An open address, and my last post in this forum..( Or..How NOT to act on a forum )

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sticktodrum said:
I was only paying attention to the important ones.




Not the Tilt, no. Buzz was not required at all. With a DLC run of just over 200 pieces and a subsequent stonewashed run of just over 600, no buzz was required to get Kershaw's Tilt off the shelves.

Believe what you want, it doesn't change that it didn't need any post-release buzz at all.




Oh absolutely dude, just keepin it real. *whiplash*
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Good point about the numbers. Still, apart from the actual sales the popularity of the Tilt has done ZT a lot of good. (Oops, I meant Kai in general and Kershaw in particular. Forgot for a sec that that particular premium knife was not a ZT.)
 
sticktodrum said:
Not the Tilt, no. Buzz was not required at all. With a DLC run of just over 200 pieces and a subsequent stonewashed run of just over 600, no buzz was required to get Kershaw's Tilt off the shelves.
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There were 480 SW TiLTs produced Stick. :)
 
I'll agree that my elmax sucked, on my Zt 0560, I am regrinding it as a WIP, them will remove some edge and sharpen cold to get till the good steel, john ain't the only one to have elmax with bad edge retention, gets better each sharpening though
 
Razorsharp-Travis said:
I'll agree that my elmax sucked, on my Zt 0560, I am regrinding it as a WIP, them will remove some edge and sharpen cold to get till the good steel, john ain't the only one to have elmax with bad edge retention, gets better each sharpening though
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Interesting. I was thinking that if it turns out to be the heat treat you could probably buy a bunch of them at reduced price and then have the blades re-treated somewhere. I think Gavko did an Elmax blade, had it treated, and tested it pretty ruggedly and it came out shining, with great edge retention. Or it might just be the way ZT factory sharpens the blade. They sharpened mine when I sent it in and now it's so dull I can draw it across my finger pressing pretty hard and it won't cut. This after only a few small cardboard boxes. In fact, I've never cut myself with that knife, although have cut myself numerous times with that dang Combative Edge in N690Co. So that'd be the silver lining.

Good to hear it's getting better. I wonder if people had better results with the Speedform II? I sold mine so can't test it.
 
Vanax 75, the TilT had Vanax 75. You could have taken a picture of the TilT in dog crap and it still wouldn't have been easier to get. Someone correct me if i'm wrong, but I don't think you heat treat Vanax because of the nitrogen, it replaces the carbon for hardness.

Misanthropia said:
For anyone who think John does this as a personal attack on KAI/Kershaw/ZT, or to inflate his own ego by putting himself at the center of controversy, perhaps you should take a look at his back catalog of videos about Kershaw/ZT products. The man has probably sold more knives for their company than anyone else. For example, his glowing, gushing review of the Kershaw Tilt is probably one of the most watched knife videos on YouTube; at 170,000 views, that's a massive amount of positive exposure for the company and a testament to their manufacturing skills. Furthermore, the informal cut test of said Tilt brought praise for the Vanax 35 and its heat treatment. I also remember quite a positive review for the 560, and also John was one of the first people to expose most knife enthusiasts to what taking the torsion bar out of the 0350 or Blur will do for the knife, making it an extremely smooth manual action.

All in all, those videos have far more views and exposure than the negative ones, but that is all people choose to focus on. I really think John is a boon to the knife community, who has unfortunately been misinterpreted by those with an irrational loyalty to a brand.
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mr_anderson said:
Vanax 75, the TilT had Vanax 75. You could have taken a picture of the TilT in dog crap and it still wouldn't have been easier to get. Someone correct me if i'm wrong, but I don't think you heat treat Vanax because of the nitrogen, it replaces the carbon for hardness.
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Even if you replace the carbon with nitrogen it still needs to be hardened and what you said about the carbon in Vanax 75 Is only partially true. It still has .20 carbon (it does have 4.20 nitrogen though). I'm pretty sure the only steel that compleatly replaces carbon with nitrogen is H1. take this with a grain of salt, I'm by no means an expert on steels. :)
 
Unless ZT is literally heat-treating the steel incorrectly, disregarding Bohler's guidelines, I do not understand CrimsonTideShooter's crusade.
If the complaint is simply that the heat-treat is not optimal for a vocal minority, well... do not expect change.
Production knives are always a compromise when a company has to meet the needs/wants of a large group of people.


If I wanted a steel heat-treated to my specifications I would go custom.
 
I go by my own experience.
What works out in real life for me is far more relevant data than an internet video.
Any internet video...by anyone.

And it doesn't matter if it's 78 videos; if reality as experienced by me is different, I'm sticking with first-hand results. :)
 
stabman said:
I go by my own experience.
What works out in real life for me is far more relevant data than an internet video.
Any internet video...by anyone.

And it doesn't matter if it's 78 videos; if reality as experienced by me is different, I'm sticking with first-hand results. :)
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Good logic. So what are your first hand results?
 
TEFL0N_D0N_81 said:
Good logic. So what are your first hand results?
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I'm finding the ELMAX to be holding an edge at least as well as S30V.
I haven't yet experienced a steel that did much better (even M390) when used for a variety of tasks. I've found many that did worse (like 154CM when run soft, etc.), but I've yet to see the gains beyond S30V much.
This seems to hold true no matter who has done the heat treat. Fiberglass still dulls blades, and cut enough zip ties and you'll have to do some edge maintenance.

It may be different if one cuts one media consistently; I'll bet a S110V kitchen knife would be great, and there's probably an optimum steel for cutting rope all day. ;)

I'm waiting for the "magic steel", but I haven't seen it yet.
 
I think it's a matter of how JDavis looks at the knife. That's the only explanation. It's sort of the way Marco Pantani or Lance Armstrong looked at hills, and they just lie down flat for them. JDavis looks at a knife and it just gets intimidated into going dull. That's my theory. Not very scientific...
 
I'm in the minority, it seems, but I like both jdavis and ZT. From experience I'm not in love with Elmax in general, but I am in love with my 0801. If the 0801 only came in 440C I'd still have one . . .
 
Personally I have owned three different 056X knives, and I wasn't happy with the steel on any of them. They came razor sharp, they'd slice up paper very easily, they'd shave arm hair easily, but when I broke down a cardboard box (maybe 20 cuts)... the knife got very dull very fast. I really love the 056X design, but I hate how the steel has performed for me. I've even had it get dull after cutting a few sheets of card stock.
 
I love Kershaw, bought my first in 2000. But the thread with the ZT Elmax chipping on SMALL zip ties, come on. I will be passing up Elmax no matter the company.
 
crom said:
I love Kershaw, bought my first in 2000. But the thread with the ZT Elmax chipping on SMALL zip ties, come on. I will be passing up Elmax no matter the company.
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I don't think it's a problem with Elmax. See Gavko's video on a camp knife he made with Elmax. He didn't do the heat treat himself, but had it done somewhere for him. In the video he's hammering through some very hard dark walnut with a few knots in it and the edge was retained pretty well. That's a much tougher test than JDavis does on any of his videos. I have a 561 and have a 566 on order (and I'm pretty sympathetic to JDavis' testing and his justification for this thread). I don't know what's going on with the ZT Elmax, but *something* is. I'm not going to cancel my order, and I suspect that whatever the problem it'll gradually disappear with repeated sharpening, but I'm not going to get hyped on any more production Elmax knives until they track this problem down.

Update: Well, that floored me. It appears that Kai has decided to cancel their subforum. To say the least, this is not confidence building. I'm going to have to rethink that pre-order.
 
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freewheeling said:
Update: Well, that floored me. It appears that Kai has decided to cancel their subforum. To say the least, this is not confidence building. I'm going to have to rethink that pre-order.
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Yup. Bummed me a bit too. Something tells me they'll be back. Coincidentally, that 0454 is really growing on me. Gotta keep my urges at bay for a bit.
 
TEFL0N_D0N_81 said:
Yup. Bummed me a bit too. Something tells me they'll be back. Coincidentally, that 0454 is really growing on me. Gotta keep my urges at bay for a bit.
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I've already blown it. Ordered a "Murdered F3" a couple days ago. Now looking for some place to sell body parts.
 
I was just checking Ankerson's edge retention ranking and he didn't even place Elmax (62) on the scale because it was so off the charts (in a good sense) in terms of cutting ability. But Elmax at 58.5 was in category 5 so there were a lot of steels above that. However, it was in the same category as S30V (60) N690 and VG-1. So quite a lot depends on the specific heat treat and application of the manufacturer.

BTW, H1 was pretty much at the very bottom.

Update: Also, I think STR makes some good observations about steels that are "heat treat picky" as being less desirable than those that are fairly consistent like 154CM. So he ranks 154CM above S30V and you can see why Ernie still uses it.
 
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