There is always that tradeoff in knife steels- you can have good edge holding or you can have good toughness, you can't have both.
Yeah, you really can.
There's another way of looking at that. You can very easily have a knife that has both poor toughness and poor edge holding. Those two qualities can easily go hand in hand, so while there are trade-offs, it's not a simple continuum. And it is surprising how much good edge holding and good toughness (and good cutting geometry) can be had in the same blade.
To the op - there is a tendency to develop one's work towards the tests it will be subjected to. Beware over emphasizing one property at the expense of others, for example extremely thick tactical knives that don't cut. One can take a mediocre steel, give it a halfass HT and make a really thick blade out of it and test that blade and it doesn't break in rough use and mistake that as a good test result.
I recommend to everyone that they test their work. The trick is removing yourself and your subjective impressions as a variable in that equation. For example, sitting down and testing a blade by making 200 cuts in rope might seem like a good test. But so what? Perhaps the last time you cut rope you only got 100 cuts, so doesn't that mean something you changed was an improvement? Is 200 even a good number? Who knows? Maybe the last batch of rope or cardboard or leather was just really dirty?
You need comparative test standards that get run through all test cuts in the same media as a datum point. Get a good VG10 Spiderco and others. You want similar steels and similar geometry to what you're testing in order to form any good judgement more than just a loosely held opinion. particularly if you're just getting into it and don't have a lot of first hand experience using high end cutlery.
Part of that geometry equation is developing a reliable technique to set a cutting edge at a repeatable edge angle. Rough tests for edge stability might involve chopping seasoned hardwood and the difference between testing a 15 degree edge and a 20 degree edge is enormous. A lot of people just eyeball it, but there are limits to how much you can develop your work without removing random variation from your test procedures.
My own testing starts with cardboard, then leather, then whittling very hard wood in a specific repeatable way compared against known standards. The results are observed under strong light and magnification. If it is a rough use knife I'll also chop up a cinder block to confirm it will do that without breaking. That last one, the cinder block, is somewhat controversial because really thick soft knives can do that well, so it's no measure of the quality of a knife. But if an otherwise good knife that is performing well will also do that, that's relevant for certain work.
Repeatability, objectivity and relevancy are the goals in any testing. Anything that simply looks impressive but tells you nothing is just theatrics.
) and I have decided it is time to destruction test one of my blades. I have made the knife already, and was wondering what some good tests would be to see if my blades are quality. Thanks!
