Are you frustrated by the amount information provided by knife producers to consumers?

[DangerZone98]

Personally, I’m happy with Spyderco and Cold Steel’s technical specs on their websites, so I use those as a benchmark. Two of my pet peeves are missing spine thickness and weight.

If you’re really into technical specs, the Advanced Knife Bro channel on YouTube is the wet dream. He does thorough reviews of knives and he doesn’t take himself seriously (in a good way).

 

[Zuluninja]

Folding knife instructions:

CAUTION: Knife is sharp. Do not cut yourself or others (unless that is your intention, then be aware of laws concerning such actions)
- Do not throw
- Do not pry
- Do not chisel
- Do not baton/chop
- If tip broke from prying, then you can use as a screwdriver if you want to
* lateral forces applied are borne by a tiny pivot and lock mechanism *
That should cover it. Carry on.

 

[Bastler]

I don't think it's hostility I just think people have better things to do with their time instead of worrying about every tiny detail on what is not a major purchase.

There does seem to be a lot of worrying over details that I hear on this forum. I might join the chorus, if I spent hundreds of dollars on a knife, but I prefer to keep it simple. I seldom spend more than $50 on a knife, then I drop it in my pocket, cut stuff, sharpen and repeat.

 

[22-rimfire]

.....The most surprising thing to me is how many people seem to be hostile to having the manufacturers provide more information on their products, especially information that the manufacturers have and you cannot get elsewhere (e.g., toughness). I can understand not wanting more information, but hostility to the idea of wanting more information (especially on expensive knives) is surprising to me.

Toughness.... function of steel type and heat treat...... It is very much subject to opinion for most knife users. I feel sure there are tests?? I don't think anyone is hostile. Just remember, opinions are like..... they all stink and everyone's got one.

I would like to see more hardness information. It is lacking in many cases. For me it is a soft, medium, hard, very hard kind of characterization that makes sense to me.

One thing that really bothers me is buying a new knife that is very dull or seriously imperfect in terms of the edge grind.

 

[OrangeBlueOrangeBlue]

It's counter-productive to say anything more specific than "this is a cutting tool, don't use it for anything else." Get much beyond that, and you start opening yourself to liability. If you present your product as suitable for a particular task, it'll be an issue when it fails at that task. If you leave it up to common sense (legally-speaking, "reasonableness"), you're going to be much more protected from people who abuse their products to failure and blame you.

 

[The_Iron_Joe]

I had a whole long wall of text typed up before coming to the conclusion that other members here have already said many of the most important parts of my thoughts on this.

It's easy to get caught up in metrics and numbers and having quantifiable data available when it comes to knives and comparing their use cases. Ultimately I wouldn't object to more testing and information being made available, and while I do agree that hardness and toughness are useful metrics to have for the end user, recommended use cases are usually apparent in the design of the knife itself, if not outright described by the maker and/or designer. This isn't always the case, but for 'specialty' knives especially we see this more often.

Unless otherwise stated... a knife is used to cut things which are softer than the blade edge. If the activity isn't "cutting", then one should accept that what one is doing isn't the intended application for the tool (knife), and therefore one should not expect a maker of a cutting tool to specify that their cutting tools should be allowed only certain types of cutting.

EDIT to reiterate that I really do believe that hardness and toughness of a given knife's steel is useful information to the end user. I do think that sort of information would be potentially beneficial to many knife users.