of offering good traction without tearing up your hands or your pocket. The ergonomics are good for my hand, though I'd prefer the hump on the end of the handle was slightly farther back to fit my large hands. I have to bunch my fingers up a little bit so my pinky doesn't ride the hump at the end of the handle. For light cutting though it isn't an issue and feels comfortable enough, with good security due to the shape of the handles and the texture of the G-10. The finger choil is very useful for getting my pinky off of the hump on the handle. The choil allows you to have good control of the blade for more precise cutting by choking up on the handle. The choil is fully jimped in a way that offers good traction without being uncomfortable. The blade has a pronounced thumb ramp with jimping, and this also aids in security during use. The inner edges of the handles could be rounded a bit more, but at least for cutting up a thick double walled cardboard box my hands weren't bothering me as far as hot spots from the handle. The clip is a different story, as it does dig into my hand when using any force. I prefer Spyderco's wire clips to the standard hourglass clip on the Para 2 as they are much more comfortable during use. The blade in this knife is well centered. The blade also moves very smoothly, swings freely when the lock bar is disengaged, and locks up with no noticeable play. The compression lock does have a slight stick when unlocking if you deploy the blade fast, but it isn't to the point where it bothers me as it is just a very slight stick. I'll hope it doesn't get worse with use. Some fast spine taps didn't cause any issues with the lock, so the lock appears to be nice and secure. My other knives with the compression lock include the Superhawk and Super Leaf, and both of those knives have proven to have very reliable locks during my use with them. The compression lock is easy for me to use with one hand, whether it be the left or right hand, and it is much better than a standard liner lock for lefties.

Early use:

I carried it for about a week and a half and used it for opening mail, opening boxes, cutting a couple tags, cutting fruit, and basically just light EDC use. It was still shaving after that week and a half, but it wasn't popping hairs. It isn't like I had used it much however, so it isn't exactly impressive performance as I wouldn't expect any of my other folders in less wear resistant steels to do any worse as far as edge retention during that use. After that first week and a half, a coworker moved to another office, and a double thick cardboard box for a Dell computer was left behind and needed to be recycled. I decided to cut that box into a bunch of little strips and see what happened with the edge. As the cutting progressed it took more and more force to cut, as expected. By the time I cut the box up completely the knife was very dull, not scrape shaving, and not slicing printer paper cleanly. It would tear when starting some of the last cuts into the cardboard. It could slice paper as long as you started out on a little bit of an angle, but it would catch in spots. I didn't measure the footage of cutting, but attached is a picture of the cut up box in the recycle bin.

To me the performance wasn't any better than I would expect out of any of my other folders in lower (than S110V) carbide steels. It certainly didn't stand out as being any better than CPM M4 or ZDP 189 in edge retention. I know many times that I've had to give a knife several sharpenings before being able to see its true performance, as the edges may have been overheated, so I'm not sure if I'm using good steel on this knife yet. Also, without cutting the same cardboard side by side with another knife it is hard to judge the performance, as some cardboard just seems to quickly dull an edge no matter what steel is cutting it. So in the future I'll look to do a side by side cutting test against some of my other folders to get a feel for how this knife performs in comparison.

Sharpening:

I use an Edge Pro to sharpen my knives these days, as I decided to try it out after I had already been established with freehand sharpening a few years back. I can still freehand sharpen, but need to get back in practice with freehanding to get some consistency back when going for fine grit edges, so I just generally stick with the Edge Pro. I was curious how S110V would sharpen up on my Shapton Glasstones, as I really like those stones for almost all steels that I use, short of the finer grits not working great on S90V. Seeing as Spyderco supposedly runs their S110V near 62 RC (per Jim Ankerson's testing thread at Bladeforums), as well as the fact S110V has even more carbides than S90V, I was a bit worried I'd need to use diamonds to get good results. Just knowing this steel's properties I don't plan on bothering to try to put on a super polished edge, though I may experiment with putting Hand American diamond spray on my stones if I do try to polish the edge.

On most Spyderco knives it is hard to sharpen the full edge all the way back to the plunge grind, and the Para 2 is no exception. I used a very small round diamond file to cut a small sharpening notch, which I made slightly bigger than the edge bevel itself. This allowed full sharpening of the edge, and the notch is so small that it doesn't really snag material when cutting. I also destressed the edge by cutting lightly into a fine ceramic stone prior to sharpening.

I have an Atoma 140 for rebevelling, and I put it to the test by cutting in an 11 degree per side edge bevel, slightly narrowing the angle that was already on the knife. The Atoma 140 cut plenty fast, and it didn't take too long to get the new angle cut in. The Edge Pro is a bit of a pain to make sure you get the new bevel all the way to the edge near the tip in my experience, but with the thin geometry on this knife and the fast cutting Atoma 140 it wasn't problem. I destressed the edge after rebevelling it as I had formed a burr in spots from my effort to get the whole edge cut in at the new angle. I then refined the Atoma scratches with the Edge Pro 120 grit stone. The EP 120 grit stone cut okay, and refined the scratches, but dished a fair amount and is prone to gouging. After that I destressed the edge again and used the Glasstone 320 and 500 to refine the edge bevel further. After the 500 I raised the angle up as high as I could on the machine, and make two very light passes to deburr. I went back to my original sharpening angle and got rid of the tiny microbevel I had made, and the edge was popping hairs evenly on both sides of the blade. I then grabbed my Glasstone 16000, and made 8 very light alternating passes at 15 degrees per side to slightly refine the edge and cut off any burr that I may have formed. I read about using this grit combination on the web, and it seemed like a good idea to use it on a mega carbide steel that doesn't like to be polished. The results were pretty good, as the edge will catch hairs above the skin, pop hairs when shaving on the skin, and do a true 90/90/90 push cut on phonebook paper around 1/2" away from the point of hold. This is similar sharpness to the edge that Tom Krein had on the knife when I got it from him. There is still very good slicing aggression in the edge, as the 16000 grit passes didn't come close to removing all of the 500 grit scratches. Under magnification I do see some areas of the edge with microchipping. I'm guessing it's either from large carbide clusters pulling out, or maybe I just haven't reached good steel yet since it's only been sharpened once. I'll keep an eye on that and see how the edge behaves during use and sharpening over time. After sharpening at 11 degrees per side the knife is now .008" behind the edge bevel.

So far I haven't been overly impressed by S110V, but I'll give it some time. The thin edge from the regrind does help to minimize the sharpening time on this extremely hard to grind steel. I'm just not sure I will ever see a big enough gain in edge retention to justify the 25% increased cost over the S30V version of the Paramilitary 2, along with the lower toughness and extreme resistance to grinding you get with S110V. I'd prefer to have this knife in CPM M4, and I will most likely get one of the upcoming Paramilitary 2 Sprint Runs in that steel. In my experience CPM M4 can take a very fine edge at acute angles in comparison to other high carbide steels that I've used, and it isn't overly chip prone compared to steels like S30V and S90V in my EDC cutting.

TL;DR version: I bought a S110V Para 2 and had it reground to .006"-.007". Ergos are good, though my hand is ever so slightly big for the handle. Initial performance was nothing special, certainly not up to the level of hype that I've read. It sharpened pretty easily on Shapton Glasstones in 320 and 500 grit at 11 degrees per side, followed by a few very light 16000 grit microbevel at 15 degrees per side. It has microchipping in a couple spots along the edge, making me wonder if carbide clusters might be pulling out of the edge. I will have to do some side by side cutting with this knife and see how it performs compared to my most used EDC knives.

Bluntcut Pass Around: Various Steels and Comparisons (11 replies)

me2 — Sun, 14 Feb 2016 02:33:11 +0000

[www.bladeforums.com]

A review of several of BCMW's knives out on loan. So far, so good. Excellent handles.

Steel selection - high wear on soft material (13 replies)

razoredgeknives — Tue, 12 Jan 2016 18:35:47 +0000

Hey guys. I am imagining that a high carbide CPM steel would be good for this application but wanted to check w/ you guys.

So I'm looking at making some scissor blades for a glue factory -chisel ground primary and secondary. OAL is about 8", cutting part of the blade is about 6" and around .187" thick. These are used in a glue factory to cut wet glue as it comes out of the machine, about 3" diameter.

They picked up some s30v wanting to try it but I'm not sure if this is the best choice or not. Any input is appreciated. Cost of the steel is a factor and I will be sending it to Peters for HT.

Richmond Artifex AEB-L vs. Mangoes (11 replies)

Chum — Fri, 27 Nov 2015 01:05:07 +0000

I've been eating a lot of mangoes lately, and initially I found them to be a pain to cut up without wasting a lot of flesh. Mangoes have a large, tough and fibrous pit. They are also fairly slippery.

After using several different knives, and trying several different ways to cut these buggers up, I eventually settled on using the Richmond Artifex and using my, apparently unorthodox, potato peeling technique.

Basically I make a small, flat, cut off the top and bottom of the mango. I then stand the mango up and peel downward with the Artifex. The only differences between cutting up a mango and cutting up a potato is that I halve the potatoes and there is no pit to deal with.

I really don't find this method to be slow or inefficient as long as the knife is sharp and the geometry is thin. I also find this to be a safe way to cut up the fairly slippery mango.

This Richmond Artifex is AEB-L with a micarta handle, and has about an 8" (203mm) Gyuto style blade. The more I use the Artifex the more I like it.

A close up of the pit. In order to cut one of these in half I have to put nearly my full weight behind the spine of the blade. Jason, if you are looking for a fruit/veggie to test your edges on, look no further. I was surprised to find the Artifex took no edge damage.

Out of curiosity I googled "how to slice a mango" and found this...
[www.youtube.com]

Alton takes an even safer route. I think I would find this method a little too tedious, but it does look safer...
[www.youtube.com]

Sharpening Angles Less Than 15 DPS (49 replies)

me2 — Tue, 01 Dec 2020 05:20:01 +0000

This seems to be a standard that shouldn't be reduced. There is even one poster that says even though straight razors are sharpened at 16-18 degrees inclusive (DI) that the very edge under magnification rolls to 15 dps when stropped. I've looked around and various manuals offer lower angles than this, The Complete Guide to Sharpening being the most common. Anyone know of any other sources?

Just to start:

Lee recommends less than this for various uses on various tools, including axes for certain kinds of timber (dry vs wet soft woods).
FortyTwoBlades recommends 7-9 dps for scythes.
Collin linked to a wood cutting competition champion that recommended slightly lower angles for axes on certain woods/conditions.
Plane and chisel blade for fine cuts/paring are less than 30 DI sometimes.
Didn't Juranich recommend 11 dps or so in his book? I haven't read it.

I just don't understand why this seems to be such a concrete basement in bevel angles. I've used knives with bevels less than half that to cut copper electrical wire without damage, though long term sloppiness will eventually do the trick.

Swamp Rat Knife Works Ratmandu - Several Weeks in Review (53 replies)

Bugout Bill — Wed, 28 Oct 2015 23:40:58 +0000

This is a fairly popular knife, often touted as being the best knife produced by the rest of the Busse Group.

A video of it in use:

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwvgGTpIJ78[/video]

Stefanwolf left this comment on that vid regarding the knife:

Quote
Stefanwolf
For me it is one of the best 5 inch blades man can buy - very dependable blade - strong, good weight, extremely comfortable handle, good HT of the steel - the only thing a user probably will change is the geometry according to what he will do with the knife - there is plenty of steel to be grind off for very thin behind the edge hunting knife or for convexed kindling splitter. For me - way better knives than BR bravo series which are more expensive...

I'll address that later; but first, some specs:

Blade Length: 5-1/4"
Blade Width: 1.35"
Blade Thickness: 3/16"
Overall Length: 10-1/4"
Grind: Saber
Steel: SR-101 (52100)

Initial Impressions:

Fit and finish was generally good, with the scales and blade evenly ground and fitted. OOB sharpness was nonexistent, with the entire edge reflecting light. The edge was also .028 thou thick. Ergos are solid; not great, but not bad either.

Sabre grip is fairly comfortable, though the thumb ramp is a little weird. Not quite bad enough to be a hot spot, though.

Modified sabre is much more comfortable, probably the most natural grip

Hammer is ok, but not as comfortable as icepick.

Impressions In Use:

In stock configuration, this isn't a light use knife by any means:

Durability was checked by swinging into a laundry hamper frame made of mild steel. This produced some impaction, but nothing major. The edge was then reset and reprofiled on a Norton Coarse India to roughly 20dps. Due to the thickness of the initial edge, the blade was somewhat problematic to sharpen, though a shaving sharp was produced after some effort.

With the edge now at a relatively sane angle and sharpened, the blade was used for various utility tasks over a period of several weeks. For tasks like cardboard cutting, the thickness of the grind and bladestock made it fairly inefficent and unpleasant to use for any length of time. For short periods of use, however, it is functional. For low stress work (zipties, drinks packaging, mail) the knife is overkill, but functional.

Similarly is the case with food prep. Provided that the knife is sharp, it is perfectly useable for cutting veggies and meats, though I wouldn't want to prepare a multicourse meal with it.

On rougher work:

[instagram.com]

For prying apart wood, digging, and general mucking around, this is a nice knife to have. Compared to something like the BK-5, you have considerably more durability and chop splitting ability on dry woods. However, for work like brush clearence, the additional length of the BK-5 is a bit more desirable.

For digging, you aren't going to hurt this knife to any meaningful degree unless you are collecting rock samples.

Sheath:

The sheath was done by Jeremy McCullen and is kydex lined leather, set up for high ride carry. Fit and finish was quite good, as was the retention of the kydex, perhaps even a bit light. As this sheath is more intended for daily carry, retention won't be an issue. The sheath was chosen out of a desire to combine the aesthetics and ease of carry provided by leather with the retention and durability of kydex. Nice work.

Commentary on this class of knife:

The Ratmandu sits in kind of an awkward class of knives, with things like the Falkniven S1 and Cold Steel SRK. They are 5-6 inch long blades that can't chop or cut well, but are capable of handling heavy prying or demo work. Now it is debatable as to how useful this sort of knife is over something like a Mora, but as something to have on you for a quick ramble through the woods or a bonfire, there are considerably more desirable knives than something like a folder. As a general purpose fixed blade, a 5.5 inch blade affords enough flexibility to do a lot of different things, but not necessarily any of them well. However, ease of carry and potential legal restrictions can make this sort of knife more desirable than something in the 7.5 to 8 inch range.

Coherence of Design and Cost Effectiveness:

In regards to Stefanwolf's quote, I generally agree. The Ratmandu is a knife that the end user can readily take in a lot of directions. In its stock configuration, however, it is fairly consistent with Busse Group's other offerings; a heavy hunk of steel that you can throw at things drunk and not break.

Compared to other knives it's class (ESEE, customs, Falkniven), it is a bit difficult to justify the Ratmandu. $160 will buy an ESEE that has a very similar warranty, solid sheath, and overall similar design. Furthermore, you will have an ESEE at your door in a week, it will take 16 or so to get one of these. However, if you can navigate the weirdness of Busse, one could order the knife with a thinner edge or grind; the same cannot be said for a lot of other production knives.

Concluding Thoughts:

Not a bad knife. It could use a swedge and thicker scales, but it is a functional hunk of steel that I can reliably beat on.

FORGED 5160 (2 replies)

number41 — Mon, 31 Aug 2015 06:54:58 +0000

This is one of our local knife makers in South Africa Neels Van Den Berg who forges 5160. I'm about to pull the trigger on one of these. From what I have seen it looks like well made performance knives. I'm really exited to see how these perform for myself.

Watch "Knife bend test: 13 x 180 Degree bends on a plain…" on YouTube - Knife bend test: 13 x 180 Degree bends on a plain…: [youtu.be]

CRKT halfachance (13 replies)

number41 — Tue, 13 Oct 2015 01:46:47 +0000

Has anyone ever used one of these? I'm thinking of getting one.... bot not sure about the QC. I have seen a few reviews on youtube and looks like it's solid. The steel they use are 65mn, i'm hoping for ease of sharpening. Any thoughts?

[www.crkt.com]

Taidea 3000/8000 grit water stone (16 replies)

TerriLiGunn — Wed, 09 Dec 2015 13:26:38 +0000

I've been want to do some more work with water stones, but I have a limited budget. I found the Taidea on Amazon for a small price for a 3000/8000 grit water stone. This far it has not lived up to being an 8000 grit stone. Honestly it seems to be the same grit on both sides. While it is not a bad stone it is most likely just a 3000 grit on both sides. I mostly say this because one lapped a few times it produces a finish higher then a king 1000 stone.
I currently am waiting a king 6000 to compare finishes.

The good news is it does produce for me, and yes I know I have limited experience with water stones, with the grain newsprint push cutting ability. The edge has a hammer penned look with scratches mixed in a bit. This finish is the same in appearance to me no matter what side I use. Apexing with edge trailing is what I have had the best luck with, but after flushing heavily the stone can be used edge leading to apex. Basically it is an over priced 3000 grit stone.

#posted from tablet with horrible auto correct.....

1095 FOR SCRAPYARD (109 replies)

number41 — Fri, 04 Dec 2015 03:15:06 +0000

So they confirmed last night that the new release will be in 1095. Specs and pics will be released in about 2 weeks. The blade will likely be a chopper. This is something I am interested in and would like to see how the 1095 performes. It should be really affordable to. What do you guy's think about this. Will just have to wait and see.

Splitting a carcass with a machete (9 replies)

StephenCoote — Sun, 16 Aug 2015 17:38:57 +0000

I've done a lot of hunting and butchering. I will often cut the meat from the carcass in the field because it is a lot easier to not have to carry the bones back to my vehicle. And even if I do manage to get the whole carcass back to civilisation, I seldom split the backbone to make chops. On the odd occasion when I did want to split a carcass, I would generally choose a saw instead of an axe or a cleaver because I was more accurate with the saw and it didn't generate bone chips.

One day my cousin wanted me to butcher several sheep for her. I'd recently learned from a poster at Bladeforums that he'd seen a guide split a moose carcass with a knife and a baton. I wish I could remember the name of that poster because I'd really like to thank him for introducing me to this great method.

I used a 10 inch Tramontina machete and a length of round firewood. I found that it was relatively easy to make a very good job of cutting down through the spine.

I had carefully cleaned and sharpened the machete before I did the job. I am unsure as to what my edge angle would have been, but because the blade is fairly thin the angle would have been relatively low. Although I used a file and a carborundum stone to do the job, the edge would have been at least slightly convex.

I butchered nine sheep. I didn't notice any significant damage on the edge of the blade.

cold steel all terrain chopper (4 replies)

Lauritz — Sat, 20 Jun 2015 23:34:06 +0000

interesting blade this one.
Cold steels Product description : All terrain Chopper

designed as a Heavy two-handed brush clearing tool, this is a machete in the super-Heavy category, I was surprised when I took it With me to chop some scrap lumber, using this blade one-handed is actually very functional, and not as fatiguing as I expected.

video of me chopping a 2x4:
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdLm0pvRGx4[/video]

I'm finding that the rate of fatigue is insane when using it two handed compared to one handing it, the performance With both hands is also less than impressive, most of this is because I lack practice using two-handed Tools.

what I found more surprising is that this is actually my go-to blade for off-hand chopping now, I'm heavily right-hand dominant, and lately I have been trying to become a bit more ambidextrious, and this blade is actually my best performer, which doesn't make any sense to me, compared to a lighter blade, like a magnum kukri machete, I'm finding that using them left handed, my Precision is better With the ATC by a huge margin, penetration is better, fatigue is less, my confidence goes up, and I'm able to put more effort into the swing when compared to a lighter blade.

Jerry's Input on 3v, Infi, Sr-101 (186 replies)

number41 — Sun, 07 Jun 2020 04:29:56 +0000

Not sure if anyone has seen this on BF, it's awhile back but very interesting;.......

[www.bladeforums.com]

Quote
Jerry Busse
Accelerated salt spray tests show a huge difference in corrosion resistance and pitting between the two steels. . . . INFI was the clear winner.

Under heavy impact on hard subtrates we found micro chipping along the edge of 3V blades as opposed to minor disallingment on INFI.

Lateral strength tests as well as ease of resharpening also went in favor of INFI.

We have done a LOT of in-house testing with 3V. We still use INFI. . . . there's a reason for that.

When we find a steel that out performs INFI across the board, you can rest assured that we will be using that steel instead of INFI.

Want a better comparison? Put 3V up against SR-101. They are much closer in performance with us giving the nod to SR-101 for superior toughness, impact strength, lateral strength, and edge-holding. 3V is, however, much more corrosion resistant than SR-101.

Our "LIVE" performance demonstration has stood the test of time since 1999. Any maker or manufacturer who wants to duplicate our "LIVE" demos with 3V or any other steel is more than welcome to do so. We only insist that these "LIVE" performance tests be performed by the maker or manufacturer themselves.

This offer has been extended to the entire industry for the past 14 years. . . . There have been no takers to this date.

That being said, it is important to note that there are many fine steels out there and there are many that excell at particular performance demands.

For the demands that our knives are designed to be put through, INFI is by far the clear winner.

Let's Drink!

Brandon Snippe Hidden Tang Hunter (19 replies)

Bugout Bill — Thu, 14 May 2015 00:16:39 +0000

This is an interesting little knife that Chad included in the passaround, it was made from the machete that he had in this thread:

https://oldforum.beyondt01micron.com/read.php?2,30754,30754#msg-30754

So some rough specs:

-4.5 in blade
-5 inch (give or take) black walnut handle
-15N20 blade steel, convex ground.

The positives:

In short, it is a halfway decent knife. Very different from my usual tastes, but not bad. The blade shape is useful for most of my daily tasks like food prep and opening packages and the edge is reasonably thin, but still behind the cKc utility in terms of cutting performance. In particular, I like the handle on this knife. It is a big, comfy handle suitable for every grip, as well as allowing you to use it in a leuku grip for light chopping. Also, due to the hidden tang and handle material, it is light and easy to carry.

The negatives:

Perhaps the biggest negative of this knife is the lack of finishing on the blade. The spine is sharp to the point that it will catch skin if you rake your thumb over it. While bushcraft operators will likely approve, it is rather unpleasant to have the spine sharp right where your thumb is going to go. The other main issue that I can see is the handle. While it's rough finish does allow for good grip, I do not think it is stabilized or otherwise sealed, so contamination with blood or gunk could become an issue if it was used as a hunting knife. I also take care not to get the handle wet for that reason. The 15N20 steel also has no corrosion resistance, something that is a slight issue when chopping onions, as it will discolor them instantly.

Conclusions

It's a bit rough and not really my preferred pattern of knife, but there is nothing unusable about it. I think a lot of people would be pretty happy with this and from a performance standpoint, it ain't too bad.

Spyderco Techno observations and issues (32 replies)

dragonetti — Mon, 04 May 2015 00:59:48 +0000

I've had my techno for close to a year know, and its been an interesting ride.

I like it for edc and I have to say I enjoy the novelty of having a thick knife with a thin edge. Its fun to featherstick with because it pushes the wood out of the way and makes quite nice curls.

But I have no idea whats going on with the steel. Its CTS-XHP and its been giving me endless issues. Whenever I use it i always seem to get edge flattening. No chipping (I think) just the edge reflecting light after I use it. Its very easy to sharpen, and doesn't seem to have issues getting sharp (my my mediocre standards).

Its gone dull doing all sorts of tasks I dont deem challenging at all. It did fine slicing cedar and softwoods but it started reflecting light after cutting up some seasoned woods. The most disturbing time it went dull was when I cut bread with it. I had to justify it by saying I was cutting into a table and rubbing the edge against the table. But I'm hoping it wasn't actually the table because that would be awful performance.

I've fully resharpened the edge about 5 times now and I'm not sure if thats enough to remove damaged metal from the edge if it was overheated while grinding. This can't be the expected behavior of any steel because thats awful.

Its dull as hell at the tip for some reason. I don't know why because I cant remember doing anything with it, and haven't carried it in months for the flattening issue.

Should I send it in to spyderco to look at? Resharpen a few more times? If this is how its supposed to act someone send me a DM if they want a techno for cheap.

Pictures and maybe videos of whats happening if I can't find the problem by just explaining it.

Corrosion Test (19 replies)

Bugout Bill — Fri, 13 Mar 2015 07:54:28 +0000

So Jeremy has been running a number of corrosion tests on AEBL and 14C28 and has had some interesting results, mostly highlighting the importance of proper thermal processing's importance to corrosion resistance. I've decided to launch a similar test on a Spyderco Military and a Tenacious.

The Military will hang in the shower for a week before I will take it apart and check for corrosion before being replaced with the Tenacious.

Extra-thin steel test blades (8 replies)

oldsailorsknives — Tue, 17 Feb 2015 06:00:08 +0000

bought a piece of 1/32" O1 and cut out these two test blades. steel is 0.03" at the spine, 4" long, 1 3/8" wide Starrett O1 at Rc62. the bevel of knife on the right is about 10 degrees. used it this afternoon, cut chuck roast, round steak and onions with no issues. next blades from this steel will have a different pattern as these flex a lot. heat treated 5 minutes at 800c, a second or so in oil, then finish cooling between aluminum plates. temper at 350f 1hr x 2 with cold water quench in between.
scott

(link fixed)

snowblower tried to eat my knife (7 replies)

wnease — Sun, 11 Jan 2015 01:47:34 +0000

part 1

[www.youtube.com]

part 2... oh there's the damage...

[www.youtube.com]

cKc Victorious is Victorious vs. Potatoes (8 replies)

Chum — Wed, 31 Dec 2014 06:45:31 +0000

I cut up and peeled roughly 15 lbs (6.8 kg) of potatoes last night for a massive amount of my o' so delicious mashed potatoes (:D

Since there was a lot of cutting to do, I decided it would be a good opportunity to take a few of my favorite kitchen knives and test them out against each other.

Before I started, I sharpened all five knives until they were hair shaving sharp. All were sharpened on my King Eagle Silicon Carbide Combination Stone. All of the knives were easy to sharpen.

It didn't take long before I divided this task into two categories. Cutting the potatoes into sections and peeling. Of the two categories, peeling dominated the majority of the work time, and being able to control my cuts was what caused me to favor one knife over another... for the most part. Here is a shot of the five knives I used. They are in order of ease of control (from top to bottom) ...

Ease of Controlled Cutting
1) cKc Victorious
2) Victorinox Serrated Paring Knife
3) Alegacy Chef's Knife (this had briefly been a throwing knife, thus the lack of a real tip. I also reprofiled it to a slight convex.)
4) BudK Mora Clone (reprofiled to full height convex)
5) Kai Pure Komachi 2 Nakiri

There were several surprises. The reprofiled Alegacy being the biggest one. The thinned out, and slightly convexed edge, made this knife far more controllable then I had guessed it would be in comparison to the other knives, all of which had more narrow blade lengths. I would typically cut a potato in half, stand it on the flat part, then slice the peel off from top to bottom. I would cut out any eyes or dark spots as needed. I think the convex edge helped to push the potato away from the blade just enough to add greater control.

Going into this I had assumed the Kai Nakiri would be my favorite knife. I use it more than any other knife I have in the kitchen. While it did perform well enough it had noticeably less control in the cut than the other knives

The cKc Victorious was just plain awesome. The tip is so thin, and the tapering is so accute that it just cut like a laser. Skin, eyes and dark spots were easily dispatched.

The BudK Clone was a disappointment, mostly because I reprofiled the hell out of it. There is no tapering in the blade however, and the edge is still overly thick. I wanted to keep the blade fairly stiff, so I ended up not taking off as much metal as I should have. The knife performed well enough, but in terms of controllability it was second to last.

The Victorinox Paring knife performed exactly as I had thought it would... very well. No surprise there.

While controlled cutting dominated most of work time, my overall ratings didn't quite match my ratings on pure controllability. The more cutting I did the easier it became to determine which knives I would rather use. Here are my overall results. Best to worst from top to bottom...

Overall Performance
1) cKc Victorious
2) Alegacy Chef's Knife (reprofiled)
3) Victorinox Serrated Paring Knife
4) Kai Pure Komachi 2 Nakiri
5) BudK Mora Clone (reprofiled)

While the Victorinox Paring knife was slightly more controllable than the Alegacy, when it came to cutting the potatoes into pieces the Alegacy was much easier to use. The Alegacy was also slightly better than the cKc Victorious when it came to cutting the potatoes into pieces, but the gap between the two in controlled cutting was fairly large. The cKc Victorious was clearly the knife I would most want to use for this task in the future.

Despite the BudK Mora Clone having a little more controllability the difference between it and the Kai Nakiri wasn't that far off. Additionally the wider profile on the Kai Nakiri made it easier to cut the potatoes into pieces. It was also nice for scooping up potato pieces.

Effect of Various Heat Treatments (36 replies)

me2 — Wed, 18 Mar 2015 23:39:03 +0000

I've been doing a bit of reading on various forums and was wondering something. Given that the differences in steels can be overshadowed by user applied changes in geometry, how much difference could be seen going from a simple procedure in heat treatment to a complicated one that theoretically improves performance? How much difference could be expected between the standard heat treatment for say 3V and the complicated procedure proposed/discussed on BFC some time back?

DMT x-coarse edge retention on cardboard (various steels) (55 replies)

CliffStamp — Thu, 09 Apr 2015 18:07:22 +0000

In order to see if I can find some way to measure edge retention which shows steels like 10V and 121REX at a maximum I have tried :

-moderate apex angles and finishes (15 dps/600 DMT)
-very high apex angles and finishes (25+ dps, MXF DMT)
-various materials (ropes, cardboard, carpet)

without success. Based on that work though I think I now know how to find it and I am going to check an x-coarse finish which should have

-higher apex width
-self-sharpen due to fracture

and a property I don't have a decent name for yet which is the thickness of the edges of the "teeth" themselves.

The method will be fairly simple :

-4-6 dps edge
-15 dps apex, dmt x-coarse

Then :

-slice cardboard on a draw, 30 cm cuts through 2" of blade, measure sharpness periodically (length to cut light thread under a specific load).

I chose the EE Chef (3Cr13, < 55 HRC) as a starting point. I am going to do just a few knives :

-3Cr13
-VG-10
-M4 (or similar, something from Kyle)
-10V
-121 REX / Maxamet

But it will be a slow process given how poorly cardboard can dull an edge when the apex is finish so coarse as the edge retention is inherently high on a slicing/draw cut. However I suspect that it should move the maximum into the 10V+ range.

Spyderco thread : [www.spyderco.com]

Cold steel/Lasher Tools Machete (1 reply)

marthinus — Fri, 21 Nov 2014 12:42:49 +0000

So back in 2010 I bought this Lasher Tools Machete, the same maker that makes the Cold Steel Machete.

Since then I have used and altered the machete quite a bit, mainly to bring down the primary bit by bit to see if I could increase its cutting efficiency with regards to small wrist action on green vegetation.
This is how it looks currently.

The primary is still thick at about 1mm behind the edge and it should be able to take some abuse without any massive primary edge damage (this was my theory and was surprisingly tested later on).
In the kitchen it functions well enough to get the job done but its size is cumbersome.

Doing some work recently.

I knew there was some debris that could damage the edge so I stayed clear of them.

However, what I did not see was some wire used for fencing. Interesting enough I normally do not do a lot of “power chopping” as I feel this is a waste of energy but on this actual chopping motion I was going for a power chop and struck the wire. The edge currently is around 15 degrees per side for durability.

Little damage IMO for the force that went into it and will easily sharpen out as time goes by.

Fooling around.

Video of some use.

Some thoughts.
- The initial edge leaves a lot to be improved upon.
- Initial edge angle is very obtuse.
- Thin stock with no primary means it will bind in harder woods and therefore I feel it is better suited for light vegetation as it was intended for.
- Handle has a lot of shock in it when doing power chopping into hard woods.
- With some effort one can improve cutting performance. This is done by lowering the edge angle, blending it into the primary, lowering the primary behind the edge and edge finish to suite the application.
- Edge can take severe impact without massive failure.
- It is very cheap locally.
- Can take a lot of neglect and foolishness.

A little demo work : broken SRM 710 (85 replies)

CliffStamp — Wed, 03 Dec 2014 01:45:46 +0000

I get asked all the time where I get the things I cut up, most of them are just given in return for sharpening or similar :

This has a bunch of interesting things including some used mats and a big bunch of 2x2's that I am going to separate out. But first a friend was talking about folders vs fixed blades and I did a little experiment to make a point about that silly statement people make about "... always use a fixed blade". The Sanrenmu 710 is a chinese import which has been described as a Sebenza clone but it isn't really aside from very superficial comparisons. It has a 3/32" blade which is fairly stout for a folder and would be difficult to imagine breaking outside of prying. In regards to prying, doing a little tip work easily put a bend in the blade through the very thin tip :

Putting it deeper into a piece of wood I broke the knife and it snapped where you should expect, right through that thumbstud hole :

There was absolutely no loosening of the lock/pivot/handle and in general for most folding knives the blades are so thin that the handle/pivot is rarely the weak point. Now if you have a 3/16"+ thick folder then you might have a concern but that kind of very high thickness on a very short blade is a bit difficult to argue practicality for anyway aside from special purposes.

As for the wood Kyley's axe is very nice for that as it is :

-Calmax
-one piece
-hook/pry point

But in this case I used a small demo axe with a synthetic handle :

+

This does not cut wood anywhere close to the ability of the Bruks, but for this kind of work the difference is just as much in its favor.

Now I have a big pile of 2x2 pickets for comparison chopping as well on mid-size blades. They are too small for the 10"+ blades I have as the majority of them will cut through them in less than one hit .

Edge retention with different grit finishes on 3Cr13 stainless (146 replies)

CliffStamp — Thu, 19 Mar 2015 16:52:43 +0000

Overview and summary : [cliffstamp.beyondt01micron.com]

Details on individual stones follow.

--

Dressing stone : [oldforum.beyondt01micron.com]

Summary :

Quote

Since it is extremely hard there is no real issue with many of the problems with waterstones and I could set the apex on the Everyday Essentials fairly trivially to :

-get a push cut on light exercise paper at about 1/4"
-shave (but rough)
-35-40% of optimal sharpness measured on the Bergia
-5 lbs cut on 1/2" help, 2" draw

I did a couple of edge retention runs, TCE of 3.6 (2) in with a 15 dps micro-bevel. This is actually slightly higher than the Farid/K2 with the as-boxed performance.

Apex will take a lot of damage when formed :

The very coarse edge does however wear in stages (points, then scallops, finally large flat regions) so the edge retention is still solid :

Spyderco thread : [www.spyderco.com]

As-boxed edge retention on 1/2 hemp (30 replies)

CliffStamp — Tue, 27 Jun 2017 20:06:40 +0000

Summary article : [cliffstamp.beyondt01micron.com]

--

Now this is one of the things you look back and wish you had done, imagine if I had this for every knife I have had. These are the results :

[imgur.com]

Before there is too much made out of this, note that the edge retention on hemp is strongly affected by :

-apex angle and finish
-sharpness

more so than the steel itself. Now you can find arguments that it is also dependent on things like edge thickness/primary grind etc. but that is because in typical rope cutting they are not measuring sharpness but cutting ability. That isn't the case here so those factors only have a weak indirect effect.

Even with just a few knives, just look at these two results :

-there is an almost 10:1 difference in two 10V knives
-an AEB-L knife does almost as good as the Farid/10V

It is no wonder when you look at results like that it can be easy to understand why there is so much difference of opinion on how/why steels work. The large scatter also means if you took a bunch of Farid/K2's in 10V and a bunch of AEB-L/slip-joints from Kyley and just used them after they were sharpened by the various users then what you are likely to see is that the knives scatter around each other and what makes more of a difference than the steel is who did the better job on optimizing the edge angle/finish and just raw sharpness for hemp cutting.

It will be curious to look at this after a few years and see if any maker/manufacturer can consistently score higher than another in terms of as-boxed performance. As always, this is just ONE aspect of performance. Having a knife which does lower here doesn't mean anything aside from the fact it is lower in that one aspect. It does not mean in general it is a worse knife, just worse with the as-boxed finish in edge retention on hemp.

--

I think I might add as well the starting/ending or change in force used to cut the hemp as well because in general the knives that score very highly here are likely to be strongly correlated to the ones that do well in the edge retention.

Edge retention with steeling (i.e. Kyley's awesome experiment) (63 replies)

CliffStamp — Fri, 20 Mar 2015 08:52:05 +0000

Awhile ago Kyley asked about edge retention if you steeled the knife, in particular if you used his nitrided rod. Now there are a few things which are well known but they lack exact answers and there are a lot of questions which have not been addressed at all. The conflict is basically about how much of edge loss is by deformation vs fracture and wear and how much is the edge retention loss after steeling, i.e. how much does the cold work in steeling weaken the edge?

A basic few outlines of experiments are :

-look at a very low stress/wear cutting (hemp) vs a fairly high stress/wear one (cardboard)
-does carbide volume significantly affect anything

Now again there are a few things you would suspect right away such as :

-steeling would be more beneficial on the hemp vs cardboard
-a low carbide steel would benefit more than a very high carbide steel

However what are some numbers? How much hemp can you cut with repeated steeling, 2X the amount, 10X the amount, 100X the amount? before you can not get high sharpness on steeling and the edge retention is severely compromised.

The same questions can be asked in regard to carbide volume and what happens if you do harder and more abrasive cutting (cardboard or even worse carpet). How much worse is cardboard vs hemp, or carpet vs cardboard?

I did a simple first run experiment this evening, I used :

-Spyderco Lum Chinese
-6.5 dps edge
-15 dps micro-bevel, 600 grit DMT
-steeled at 20 dps

I just ran the edge until it had < 1.5% optimal sharpness, did very light steeling (just enough to get optimal sharpness) and repeated everything.

The good news (or bad news depending on perspective) is that if you are cutting hemp then it looks like you can steel for a LONG time. I did five runs and had no issues getting back to close to ideal sharpness and had only minor loss in edge retention.

Here is what the edge looks like after five steeling runs (6 runs in total counting the first one) :

The small bevel above the red line is the steeling bevel, the bevel above the green line is the dmt micro-bevel. Note the steeled edge is more polished than the DMT bevel which would be expected. At this point if you scan along the edge it is starting to pick up chips but they are still rare enough and small enough that the are still in the steeling bevel.

I will do another five runs to see if the performance starts to decrease, at this point it looks like possibly the small amount of burnishing is offsetting the small wear and deformation during blunting. Now before everyone throws out your stones, not all blunting is like this, on harder cutting for example this won't happen as there will be significant wear and fracture.

--

Now there is a significant downside to this experiment data stability wise though. As I only sharpen once and then do ~10 runs, if the initial sharpness / edge is off this will bias every run that follows it. Thus even though it looks like a lot of data, it is only as stable as ONE run basically. Thus I will have to repeat all of this jazz at least three times to see if it is stable and if any patterns hold.