Jerry Hossom said:
It was photographs of the work and results you claim that I (and some others) would like to see.
As I have noted Jerry, if I cite work and if you critize or contend it then you also label all work that supports it under the same banners. It is the ideas that are being discussed not the people. It is also naive to believe that a picure proves anything which is why you don't see them in published papers to prove a result was seen, though at times they can be more valuable than a physical description.
How do you weigh "maybe a little more steel removal" versus "rust and wear resistance" in deciding which knife to buy?.
None of this has anything to do with the topic at hand. It isn't like if you decide to use benchstones it limits your choice of steels or knives.
How good are you at using a bench stone? I'm the first to admit I suck at it.
You might want to preface this when you note you have been unable to show people how to use bench stones and imply it is so complicated. I guarantee I could show anyone who doesn't have a severe physical or mental handicap how to use a benchstone pretty much instantly because the principles are extremely simple. Now if you want to go extremely sharp, to Clark levels, it gets a bit complicated, but to just get a knife to slice thin papers very well is completely trivial.
hardheart said:
If he sees what he views as an unsubstantiated claim, or one he has proven false in his own repeated testing, then he does as a scientist should and confronts it.
There are far too many problems and massive amount of misinformation in the cutlery industry because of rumors repeated and conclusions drawn from "experiments" where there are no details and no way to support any conclusion. The arguement is always prefaced by you should listen to what I have to say because of who I am. The very first thing that has to be done when you look for meaningful information is to ignore that completely because it is irrelevant. Take a look at this :
http://forums.swordforum.com/showthread.php?threadid=71024
That discusses this exact type of arguement and it shows in detail just how easily it is in so many ways to really distort such a comparison. This is the type of thing that spawns the "Lots of makers believe that forging is superior and I saw a demonstration once where a forged blade was even pounded through a stock removal blade and the forged blade took little damage." If enough people repeat such nonsense over and over it will gain "truth" just from the weight of numbers. The people who are interested in actual performance and not myths/misinformation should be very grateful that there are makers like Cashen who both are extremely demanding on and and all claims and are willing to publically and vocally call hype when all such statements are made. Johnston has been doing the same thing for years on rec.knives, he however doesn't actually sell knives, just gives them away to serious users. He also doesn't constantly reference he is a knifemaker when he talks about steels, he just references the work done with the knives and the materials properties which explains it. The only time he mentions he is a knifemaker is when someone notes how complex or difficult it is and he points out that anyone can do it and encourages anyone and everyone to try and sends out kits to those interested.
He does seem to have difficulty in putting some of his mesurements into perspective for the genral public.
Development mainly, often the initial work is very complex. As it is repeated and disected the complications are disregarded and the core. The current edge retention work I am doing is fairly numerical and complex but in a short period of time I will have black boxed all of that and the end results will be quite simple. I am presenting it in full detail in case anyone wants to apply the same methods. I am also getting other data now such as work on tooth scrapers and such that I have not collected and will be running all of them through the same model to show it is a univeral one. A lot of the ideas on cutting ability and such I am developing publically such as the stair-stepping carbide fragmentation so they are rough and again complex due to development. These will all be simplified as they are refined/validated.
... the extra metal 'wasted' may be deemed trivial by the individual.
Considering how dull most people use knives it likely is for the majority. However do you really want to take a high end custom and wear it out ten times as fast as necessary through normal sharpening, and this is the low end estimate for higher polishes like the fine india favored by guys in the ABS. If you favor really coarse edges then you will rip the knife down extremely quickly.
I watched my brother sharpen a Basic 7 to a Basic 5 in about a year because he liked the aggression of the edge of a 80/100 grit belt and thus every time he sharpened it he was basically giving it 75-100 passes per side on a xx-coarse diamond hone. He needed it really sharp (tradesmen) to cut light papers, but also used it heavily for recreation (camping, fishing) so it saw a lot of chopping and heavy wood work.
Note if you are willing to wear out a high end knife so quickly you are usually better off going with cheap knives anyway because you can you optomize the grit and finish for higher cutting ability by raising the bar for damage limitations.
I am currently now of the perspective that this is a likely the critical way to look at edge retention/cutting ability. Consider for example a comparion between S30V and AUS-4A cutting cardboard. If you lower the edge angle and grit enough on AUS-4A it will readily outcut the S30V.
Now the downside is that if you accidently overstress it, the edge will take more damage. However if you are willing to accept that you can increase the performance of the AUS-4A knife in both cutting ability and edge retention over the S30V blade. The knife itself just wears out faster. What would be an interesting comparison is the following :
S30V, 15 degrees per side, 600 DMT vs AUS-4A
At what angle do you need to lower the AUS-4A at the same finish to have the same cutting edge lifetime as the S30V blade? What is then the decrease in blade lifetime due to accidental high stress impacts. Second, at the same angle what grit finish do you need to lower the AUS-4A blade to give the same cutting edge lifetime and what is the rate of blade wear on the AUS-4A blade.
Note from this perspective all the S30V blade does is just last longer, it doesn't cut better or stay sharp longer. I am working along some of these ideas now using my extended family as a focus group. I sharpen folders to differnt angles and then record how much damage they take over a given period. It will take awhile for the results to stabilize but they are kind of interesting and they represent a pretty radical change in how steels and knives should be viewed.
-Cliff
), and everyone here, we have this excellent forum to share information, accurate or not, and then have it verified or debunked. I think Cliff aids in the process a lot, though not without conflicts.
