My thoughts are that they could, but also, that the Japan based factories 1) have too much on their plates as it is, and fitting it into the pipeline would be difficult at best, and 2) the Japanese factories are not likely to go into sprint/limited runs.
The best case scenario is that the US factory will step up to each challenge, and experienced personnel will stay onboard to help drive a higher standard. These last two questions are some that I hope ThomasW will chime in on, questions of this type are really in his domain.
Never even considered their production constraints. Just saw that they release kitchen knives which bend my view of what a production shop can do (Shuns are the
only knives I don't go back and thin out because there's no need) and saw that Kershaw makes a few knives in Japan (Gents' Folder and those Onion-designed Splinters) and thought "bing bing bing!"
I know this same sort of stuff can be done in America. We need just need the Japanese government to regulate their businesses past the point of profitability and we'll reap the skill drain like we did from England, Scotland, and Wales in the 18th and 19th centuries. Or we could get good on our own, but immigration is the sincerest form of flattery.
Thom. What I was thinking was a compression type lock. Sal invited me to obtain the license recently and I need an excuse to start making them for when I go for it. But if not that it would almost certainly have to be a lockback. Regardless of whether it can be done or not I ordered a Shun Classic Bird Beak tonight.
This is normally reserved for Hardheart, but you've left me no choice:
You are a bad, bad man. Did you have to mention Shun, birds beak, and Compression Lock in the same post? You are a bad man, Steven T. Rice and I thank you.
Speaking of thin though, my thoughts are that in this day and age tactical knives and defensive/survival type knives in folders and fixed blades are the bigger more profitable thing going even though thin is in for some. I mean even knives the makers say are 'not designed to be tactical' look tactical to me.
Know what you mean. One of my 'non-tactical' folders has a flipper, a huge bolo-like blade, and liners thicker than a human head. Wouldn't be surprized if it didn't have a wallet that says "Bad M-Fer" on it. Still, it has everything that made a knife into a 'tactical' folder in the 1990s.
I must admit in my own mind regardless of how stable or capable the steel may be when thin I just don't feel that in conditions like those any real outdoorsy type individuals like myself will run into in the field that thin is going to really be all that great. As an example, I gave my son a thin bladed knife (440C .010 hollow grind) and it lasted about 30 days before I got it back with a big chunk missing right out of the middle of it asking me if I could make a new blade for it.
That's the thing, though. 440C is capable, but not stable. When it fails, it breaks. If you're lucky, it rolls. There are good reasons why Vermont American uses 0186/8670-modified in tons of its saw blades and why their competitors use L6. Those reasons make those steels 'outdoorsy.' We have folks out in Jasper, AL making knives with single-tempered 1095 ground 0.015" thick for
swords - swords and knives which cleave the thick rims on steel barrels with just some micro-chipping at the very edge - because the makers don't know if the users are going to get bored and try abusing the edges despite needing them not to fail or easily be repaired by the user should said failure occur.
Is it being 50% thicker at the shoulder? Having a flat grind instead of a hollow leading up to the edge? Having a steel meant for knife blades? Or all of the above? We could try to isolate those variables by nabbing a 440C blade and thinning out to 0.015" with a wet-wheel (I'm getting better at reading my plastic calipers) and loaning it to your son and see if that makes all of the difference. I think moving towards steels capable of rough use in edge widths capable of low-force cutting is the direction to take. Especially for knives used far away from first-aid cabinets or help. When cutting is done quicker with less force, the user is less tired and less likely to make mistakes due to exhaustion or muscling through. If I'm wrong for having that opinion, I'll change it when I know why I'm wrong and have a better idea on what might be right.
In city life or leisure times its probably fine to have a .005 thin blade but just batoning a blade that thin through some small logs to make kindling would probably be about all it could endure. I know for a fact that the knives Kershaw has sent me for testing can do that. I've done it with them. I'm not saying that they could not be thinner. My Storm II at .017 or there abouts proves it can be a bit thinner so sure they could be but in my mind you have to look at the masses. I think Kershaw does that before marketing a knife to the public.
Now can a standard Storm II hold up to that sort of fun with the softer, yet easier-to-polish standard heat-treatment? That fun including a sub 0.02" edge. If it can, how terrible would it be for Kershaw to make thinner-edged Storm II knives? Maybe very terrible and I don't know, but that's why I'm asking.
I think they know first and foremost how they need to do things to remain profitable. I'm sure that is the first and formost concern of any manufacturer.
There is that. It would seem then that, outside of the cooking crowd and a few whittlers, they're doing what Kershaw needs to do. Whining to Thomas W and Spyderco's Sal Glesser to make the steels on their folders harder and the edges thinner is what I need to do.
On a final note when I stop to look at the blades I've seen being reground, blades that are already pretty 'thin' I might add, that have been modified in recent months by Tom Krein and others to end up being even thinner geometries than they already were from the manufacturer it becomes very apparent to me that no matter how thin Kershaw made these blades it still wouldn't be thin enough to stop certain follks from shouting from the rooftops that they were doing it all wrong regardless of whether it was ZDP189, S30V or 13C26.
Never had a ZDP Caly Jr, but I have a Caly Jr and Caly3 in VG10 and Caly3 in ZDP and they were all thicker than they needed to be. I have two Shun Elites from Kershaw and their edges are the standard by which I judge all high-carbide volume steels (ZDP, S30V, A11, whatevuh). My Shun Elite knives deal with an unskilled cook (some a-hole named Thom) who makes unskilled cuts and sometimes uses the paring knife with a plate as a cutting board. They don't want to dull during normal use and should I dent the edge to heck with a ceramic plate, it pops up sharper after a few minutes on priced-to-own waterstones. If your knife needs to do more than that (and many do), it shouldn't be a high carbide volume steel in the first place. Get some 13C26 and go nuts.
Where'd gull_wing go?
I'm not all that crazy about sprint runs. Mostly I think they just feed the urge some have to hoard and collect limited-run knives that will, ironically, never see a stone, or be used to cut anything more challenging than a bit of twine or a little paper. However it seems to me that if a collaboration were worked out with somebody like Krein, where the blade gets a near custom, high-performance grind, there might be a good synergy there. Kershaw could probably pocket some savings on the finishing, those desiring the 'ne plus ultra' in cutting geometry could get what they want, and even the hoarder-collectors should be pleased getting a potentially even more valuable piece. Plus I don't think the additional cost this would add is going to be a big deal to those interested in these kinds of knives.
