I have seen references to that site before and there is a lot of confusion and ambiguous concepts there. If you read to the bottom of the page, you will find that what this is really all about is edge packing, and the author emphasizes the importance of rituals over empirical evidence, (not that there is anything wrong with that! Before we even get started for crying out loud
) but it needs to be taken into consideration when determining our goals based on cause and effects listed there. I think the bladesmithing community has fully discussed this topic and settled much of it long ago.
Mr. Reichert, I am not sure how best to assist you with your questions. You say you just want to figure out the best way for you to make a knife good enough to be happy with, but your posts and questions have a confusing pattern of hopping from one controversial topic to the next that leaves me guessing as to what your goals actually are. You have gotten really good advice from many people here but something still seems to be missing for you as you keep exploring arcane bladesmithing tidbits as if looking for something we cannot give you.
I once had a student I would get together with on a monthly basis who was ravenous for knowledge. So I was more than happy to feed his need. However it seemed that every month when we got together I would see a serious backslide in his progress and would notice him doing all kinds of odd things. I saw him take notes from me but his methods just didn't reflect my notes. When I would ask him why he did some strange thing, he would tell me that he got a tip from some other smith, which I am just fine with except that my student decided to use every obscure tidbit of information he encountered because he wanted to make the "ultimate knife". And every one of these little tricks that he gathered from books, magazines, internet and conversations, promised to do that, despite the fact that many completely contradicted each other. Instead of developing a useful systematic method all he had was a mongrelized, confusing mess. I then insisted that he work with one teacher at a time, or quit wasting all of our time. It may have seemed stern at the time but when he did this and managed to get a good understanding of what I was teaching him to do and why, and when he did the same with his other teachers he was able to much better recognize what would work for him in a total harmonized package.
When I was a kid, I read every martial arts book and magazine I could get my hands on, hoping to find all the “secrets” what would instantly allow me to kick anybody’s ass. I thank the day I walked into a decent Taekwondo school that had opened nearby. My instructor was good and the first thing that happened was all the “mall ninja” garbage was beaten out of me, and I was then ready to really start learning a martial art. In no time I was stretching and learning techniques simply because I loved to do it, and I lost all desire to kick anybody’s ass. In just a couple of years I was testing for black belt, and was in great shape mentally and physically, allowing me to see what a waste my mall ninja days had been.
I have seen many guys appear on forums who's stated goal was to make the "ultimate knife" before making their first one, and their strategy in this pursuit was to scour all printed and electronic media for every little "secret" that promised to produce the ultimate blade, virtually all of which is little more than marketing ploys. These guys usually end up aggravating the hell out of the forumites trying to help them because their focus is in all the wrong places instead of just realizing that great knives come from years of practicing and learning a craft that they just enjoy doing.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that you are one of these guys. From our recent conversation I see your potential when you say you just want to do the best you can and be happy making knives, but getting side tracked on every esoteric method you encounter, scientific or simple, will not get you there. Dedication to making sense of the basics and developing your skills and knowledge of the process will. In this I would point to Don Fogg. Don is perhaps one of the greatest and most skilled bladesmiths in the world today, a true master among masters. Don doesn’t need “secrets”, or mumbo jumbo type techniques to make superior knives. Don’s “secret” seems to be that he simply enjoys the process of making a knife; the finished knife doesn’t seem to matter near as much as the pleasure of making it. Don Fogg doesn’t have to cut up cinder blocks, slice a 1000 ropes, or bend his blades 50 times to show he is a great bladesmith, his passion and skill as a craftsman says it all.
