Can China made produce a good blade?

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Lol. That fault line is where we always disagree. You only look at trees, I take in the forest.
 
Yes. For me it's always the knives first, then the motives. And as long as those who go at it the other way around are honest about it if they've never seen or handled or owned the knife in question, I don't have a problem. But believe me, that's not the way those folks normally go about presenting their opinions on the knife. They talk about the knife as if they have personal experience with it when in fact they haven't. At that point, they're not telling the truth. And that's where I draw the line.

Again, Boats, I understand why they do that. I can even sympathize with them. But to me there's little difference between a liar and a thief. And in my world view, two wrongs don't make a right. That's just the way I was raised. So I'll continue to challenge those who call a knife junk because it's Made in China when I damn well know it's not.
 
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stabman said:
I think the company behind it means a lot.
Spyderco has some Chinese production done for them.
They tested the steel though, and found out that it wasn't what it was originally said to be.
So, they got it properly labelled,
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Tell me more. Not to prove anything, I'm curious as to the professed steel and the actual steel.
 
davek14 said:
Tell me more. Not to prove anything, I'm curious as to the professed steel and the actual steel.
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If I remember correctly, the steel was supposed to be 440C, but didn't test out to be such.
It was 8Cr13MoV, which is a decent enough steel, as long as the customer knows what they are getting.

And that's why the company is important; their oversight ensures that the customer gets what they are paying for.
Spyderco proved they were on the ball, and the Chinese manufacturer knew right then to say what they were providing, and make sure it matched what they said.

And the customer ends up with a pretty good knife for the cash.
My wife still misses her original G-10 handle Byrd Cara Cara that fell out of her purse...it was working very well for her uses.

Here you go. :)


sal wrote:
I'll try to make some sense of it.

Hi JDEE. They didn't feel that hard to me either when I put them on the rods. We Rc'd them in-house and they were running 60/61. I know 440C is brittle at 61. These don't seem brittle. We're still getting feedback.

The steel in the byrds is 8Cr13MoV.

When we first began designing the byrd line and working with the makers, we asked the makers what was the best steel available in China. They said 440C. We requested 440C.

As is my anal retentive, obsessive-compulsive nature, I'm always testing. On the first run, the edge retension was quite good, lock strength was heavy duty range, lock reliability was excellent. Then I analyzed the steel in the first run. Chemistry didn't match 440C. "Something about Chinese 440C".

We communicated with the foundry. Their analysis matched ours. I said we cannot call this 440C in the USA if it is not the same chemistry as 440C in the USA. The name of the steel in China is 8Cr13MoV. .8 Carbon, 13 Chrome, less than 1. moly with vanadium.

It is a good steel and tests in a range with Aichi's AUS-8.

byrd models are made from and will be marked 8Cr13MoV.

It is interesting to note that 95% of all knives sold are sold to people that don't know one steel is different from another. Here on this forum we seem to have many that do. I'm impressed.

I don't think you will find a better quality $25-$30 knife.

sal

http://www.spyderco.com/forumII/viewtopic.php?t=19518
 
Sal also tried to explore having their makers use S30v and more recently, CTS BD1. Sal being so anal about his steel being "perfect" was not happy with the HT and so that $50 S30v Tenacious and $40 BD1 Byrd is for now, still shelved.

Of course, this doesn't mean that the recent high end makers have this limitation....And this further shows that ABILITY wise you cannot put everyone in China under one umbrella.

*Disclaimer* Spyderco's China maker not being able to use higher end steel to Spyderco's liking and obsessive steel standards does not mean anything more than just that. They are just not "comfortable using it yet" to quote Sal. But like Sal said, for $20 you're getting a whole lot.
 
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Haze said:
Oh, dear.... and after all the shouting you did about your vast "hands on experience" too. I think we know where this has gone....
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Man, hasnt someone posted enough pics for everyone? Lol, im so sick of pics. Plus jarbeza in a brick wall is the one pic to rule them all anyways.
 
ALLHSS said:
Aren't they both licensed?
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Not that i am aware of. Neither company has ever answered my emails when asking about it. And neither use the term axis lock nor make any reference or acknowledgement of whos ip it is.

Boats said:
Lol. That fault line is where we always disagree. You only look at trees, I take in the forest.
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You take in the forest. I take in the world. The world we share with other humans. Humans equally capable of the same rights and the same wrongs as any other human.
 
Stays Sharp said:
Sal also tried to explore having their makers use S30v and more recently, CTS BD1. Sal being so anal about his steel being "perfect" was not happy with the HT and so that $50 S30v Tenacious and $40 BD1 Byrd is for now, still shelved.

Of course, this doesn't mean that the recent high end makers have this limitation....And this further shows that quality wise you cannot put everyone in China under one umbrella.


*Disclaimer* Spyderco's China maker not being able to use higher end steel to Spyderco's liking and obsessive steel standards does not mean anything more than just that. They are just not "comfortable using it yet" to quote Sal. But like Sal said, for $20 you're getting a whole lot.
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The lesson, that Sal learned well, is that when you ask your PRC supplier for something specific, you need to do your own testing on it to be sure. 440A-ish being passed off as 440C was not a translation error or some other innocuous mistake, it was deception. 440A and C are well known internationally and cannot be chemically confused one for the other, so overselling A as C was intentional.

That we know this "Chinese 440C" as 8Cr13MoV is a direct result of westerners forcing a little measure of truth in advertising into PRC steel descriptions. They sure weren't doing it for themselves.

In fact, the entire Byrd company was intended from the start to distance Spyderco's valuable brand from these PRC manufacturing kerfuffles and the confidence lost in every such instance discovered.
 
Boats said:
The lesson, that Sal learned well, is that when you ask your PRC supplier for something specific, you need to do your own testing on it to be sure. 440A-ish being passed off as 440C was not a translation error or some other innocuous mistake, it was deception. 440A and C are well known internationally and cannot be chemically confused one for the other, so overselling A as C was intentional.

That we know this "Chinese 440C" as 8Cr13MoV is a direct result of westerners forcing a little measure of truth in advertising into PRC steel descriptions. They sure weren't doing it for themselves.
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Slow your boat. So quick to the conclusion, you sound like Sherlock Holmes deducing. Sal has reiterated that there WAS a confusion and it was not a deception in following threads as this has been covered several times before.. He got a hold of the foundry and they exchanged data. Sal's a mod here, I'll forward this to him and hopefuly he can reply himself.

BTW, he does his own testing on all steels anyway. He had problems with 204P once and guess what, the entire shipment was bounced. Can we conclude that Carpenter lied just off of that? Hell no.

Regardless, we are back to square one... So we have made it clear that China is capable. The point of this thread..Now the goalpost is moved to BUT BUT they suck anyway. I see I get it....This is why this thread doesnt serve anymore purpose if it doesnt stay true to the OP. Why am I even going along with it.
 
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PURPLEDC said:
You take in the forest. I take in the world. The world we share with other humans. Humans equally capable of the same rights and the same wrongs as any other human.
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Funny how some politically organized groups of humans have such repeatedly high profile incidents chronicling their collective inability to stay on the correct side of wrong.

Again, unless you mistake me, I am not implying anything general about ethnic Chinese folks. It seems to be only the crypto-capitalist communistas who can't aspire to virtuous commercial conduct without constant vigilance from outside interests.
 
The truth will always come out and you get what you paid for.

$5 gas station knife, $30 Tenacious, to $300 Reates... Pay to play.

There are little to no USA options at the first two price tiers I pointed out.
 
Stays Sharp said:
Slow your boat. So quick to the conclusion, you sound like Sherlock Holmes deducing. Sal has reiterated that there WAS a confusion and it was not a deception in following threads as this has been covered several times before.. He got a hold of the foundry and they exchanged data. Sal's a mod here, I'll forward this to him and hopefuly he can reply himself.

Regardless, we are back to square one... So we have made it clear that China is capable. The point of this thread..Now the goalpost is moved to BUT BUT they suck anyway. I see I get it....This is why this thread doesnt serve anymore purpose if it doesnt stay true to the OP. Why am I even going along with it.
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Sal is one of the most gentlemanly figures in this industry, so if he wants to remain polite about what happened that's his choice.

I don't have to allow anyone to save face. Just from a chronological perspective, "confusion" on the part of a steel foundry is highly improbable to the degree that you publicly and privately misrepresent what your company produces as a supplier to others by a factor of two classifications. The composition of the 440 series stainless family are not state secrets.

When you have misrepresented what you make there are only two unattractive options available—lying or incompetence—neither are flattering.

Do you think when a foundry in Japan delivers every new batch of VG-10 or H-1 that Spyderco double checks the foundry's integrity so to ascertain that which was ordered was actually delivered? Maybe they do. In the PRC, I wouldn't dream it's an option to have to feel compelled to perform such due diligence with each delivery.

Carpenter makes mistakes and batches get rejected and recycled. They don't try marketing apples as oranges.
 
Boats said:
Sal is one of the most gentlemanly figures in this industry, so if he wants to remain polite about what happened that's his choice.

I don't have to allow anyone to save face. Just from a chronological perspective, "confusion" on the part of a steel foundry is highly improbable to the degree that you publicly and privately misrepresent what your company produces as a supplier to others by a factor of two classifications. The composition of the 440 series stainless family are not state secrets.

When you have misrepresented what you make there are only two unattractive options available—lying or incompetence—neither are flattering.
\
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Timing. This happened before the name 8cr13mov was even coined..

I assure, you Sal wasn't being nice in this case. He literally shared the whole story on this thing because a cool guy just like you had the same...exact attitude and agenda. And it had to be spelled out.
 
But it seems a consensus is reached that:

1) Sal brings the goods.
2) If you buy a Spyderco or Byrd knife made in China, you'll get what you think you're getting. :)
 
stabman said:
But it seems a consensus is reached that:

1) Sal brings the goods.
2) If you buy a Spyderco or Byrd knife made in China, you'll get what you think you're getting. :)
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We also now have a philosopher specializing in China who now thinks he's Sal's psychologist.
 
Stays Sharp said:
Timing. This happened before the name 8cr13mov was even coined..

I assure, you Sal wasn't being nice in this case. He literally shared the whole story on this thing because a cool guy just like you had the same...exact attitude and agenda. And it had to be spelled out.
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Lol. My only agenda regarding Sal's steel tale is that 8Cr13MoV had to be coined because a supplying foundry either didn't know that what they were making was closer to AUS 6 than to 440C, or that it did know and needed to quit calling their product 440C. You gotta be able to call the blade something other than "Chinese Mystery Steel" if you want a neat and accurate blade stamp for the end user to look at, so 8Cr. . .blah, blah, blah, it is.
 
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