bending tests

I think maybe Hardheart wants you to beat on them with a hammer while you're bending them, to see if they can REALLY take it. ;)

Nice looking knives - they bent nicely. Congrats that they did not snap and the handles held together! It would be interesting to know the answer Orthagonal's question.
 
Testing blades against simple damage is easy task.

You sad you are sure that they cut well - how do you test this?

I have some undestructable knives which just great in this regards, however they does not cut, they does not even chop and useless as well for digging if there are some roots in the ground - dull knife not only useless but dangerous. I am saying this based on my personal experience.

So far only use for knife which I can not break - use it as a prybar. With great caution, I would say, because unlike pry bar it has edge which still can damage flesh.

So all this bending does not impress me until you can show that it also can cut - I can do this kind of bending with quite a lot of steels: roolers, forks, spoons, construction iron etc...

Show us how it cuts.

Thanks, Vassili.

P.S. Also - does it expected from good blade to bend back by itself?
 
Broos said:
I think maybe Hardheart wants you to beat on them with a hammer while you're bending them
Click to expand...

You mean something like a pendulum impact test :confused:

412667_test4.jpg


:D
 
As long as the emphasis on the knife is cutting ability, not bending ability, I don't see anything wrong with bending tests. These knives are 60-61 rc so I'm sure they are good cutters as well.

I hope this doesn't start a trend where we see soft knives to emphasize bending, though. I'd rather have a hard knife that gets its tip chipped off, than a soft knife that ends up a permanently bent tip. At least with the hard knife, it can go back into its sheath, and I can cut with whatever remains of the blade. Meanwhile, the soft knife with the bent tip is worthless.
 
theonew said:
You mean something like a pendulum impact test :confused:
Click to expand...

I was just being a smart aleck, giving Hardheart a good natured hard time and throwing in a sarcastic remark about the quixotic pursuit of beating on hardened steel (knives) with a steel hammer.
 
nozh2002 said:
Testing blades against simple damage is easy task.

You sad you are sure that they cut well - how do you test this?

I have some undestructable knives which just great in this regards, however they does not cut, they does not even chop and useless as well for digging if there are some roots in the ground - dull knife not only useless but dangerous. I am saying this based on my personal experience.

So far only use for knife which I can not break - use it as a prybar. With great caution, I would say, because unlike pry bar it has edge which still can damage flesh.

So all this bending does not impress me until you can show that it also can cut - I can do this kind of bending with quite a lot of steels: roolers, forks, spoons, construction iron etc...

Show us how it cuts.

Thanks, Vassili.

P.S. Also - does it expected from good blade to bend back by itself?
Click to expand...

Vassili, the blades are made for cutting competitions, in this setting they performed more than we asked for. But I think you misunderstand what the point of this thread is about. We used two different steels with different heat treatments. We expected one knife to break and one knife to bend when we would bend them more then 90 degrees. But this did not happen. Instead we have two bended knives and we learned a lot. We are not stating we have made two super knives, because we have'nt. We are not stating that one knife is better than the other, because they both performed really well. We are just saying that things turned out different than we thought and liked to share our findings.

We respect Bladeforums more than posting bended iron knives....

Greetings Toni
 
eastvillage said:
Vassili, the blades are made for cutting competitions, in this setting they performed more than we asked for. But I think you misunderstand what the point of this thread is about. We used two different steels with different heat treatments. We expected one knife to break and one knife to bend when we would bend them more then 90 degrees. But this did not happen. Instead we have two bended knives and we learned a lot. We are not stating we have made two super knives, because we have'nt. We are not stating that one knife is better than the other, because they both performed really well. We are just saying that things turned out different than we thought and liked to share our findings.

We respect Bladeforums more than posting bended iron knives....

Greetings Toni
Click to expand...

Did they hold edge well? I do not see this.
Did you test hardness? I bet you dont, because you listed it as 60/61 - it may mean that this is based on HT you did, but not actual hardness testing. Do not you thing that it may be reason for such softness demonstrated by bending.
How did you test edge holding for those knives?

I mean you can not assume that it was just perfect because you did it for cutting competition. Did it actually won or pass that competition?

So far you just demonstrate amaizing bending, but it will be truly amaizing only if it also amaizingly cuts before, which was not shown.

Thanks, Vassili.
 
eastvillage, your kind response was obviously lost on nozh2002, but not on most of us.
 
I have a lot of Eastvillage knives and they cut damn well and they stay sharp
Photo522.jpg

No I do not do bending test, I know he did them for me.
But here we say:against ignorance we have no medicine
 
eastvillage said:
The fun part about cutting competitions is that as a knifemaker you are constantly thinking about improvements. The shape of the blade, the edge geometry, the grip and the method of hardening are all topics that occupy my limited brain.

A few days ago my good friend and knifemaker Erik Markman was visiting me and we decided to test our cutting knives. Soon we decided that they could be improved upon, so what do you do with the old ones? We both wondered if our hardening was good enough. That the knives kept their sharpness more than well we already tested. But what about the rest? I wanted to break my knife to see the grain size at the edge and at the back. I also wondered how far I could bent the fully hardened, forged O1 toolsteel blade.

We placed the blade in the vise without any wooden blocks for about 1.5 inches from the tip. The blade was to strong for me so I placed a steel pipe over it. Finally Erik bent it more than 90 degrees but still it didn’t break. The blade sprung back to a 50’ish degrees. The edge is undamaged.
Next we put Erik’s blade In the vise. His knife is made out of 1.5026 (comes in the neighbourhood of 5160), selectively hardened and is more tapered than my knife. With all his weight on the knife he managed to bent it more than 90 degrees. His knife also didn’t break or crack what so ever.
You can see a difference between the two blades where the bent starts. I think it’s the hardening method and geometry of the blades that makes this happen.

We learned a lot from this test. First of all we know that our hardening is more than ok. Also we noticed the hidden/through tang construction that we both use a lot is mighty strong. When the pipe was slit over the first blade the handle bent quit a lot, but sprung back into place without any damage. The last thing we learned is that we can make a fully hardened blade out of O1 for cutting competitions and not have to worry about bending the blade during a comp (which my first cutting comp. blade did).

Here are some pics (with a bit of luck some bending pics in the coming days):


IMG_0993.JPG


Top knife is from Toni
Steel: O1
thickness: 6mm
Hardening: full
Hardness: 60/61 RC

Bottom knife is from Erik
Steel: 1.5026
Thickness: 6mm?
Hardening: Selective
Hardness: 60 RC?

IMG_0990.JPG
Click to expand...

:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:
I all ways wanted knife for cutting and stabbing around the corner!
Good job, outstanding!
 
Vassilli,

We have competed in several CUTTING competitions with these knives.
I even won second place with this same knife at last years Dutch Knife Exhibition and third place at a competition in England so I think that is proof enough of the cutting abilities of this knife.
Toni's knife was one place before or after me in these competitions.

I hope this helps to understand these knives actually cut.

Erik Markman
 
I am still wondering how do you test your knives for cutting outside competitions. As well it will be interesting to know what is that Dutch and England competitions - what kind of contests and how many participants?

Thanks, Vassili.
 
They use left twist manilla versus right twist manilla, they use european plastic bottles and paper tubes, and they use european wood dowels. I heard that to make it all copacetic, they then start on the opposite side of the table and go around counterclockwise, so it is very similar, but more like looking at an american competition through a mirror. ;)

I'm betting if you guys would cut a thread or whittle a hair in between cleanly cutting really big free hanging rope, cleanly slicing a standing paper tube multiple times, and slicing a moving golf ball in half, it might satisfy him. :foot:

And BTW these cutting competitions cuts are a WAY better test of edge sharpness & strength than whittling a hair (or many of the tests you see for that matter). :D

Some real nice knives on your site, Toni!
 
Broos said:
They use left twist manilla versus right twist manilla, they use european plastic bottles and paper tubes, and they use european wood dowels. I heard that to make it all copacetic, they then start on the opposite side of the table and go around counterclockwise, so it is very similar, but more like looking at an american competition through a mirror.
Click to expand...

This confirms that the European cutting competitions are not as rigorous as the American ones. Only if you enter an American competition would you prove that your knife is a good cutter.
 
Broos said:
And BTW these cutting competitions cuts are a WAY better test of edge sharpness & strength than whittling a hair (or many of the tests you see for that matter). :D
Click to expand...
I can't see how they do a better job on sharpness. These competitions test a system, knife + user. Doesn't matter how sharp your knife is if you miss the rolling ball. I don't see much point in testing 'sharpness' anyway, doesn't seem there's any cutlery grade steels that won't hit the same level, at least for one cut. Really, I don't know if it's too valuable on strength either. We'd need to know all the parameters of the edge & bevel, not just the steel used, to get anything useful from that. I enjoy the novelty of tests and comparisons, but am losing any feeling of advancement from them because of the unaccounted for variables and lack of validation through repeated testing.

I just think they're cool events, but they're about as useful in determining best steel as NASCAR is for saying if Ford or Chevy is better. Still have drivers, crews, weather & track conditions, etc. to look at. Better to just watch and enjoy. Well, if you can enjoy watching a bunch of guys turn left for hours on end :D
 
I agree completely. Competitions are competitions and isn't the best way to test you knives for sharpness because the knives are designed for this very specific purpose. But I do think that most of us agree on the point that a good competition knife cannot be made out of a sharpened piece of iron.
 
I am still waiting on any info about how edge retention is tested.

I start thinking that it is only Buck and Spyderco who have CATRA machine do some testing and everybody else has no anything at all.

Both manufacturers and custom makers seems to be randomly shoot in different directions, or just blindly follow someone else lead - which sometimes hit the target.

But no one except Buck and Spyderco seems to measure and test quality of their blades. At least no one else say anything about it.

I asked Thomas from Kershaw -- no answer.
I asked here - no answer as well.

To me this mean that no one do any testing or testing which they can seriously talk about. Otherwise why no one sad - I am testing my blades this or that way. Why there are all this talks and pictures about blade bended and no single word about how it cuts?

As I sad - I can bend nail like this (well recently I got nails made in China - they are brittle and tend to break under some impact - when I hummer them into wood for example..., but normal nails).

Is it so hard to show how it cuts?

But please, do not show splitted woods, it does not show edge quality too much to me - show some cuts.

Thanks, Vassili.
 
There is no evidence that manufacterers do any edge retention testing, other than Buck and Spyderco (and certain custom makers). It is sad but true.
 
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