- Joined
- Mar 6, 2000
- Messages
- 169
I can tell you when it happened...but, for the life of me, I can't tell you why. It all started innocently enough while perusing the magazine section at Barnes and Noble a few years ago, I picked up a survival magazine (anybody remember Y2K?) and saw a review of a new knife by Ron Hood... after putting the knife through the ringer, he whole heartedly endorsed it. I was, to say the least, impressed. This knife had an otherworldly ability to maintain an edge, and when dulled, restored so easily it was almost silly. I showed the article to all of my friends, because after all, the results where in PRINT, so it just HAD to be true! Here was a knife that could take whatever I could throw at it, problem was though, I'd just purchaced a Chris Reeve Project Two and was knife poor at the time. My pleadings with "the boss" where in vain *sigh*. Maybe someday. Someday Hell! I had a out and out jones going! But why?
More Articles ensued, each extolling the virtues of this new INFI steel. I began to notice something, every person who owned or tested this new knife seemed to look for a
reason to abuse the thing! Hey, watch me dig a trench in rocky soil; Why not let some Peruvian natives slap open turtles with it? The micarta handles won't melt if left too close to a fire...and so forth and so on. Why?
Mr Busse's product tests are understandable, it makes good business sense to show the consumer the limits of a new product, especially these days when everybody has a new "wonder steel" or tempering process. Plus, considering he had a bit of leeway with material supply, it had to be fun to destroy the damn things...you know? (What the hell do you think was going through his mind during the hemp rope test...man he looks pissed!) Mike Tuber has a professional interest in destroying these knives as well, objectively seeking to document a knifes performance so, as consumers, we can make a well informed purchace.
Then there is the venerable mad scientist, Mr. Stamps. I don't know about the rest of you, but, I am always awed by his doctoral thesis like posts...who with clinically detached authority, addresses the questions of we, the cullinary bewildered masses; with a neat footnote style to boot!(How's he do that?) He's guilty of blade abuse, but, he's also a post grad physicist...now I'm no physicist, but after a few years of undergrad physics I needed a release! I guess Cliff's experiments have an understandable, albeit frightening symmetry to them.
But, what about us? What drives us to take our fine knives and push them to the limit? Dropped from dizzying heights, pushed through metal containers, bent in vices, hammered into solid objects,humililitatingly subjected to crunchy peanut butter! What is it that propels this zealot like sadistic compulsion? You know, I hate to admit this, but now that I own a Battle Mistress, I find myself fantasizing about chopping cinder blocks, whittling rebar, then slicing an over ripe tomato into paper thin sections...all the while sending my awe struck camping buddies into simian displays of envy; squealing, grunting and dancing around a raging fire.
God help me.
Screwtape
More Articles ensued, each extolling the virtues of this new INFI steel. I began to notice something, every person who owned or tested this new knife seemed to look for a
reason to abuse the thing! Hey, watch me dig a trench in rocky soil; Why not let some Peruvian natives slap open turtles with it? The micarta handles won't melt if left too close to a fire...and so forth and so on. Why?
Mr Busse's product tests are understandable, it makes good business sense to show the consumer the limits of a new product, especially these days when everybody has a new "wonder steel" or tempering process. Plus, considering he had a bit of leeway with material supply, it had to be fun to destroy the damn things...you know? (What the hell do you think was going through his mind during the hemp rope test...man he looks pissed!) Mike Tuber has a professional interest in destroying these knives as well, objectively seeking to document a knifes performance so, as consumers, we can make a well informed purchace.
Then there is the venerable mad scientist, Mr. Stamps. I don't know about the rest of you, but, I am always awed by his doctoral thesis like posts...who with clinically detached authority, addresses the questions of we, the cullinary bewildered masses; with a neat footnote style to boot!(How's he do that?) He's guilty of blade abuse, but, he's also a post grad physicist...now I'm no physicist, but after a few years of undergrad physics I needed a release! I guess Cliff's experiments have an understandable, albeit frightening symmetry to them.
But, what about us? What drives us to take our fine knives and push them to the limit? Dropped from dizzying heights, pushed through metal containers, bent in vices, hammered into solid objects,humililitatingly subjected to crunchy peanut butter! What is it that propels this zealot like sadistic compulsion? You know, I hate to admit this, but now that I own a Battle Mistress, I find myself fantasizing about chopping cinder blocks, whittling rebar, then slicing an over ripe tomato into paper thin sections...all the while sending my awe struck camping buddies into simian displays of envy; squealing, grunting and dancing around a raging fire.
God help me.
Screwtape