I believe Cliff has a doctorate in nuclear physics and has used his background as a scientist to do extensive and rigorous testing on blades. His tendancy to not tolerate misinformation and to frankly state his positions and why has made him unpopular with folks who can't stand to hear anything but glowing praise for their duper steel of the month. (Clearly it's him who is biased and not the mob that can't tolerate or rationally process any criticism.)
I guess from that perspective the baseless attacks that come out every time his name is mentioned aren't surprising.
It seems like there is a disturbing lack of basic reading comprehension or that a bunch of projecting takes place whenever people react to things he's written. Plus everyone is soooo brave attacking someone who can't respond or defend himself here, classy. :thumbdn:
In the quote above, it appears someone asked the man his opinion on 3v for choppers. He said he doesn't prefer it and laid out the reasons why. The response seems perfectly rational to me, but wouldn't necessarily stop me from buying a chopper in that steel at all. He didn't say is was a bad steel, didn't say it performs poorly, didn't insult anyone's mother, etc... But hell, let's all crucify him for it anyway
Yeah, pretty much this. Stamp has no interest in assuaging people's knife choices, so feathers got ruffled and feelings hurt.
His criticism sounds valid enough to me. It buttresses another criticism he's made in the past, that knives are made to sell, so sometimes decisions get made that might be rationally incongruous when considering function, but understandable as selling points. Exotic steels command premium prices even if they are misapplied. This isn't a unique phenomenon. Some of the most desirable objects are made so because of very impractical features and materials.
