My post,

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"Farid,

Can you describe/provide any background on the design of this knife from a functional perspective as it doesn't seem on the surface to be a consistent design. As in some ways the knife looks to be designed for heavy work, to be able to take considerable loads/impacts (stock thickness, handle/lock, etc.). However the steel used is one of the most brittle with the lowest grindability of current cutlery steels which is almost the exact opposite of the previously noted factors. What kind of work exactly was this designed to do well?"

Farid's answer :

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"Cliff,
I can answer all your questions but I choose to let my work speak for itself, also I have noticed every time you have used my good name on YouTube or other forums you have tried to damage my reputation so I refuse to answer your questions as it is my right not to.
Farid"

I don't doubt there are fans/shills that see that as acceptable, however if you step away from the knife industry and just ask about a product in general that has to be one of the worse examples I have ever seen to an extremely basic question.

I spent a half an hour on the phone yesterday with a 3M rep looking for a high penetrating and flexible adhesive. They provides very precise and straightforward descriptions of their product and immediately sent out detailed technical sheets and were willing to provides samples on request.

In the knife industry however makers/manufacturers can often play the Chewbacca defense and it is perfectly acceptable.

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CliffStamp
Chewbacca defense

I forget what that is.

Cliff, two questions. Three actually.
Where is this conversation taking place?
2- did you respond to his non answer?
3- what is this high penetrating flexible adhesive for?

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The things that require part of the design (very hard work) are in direct opposition to other parts of the design (high carbide, brittle steel).

I think Farid just really, really likes high carbide steel!

I actually met him when he took a stall at the Wilderness Gathering one year. He seemed like a nice bloke but he does get very exited when he talks about large carbide fractions in knife steel. It was somewhat over my head at the time. I actually thought he was saying his knives were 20-30% carbon!

He must have a fairly negative reputation though because very few other people stopped to look at his knives and have a chat.

I also think I may have seen the infamous competition knife. He described it as his personal one. I think it was a full convex grind, mega carbide steel jobby. What I did like was how the blade and handle fit together. The handle was a solid piece of aluminium with the blade held on at the side of the front by a couple of high tensile steel bolts. He had some axes built the same way. I thought the cyberpunk look was pretty cool.

Once he showed off the knife he asked if we wanted to see what it could do. Unfortunately he chose a blackthorn sapling(one of the toughest, hardest woods you can find in the UK) to demonstrate. Then he tried to cut it perpendicular to the stem and the knife practically bounced off!

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Mark a
Cliff, two questions. Three actually.
Where is this conversation taking place?

[www.spyderco.com]

Note he specially opened a promotional thread, then refused to answer a simple question and made an ad hominem attack which is fairly odd as I have not even significantly discussed his products, let alone in some kind of smear campaign.

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2- did you respond to his non answer?

Yes :

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response
Of course, I ask the questions as I believe they should be asked as it is only through asking them that differences in perspectives can be realized, though this means both parties have to have the same view.

Clean design in any case.

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Mark a
3- what is this high penetrating flexible adhesive for?

Repairing antique tiles which can not be removed/replaced which are showing drumming and movement. Traditional products will not work and the tile faces can not be cut (trivial solution), I needed an ultra-low viscosity and impact/flex adhesive to penetrate into the grout lines. 3M recommended FLX300 which is a polyacrylate.

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dragonetti

I forget what that is.

Avoid the question and attempt to misdirect/confuse the issue.

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HedgeChopper

I actually thought he was saying his knives were 20-30% carbon!

The carbide levels are that high, he is one of the few people to use 121 REX.

Quote

Unfortunately he chose a blackthorn sapling(one of the toughest, hardest woods you can find in the UK) to demonstrate. Then he tried to cut it perpendicular to the stem and the knife practically bounced off!

He does some metal cutting commonly, often cutting up cans of beans and noting he sees no damage. I would have expected the apex to have a fairly heavy cross section.

I do give him credit for using fairly radical steels, however his designs make little sense and I have never seen him explain what they are supposed to do, hence why I asked the question.

They must be pretty special tiles to go to that effort. Let me know how it works out.

www.theflatearthsociety.org

BIGFOOT FINDS YOU, YOU DON'T FIND BIGFOOT!



IT IS THE E-NEP THROWING BROTHERHOOD

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Mark a
They must be pretty special tiles to go to that effort.

They are to the person who wants it done and that is what matters. It is expensive though, you could redo the floor for less, they are considering options, I just provide choices.

--

As an aside, that kind of folder is very likely to be a success for Spyderco :

-strong named steel
-custom collaboration, maker will strongly promote
-like a small run so has exclusive status

I would not be surprised if the secondary market flipping price was large.

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CliffStamp

The carbide levels are that high, he is one of the few people to use 121 REX

But that is carbide not carbon, right?

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I do give him credit for using fairly radical steels, however his designs make little sense and I have never seen him explain what they are supposed to do, hence why I asked the question.

I think they are mainly intended to look cool and show off unusual and labour intensive construction methods. Which is fair enough if you're straight about it.

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HedgeChopper


But that is carbide not carbon, right?

Yes, the carbon % is 3.4%, still very high for steel. Realize that a lot of these guys don't have English as their first language and even if you can speak an language decently when you move to technical terms it gets hazy fast. Even among nature speaker people constantly confuse grain and carbide size for example which is like confusing a tree root with a leaf. If you are a gardener that sounds extremely ignorant, but if you are speaking in some kind of internal translation in your head it is easy to make those kinds of mistakes.

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I think they are mainly intended to look cool and show off unusual and labour intensive construction methods. Which is fair enough if you're straight about it.

Sure, and they are very hard to work and sharpen, though he exaggerates these heavily.

Sometime I want to make a couple blades out of k390 just to see what it's like. But I have a feeling that steels in the range of m4 and below are the ones I will like most.

Contact 570-486-9095

Just curious...
If the steel was VG10, or even something like ATS-34, what would you folks think of its intended purpose then?

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Stuart Ackerman

If the steel was VG10, or even something like ATS-34, what would you folks think of its intended purpose then?

In order to evaluate what steel is sensible there needs to be some kind of understanding of what it was designed to do. I will list a few issues I see :

-the stock is thick, 0.14" which reduces cutting ability and increases prying strength
-the lock chosen is easy to open/close, but can jam in very heavy cutting and tight grips and impact/deform in impacts
-the steel is very wear resistant but also very brittle
-the handle is strong but also very conductive to heat

It is obvious that some of these are in opposition to each other thus it is hard to see the congruent design. In contrast :

-0.14" steel
-back lock, tri-ad
-aus-8 steel
-steel liners
-g10 handle

Then the kind of work the knife was designed to do seems apparent.

I haven't found cold steels aus-8 to be that tough. Seems to be very brittle.

One thing I would note is .140 stock is only to be considered heavy duty if the blade width is narrow as it raises the primary grind angle. Although I notice many makers/company's tend to make much slimmer blades than Iake so.......

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KWB
I haven't found cold steels aus-8 to be that tough. Seems to be very brittle.

Here is the problem, and this is common through the knife industry - what do you mean by that? Brittle compared to what and in what manner?

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One thing I would note is .140 stock is only to be considered heavy duty if the blade width is narrow as it raises the primary grind angle.

I was speaking of the blade itself, the edge is simply a factor of how it is ground, the primary grind angle can be adjusted to leave the edge any thickness, from 0.001" to full stock. A thicker blade stock in general will reduce cutting ability but gain strength. If the blade can not actually take advantage of this strength laterally, or some other application (use it to generate weight for chopping), then you have added expense and lowered performance for no actual gain. What exactly is being gained in the K2 by making it 0.14". Is the knife supposed to be used for chopping and prying? Would Farid really advocate that - then what is the purpose of it?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/12/2014 05:51PM by CliffStamp.

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CliffStamp
-0.14" steel
-back lock, tri-ad
-aus-8 steel
-steel liners
-g10 handle

Then the kind of work the knife was designed to do seems apparent.

Sounds like my CS American Lawman. As folders go this is a tough knife that you can do some prying and chopping with without fear of breakage.

I haven't noticed Aus8 being brittle on any of my knives made of that steel, although Old Spice has had at least one critical failure with CS Aus8. I've had a critical failure with a huge 5160 chopper... so any heat treatment can be poorly done.


Chumgeyser on Youtube
E-nep throwing Brotherhood. Charter Member

I dont understand some of the rationalisations about the K2 Farid knife. Of course, I think each buyer will make their choice or not and be happy looking at the specs, but personally I think 10V as a choice for a knife to

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Sal Paraphrasing Farid
be reliable if away from support (out doors for a long time) and have good edge retention as sharpening equipment might not be easily available.

is poor because if you are outdoors for a long time, then you are going to experience more cutting options behaving like Carpet, than you are Clean Cardboard. this is the reality of outdoors work. its dust/sand/dirt = rock/glass

so you get back to the fact that you will get dulling in both as a guarantee, and then need to sharpen. Why wont sharpening equipment be easily available? you can buy a $300 knife, but you cannot carry a $20 packet of DMT coarse fine pocket stones? you can carry the knife, but might forget the stones? it doesn't make sense, even though I understand their thinking.

what if you slip and glance the blade on a stone and roll it, and you really dont have a sharpening stone.. wouldnt you want a knife that will restore from a rock you find on the ground easily?

I dare anyone to say they'd provide some aboriginal tribe (any aborinee, not just Aus) 100 knives in 10v and see if they dont throw them away after a month and return to soft mild steel as a better option for living off the grid.

This is my perspective of course, but I've always been consistent on this. Im even clearly stipulating that most of my own knives in the 60+ RC range are not knives I'd want as a long term field knife.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
It's not Cliff, its Dr Stamp
#kebabstickcut, it's a thing - make it happen



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/13/2014 12:47AM by cKc.

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cKc

you can buy a $300 knife, but you cannot carry a $20 packet of DMT coarse fine pocket stones?

Or 25 cents worth of sandpaper?

Quote

what if you slip and glance the blade on a stone and roll it, and you really dont have a sharpening stone.. wouldnt you want a knife that will restore from a rock you find on the ground easily?

It has vanadium bro, it doesn't roll.

--

Old Spice made the same argument, use knives to do really hard cutting and they all go dull fast. Nothing stays sharp cutting used materials as you are cutting dirt, the high carbide ones just take more damage as they chip. Thus you make a knife that takes more damage and can not be easily sharpened so you achieve what exactly? But its a high performance steel, just read the posts and it cuts a lot of rope in uncontrolled comparisons with poor precision and no control of bias so that means - well nothing really, but its high performance.

Here is the frank reality, if anyone tried to sell Farid abrasives with the same argument he is using in that thread he would reject it to the point he likely would find it insulting.

Right or wrong, the defensiveness isn't hard to understand. It seems that he felt like the question was intended as a set up.

I wonder what the effect would have been if he had simply answered:

"Sure, the knife can be used for a variety of cutting chores, but it isn't entirely practical and isn't intended for any specific use. Most of my knives go to high-end collectors who use them lightly or not at all. Therefore, I tend to work with expensive/exotic materials and a design aesthitic that is attractive to this customer base..."

He probably doesn't view it this way, but even if he did, I think it would still sell.

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Apophis

...


He probably doesn't view it this way, but even if he did, I think it would still sell.

Look at the responses, none of them discuss the performance aside from a few who just make fantasy assumptions. I don't think makers have to promote that kind of fantasy in order to sell, Cashen doesn't promote the forging aspect the way many people do and he has no issues.

I don't know, but if I had to bet, I think Farid actually believes 10V is a functional choice and it comes from work he has done which has convinced him of it. The problem is the work is biased so are his conclusions. You have to do the work right, or else you might as well flip coins.

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CliffStamp
I don't know, but if I had to bet, I think Farid actually believes 10V is a functional choice and it comes from work he has done which has convinced him of it. The problem is the work is biased so are his conclusions. You have to do the work right, or else you might as well flip coins.

Reading his answers to some of Bill's questions, it makes me think he doesn't know what he is talking about....

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BugoutBill
I'm kind of interested in the blade shape considering the amount of belly. Is the intended use of the knife something like hunting?

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faridknives
I designed the K2 to be a very high performance tool for all applications, but it is 63RC and needs to be respected, as CPM-10v is not stainless there are applications like cutting certain fruits which one would choose a stainless blade for, other than that this tool is pure high performance.

What I get from his answer...

- It probably shouldn't be used as a hunting knife because "it is 63RC and needs to be respected" translation "If you hit bone it will probably chip out."
- Don't cut fruit with this knife.
- "High Performance" translation: "Not made for cutting"

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BugoutBill
On an aside, how thickly ground is the knife?

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faridknives
Blade is 3.5mm

- Translation Possibility #1: I have no idea what "how thickly ground is the knife" means, which also means I don't know what I'm talking about when it come to cutlery AT ALL.
- Translation Possibility #2: I don't want to tell you how thickly ground the knife is, because it is way thicker than it should be. It is made out of a large carbide, extremely high Vanadium, steel that is likely to chip out if it is ground to what would normally be considered an exceptable level of thinness for a tool designed for cutting. I have, however, already noted that this knife is not suitable as a hunting knife or for cutting fruit. My term for this is "High Performance." I will continue to be dishonest by dodging questions.


Chumgeyser on Youtube
E-nep throwing Brotherhood. Charter Member

This is an interesting position. And it made me laugh.

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Chum: I'd go for option 2

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Resident Emerson Fanboi

Folding knives are fun, fixed blades are important.

Chum,

I don't believe English is Farid's native language, if it isn't that easily explains a lot of what you are seeing. English is a pretty wonky language when you translate into other languages :

Take this sentence :

"How thickly ground is that knife?"

I used a basic translator to translate that away from and back into English to produce :

"Field is how densely the knife?"

Nouns usually do ok, like knife, but verbs and especially adjectives are easily really badly screwed up. My partner speaks English as a second language (and a bunch of others). If you listened to them you would think they spoke it very well, but they will often use adjectives/verbs differently and easily use what we would consider the "wrong" one.

Just look at how badly even native English speakers deal with very simple things like grain size vs carbide size. Chris picks up on this right away and he has posted on it many times but still people confuse carbide/grain. However it is no different than someone not familiar about concrete would call it cement, but cement is in concrete it isn't the concrete. Concrete is cement+water+aggregate.

--

I don't know to what extent Farid knows the answers to those questions, but you really can't conclude he doesn't because he gives those answers, it could be nothing more than an internal translation issue. I know personally I used to do it all the time when I was speaking to someone in French and I would say something like "Yeah, I am just going to briskly move the dog well paced." which sounds like you were drinkly pretty heavy in English and the dog may have reason to be concerned.

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CliffStamp
I don't believe English is Farid's native language,

That never entered into my thought process, and I wouldn't have made these comments if it had. I almost posted something similar on the Spyderco forum, but I figured it would just rile people up and no good would have come of it. Glad I didn't.

However, if he does understand the questions, then I stand by my assumed translations. He is either ignorant or dishonest. I'm not sure how he could misinterpret the hunting question.


Chumgeyser on Youtube
E-nep throwing Brotherhood. Charter Member

Quote
Chum

However, if he does understand the questions, then I stand by my assumed translations. He is either ignorant or dishonest. I'm not sure how he could misinterpret the hunting question.

As an aside, this forum isn't going to become a place where people turn to make criticisms of makers in some kind of exclusive private club. I have no issue with criticisms, but if you are going to make those arguments then you really need to make them in the areas where the makers/manufacturers can see them and respond. If you get banned for that then there is no issue with making them here, but this won't become some kind of private/exclusive maker pin cushion. If you are not willing to criticize someone directly, please don't do it here unless you really have a good reason (like banning, harassment, etc.)

In regards to his answers, again, I am guessing here, I think Farid actually isn't hyping, when he says something like "it is high performance" he really means it. Thus his answer is similar to - "Yes, it can be used as a hunting knife however it is 10V at 63 HRC so if you use it sloppy then you can damage it, however a skilled user will see the benefit of the steel and get superior performance vs your common ATS-34 class blades." Again this is just a guess, but I would bet that is very similar to what he is thinking.

I am basing this on what I have read from him and what he has done with his knives and what he uses to promote them in general.

For example there was a long thread on a British forum where someone challenged him on why he was using that type of steel in a large knife. His answer was (this is serious) that if you cut up cans of beans with it then his 121REX blade could cut far more cans of beans without damage than a typical ~1095 knife. This is actually a true statement if you compare a 70 HRC 121REX blade to a 58 HRC 1095 blade as the 1095 blade will suffer more wear/impaction and all you have to do is make the edge on the 121REX thick enough so that it doesn't chip.

However as soon as he was challenged on that argument (ah, what does that have to do with wood cutting exactly? and what kind of performance/dollar ratio are we talking about? can you actually cut with it besides bean cans?) he deleted all of his posts and refused to discuss. The same can be seen on the Spyderco thread. He seems to really be surprised when people don't have the same view as him and takes it as some kind of personal insult if you question him as he takes it to mean something like you are calling him a liar.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/13/2014 08:56PM by CliffStamp.

I am comparing CS aus-8 to cold steel master hunter vg-1, benchmade contego m4, esee 3 1095, my cpm 154, an my xhp edc.

Contact 570-486-9095

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KWB
I am comparing CS aus-8 to cold steel master hunter vg-1, benchmade contego m4, esee 3 1095, my cpm 154, an my xhp edc.

Cool... how?


Chumgeyser on Youtube
E-nep throwing Brotherhood. Charter Member

I have actually met Farid. I can't say I have spoken to him much; in real life, just as on here I spend more time listening than commenting.
My impression of him is a man who wants to be exceptional and who puts great store in his reputation. He seems concerned about impressing almost to the point of wanting leave a long term legacy.

This leads to some interesting behaviour. He seems very keen to innovate, but any challenge to his approach is taken as a personal attack, not just on his work, but also his reputation and legacy (presumably because it feels quite psychologically damaging to him). Unfortunately his self-publicising style actually creates the very challenge he would want to avoid (even when delivered in an understatedly British way).

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CliffStamp

In order to evaluate what steel is sensible there needs to be some kind of understanding of what it was designed to do. I will list a few issues I see :

-the stock is thick, 0.14" which reduces cutting ability and increases prying strength
-the lock chosen is easy to open/close, but can jam in very heavy cutting and tight grips and impact/deform in impacts
-the steel is very wear resistant but also very brittle
-the handle is strong but also very conductive to heat

It is obvious that some of these are in opposition to each other thus it is hard to see the congruent design. In contrast :

-0.14" steel
-back lock, tri-ad
-aus-8 steel
-steel liners
-g10 handle

Then the kind of work the knife was designed to do seems apparent.

The design seems far more congruent if you regard it from the perspective of the actual users

- the lock is easy to clean
- the steel is very wear resistant when cutting soft materials such as food
- the blade is long enough to cut a decent size bread roll and a toothy edge would suit this
- the knife looks badass for flicking open and closed when sitting around the campfire; the heavy handle helps spydie drops

I see it being a companion camp knife to go with your 6-12 inch camp knife, mainly for food prep and feather sticks. I'm sure it will sell well, but it's not for me.

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faridknives
I don't see any problems with samples being sent out since I cannot do my own test right away.

But I will say this, all this has been due to Cliff Stamp who has disrespected me on YouTube and other forums and now he is here to do the same. How he is NOT yet banned from this forum I will never understand.

Good day,

Farid

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faridknives
Bottom line is this buy it or don't buy it.
I will not be contributing to this thread further. This should have never been allowed to get this far.

Good bye,
Farid

Hmm, guess he won't be answering my/Bill's question then.


Chumgeyser on Youtube
E-nep throwing Brotherhood. Charter Member