Are bad slicers *really* bad slicers?

Gaston444 said:
I know you guys are obsessed with folders, and have hardly ever heard that fixed blade knives exist, but you have to get out the front door from time to time.

Gaston
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I absolutely guarantee that I use fixed blades more in an average year than you do in an entire decade.

It is odd, in that you have no problem buying very expensive knives, and then spending more money to have them sharpened to kitchen knife angles, to then go and wreck the knives. :confused:

If you had a YouTube channel called "Tactical Cooking with Gaston", the edges you like on large knives would work just fine, and it would probably be popular. :thumbsup:

Instead, you wreck perfectly good knives, slander established knife-makers and companies, and then back up your odd claims by finding a few YouTube folks that agree with you.

Meanwhile, you ignore the thousands of YouTube folks that disagree with you, the knife-makers who disagree with you, AND the metallurgical data that disagrees with you.

Like I said, it is quite odd.
 
Twindog said:
Opinel's blades vary in width, but they are in that neighborhood -- very thin.

Phil Wilson and Luong (Bluntcut) knives have thin blades, but they are also made of steels optimized for edge holding and heat treated to be super hard. My one Wilson knife is 10V at 64 Rc. Bluntcut's S110V blade is S110V at 66 Rc. By comparison, Opinel blades are run relatively soft at 57-59 Rc, with a 40 degree inclusive angle. I don't know what the behind-the-edge width of Opinels are.

Opinels do provide excellent value and performance for a slicer, as you say, but they are not in the same league as custom slicers from makers like Wilson and Bluntcut.
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no doubt. i follow both here and there. enjoy hearing about there craft. some of the best among others. wish i could afford all of there knives.
 
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Twindog said:
I recently purchased a Phil Wilson custom off the forums. It's an amazing slicer, with edge shoulders 0.006 inches, on a blade stock 0.1 inches with a full distal taper. Amazing slicer. A typical folding knife will have edge shoulders 0.03 inches wide on a blade stock 0.12-0.15 inches.

But the best slicer I have is made by Bluntcut out of S110V steel. It's also about 0.006 inches behind the edge, with a blade stock 0.075 inches and a full distal taper. The difference in slicing performance between Luong's knife and the knives that 99.999 percent of people use is immediately apparent. Plus, he has a heat treat process that allows him to go with super hard steel that can support these very thin edges. This knife steel is 66 Rc. If you really want to experience slicing performance, watch for one of Luong's blades.
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I know there was a lot of controversy when he posted about the extreme hardness on these knives but I won one in his GAW, also s110v but I think the HC was a little higher on mine. I'm not as educated on knife science as a lot of people here, but I will say, that knife is the best damn slicer I've had. Has held an edge for a ridiculous amount of time, thank goodness, because I will have to send it to the pros to get it sharpened :)
 
A Spyderco Techno sharpened to 10 degrees inclusive (or some other craziness) can never outslice a Delica.

Sorry OP. You need to learn what slicing vs cutting is. Easiest way is to cook two meals from scratch. Use a cooking knife designed for slicing for the first, then use one of your thick stock folders on another.
 
Gaston444 said:
Less dulling from the sheath means it is a better slicer. I know you guys are obsessed with folders, and have hardly ever heard that fixed blade knives exist, but you have to get out the front door from time to time.

Gaston
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What are you talking about? To whom is this addressed?

You’re an outdoorsman? Great, me too. Like to get out and properly away from civilisation? Great, me too. And I’ll pay you the compliment that like any experienced outdoorsman, you take appropriate tools with you? For example, an axe or hatchet, a saw, and a knife or two, one of which would definitely be a fixed blade. You wouldn’t be one of those people who think a single ‘survival’ knife is appropriate equipment to take on a serious trip. No, that would be utterly foolish, the reasoning of an imbecile.

Right? If not, then you have no business advising on how to approach the ‘outdoors’.

And another thing, I have many fixed blade knives in a variety of grinds, and the only sheath that I ever had an issue with was the BK2; it was a design flaw, and I had a leather sheath made for it anyway, which works perfectly. If your sheaths are dulling your knives then you are probably creating wire edges, which would explain so much.
 
stabman said:
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On a woods outing though, the Urban would not be my first choice; I would go with more of a general purpose type of blade then.

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How appropriate!
 
marcinek said:
Precisely. "Steel" or somebody's heat treatment of it are irrelevant. They keep a knife a slicer. Geometry makes a knife a slicer. And "thin" slices. That is not "preference."
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Next tell 'em in math why a convex is thinner than a flat grind! :D
 
stonproject said:
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I know there was a lot of controversy when he posted about the extreme hardness on these knives but I won one in his GAW, also s110v but I think the HC was a little higher on mine. I'm not as educated on knife science as a lot of people here, but I will say, that knife is the best damn slicer I've had. Has held an edge for a ridiculous amount of time, thank goodness, because I will have to send it to the pros to get it sharpened :)
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Yes I was pretty puffed-up after being the one to correctly deduce/edjumacatedly guess basically what Bluntcut was doing. I felt like a damn genius for a minute, but then continued forth as normal with continuous dumbassery.
 
Mecha said:
Yes I was pretty puffed-up after being the one to correctly deduce/edjumacatedly guess basically what Bluntcut was doing. I felt like a damn genius for a minute, but then continued forth as normal with continuous dumbassery.
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Can you explain? I couldn't read most of that thread and quit like 20 pages in.
 
Mecha said:
Next tell 'em in math why a convex is thinner than a flat grind! :D
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Apparently math/geometry/physics don't apply to knives! :)

Actually, I think people find dragging mathematics/geometry into it is a buzzkill.

But thin slices better than thick.
 
Mecha said:
Yes I was pretty puffed-up after being the one to correctly deduce/edjumacatedly guess basically what Bluntcut was doing. I felt like a damn genius for a minute, but then continued forth as normal with continuous dumbassery.
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I have a number of Bluntcut's knives, and they all perform exceptionally well. They are the best slicers I have, and the steel is excellent.

Once a large 3V chopper that that I purchased from another maker developed some problems with chipping. A top-tier, nationally known knife maker asked to test it, and he found that the steel was subpar. I sent the knife off to Luong for a re-heat treat, which is always a tricky process. He also put on a new handle because the old handle was was coming loose because of poor craftsmanship by the previous maker.

The chopper with Luong's new heat treat performs much, much better under very hard use. In actual testing, it performed better than the Delta 3V heat treat, including chopping bailing wire with a 30-degree inclusive edge.

But even when I've had knives perform poorly, I've never called the knife maker a dumbass.

You might want to do a self-check on how you comport yourself on this forum.
 
Twindog said:
If that is the case, I apologize.
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Ha! No worries. Tone can be difficult to pick up in writing, and miscommunications abound, sometimes setting off some spectacular meltdowns. :D


marcinek said:
Apparently math/geometry/physics don't apply to knives! :)

Actually, I think people find dragging mathematics/geometry into it is a buzzkill.

But thin slices better than thick.
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A WITCH! ^^^


Mo2 said:
Can you explain? I couldn't read most of that thread and quit like 20 pages in.
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I believe @bluntcut is using a modified version of martempering/marquenching in his HT, and having especially great success with alloys containing vanadium last time I perused his big thread. Some of the confusion was calling it CFW, but you gotta name it something to distinguish it, such as Delta 3V. Even the Japanese sword HT has a name: "yaki ire." I don't have a name for my process in heat-treating ti alloys, and just end up rambling on forever trying to explain it.
 
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When cutting stuff like potatoes i do clearly notice the difference between my rangergrip SAK and for instance the ZT 0452.
 
Mo2 said:
Can you explain? I couldn't read most of that thread and quit like 20 pages in.
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It’s part of the charm of this place really. I couldn’t follow it either. I occasionally like to read the in depth back and forth between people talking way above my knowledge level. It reminds me of just how deep the whole knife rabbit hole goes.
 
To the point of the question, YES, bad slicers ARE bad slicers. TA-DA :D OK, a bit of simplistic levity but the technical stuff, though interesting, can get a bit...ummm....dull. ;) Some good stuff in this here thread though. :cool:
 
basmca said:
When cutting stuff like potatoes i do clearly notice the difference between my rangergrip SAK and for instance the ZT 0452.
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I find thick carrots (inch or bigger around) a good measure of a slicer, they are hard enough that they will chip off if there is too much resistance, and they are a real world medium for grading a knife. If a knife can do good food prep, then it will generally preform any precision task well. That is not to say that every knife needs to cleanly cut carrots, but it gives me a data point that is useful.
 
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