Edge retention of INFI on gritty materials

C

Cliff Stamp

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I came across this recently as I was doing some edits and it illustrates something Jerry has noted many times, basically of the factors in the high edge retention of INFI is its high toughness and ductility :

I cut strips off of a 2' section of the carpet with a CPM-420V fillet knife, the Battle Mistress, and a CPM-10V light utility knife. The edge bevel angles are similar on all three blades. I recorded the number of slices needed to cut off a section, and made four sections with each blade for each trial and a total of four runs. The results are given below :

<TABLE border=1>

<TR><TH>Steel</TH><TH>First run</TH><TH>Second run</TH><TH>Third run</TH><TH>Fourth run</TH></TR>

<TR><TD>10V</TD><TD align=center>2.5 +/- 0.3</TD><TD align=center>4.0 +/- 0.7</TD><TD align=center>2.5 +/- 0.3</TD><TD align=center>3.5 +/- 0.5</TD></TR>

<TR><TD>420V</TD><TD align=center>2.0 +/- 0.4</TD><TD align=center>2.8 +/- 0.5</TD><TD align=center>3.3 +/- 0.3</TD><TD align=center>3.5 +/- 0.5</TD></TR>

<TR><TD>INFI</TD><TD align=center>3.0 +/- 0.4</TD><TD align=center>4.3 +/- 0.3</TD><TD align=center>2.8 +/- 0.3</TD><TD align=center>5.5 +/- 0.5</TD></TR>

</TABLE>

Can anything concrete be said about the edge retention from the numbers alone? Well it looks like the 10V blade was effected the least, but there is too much variance from run to run to really quantify the effect. Ok, can anything at all be gained from the work? Yes. An inspection of the edges reveals some interesting features. The INFI blades is heavily rolled, light reflects from pretty much its entire length. The 10V blade only reflects light from one spot about 2 mm long and the 420V blade similarily showed little impacting/rolling about 4 spots in total each 1-2 mm long. However under magnification the 420V blade showed numerous chips along the edge, the largest of which was 1 mm long by .4 mm deep and was visible to the naked eye. Neither the 10V or INFI blade showed similar chipping.


Does this blunting effect how the blades need to be sharpened? Yes. After some smooth steeling (10 strokes) neither blade showed significant progress. However after 10 strokes on a butchers steel the INFI blade now shaved and all blades sliced paper well. Figuring that the increased mass of the INFI
blade would make steeling more effective I repeated the work with the butchers steel on the CPM blades using more force, however no significant gain was seen. I then used 10 strokes on a 12" fine DMT rod and 5 on an 800 grit ceramic rod and the 10V blade was shaving sharp, the 420V blade still was not, it needed to be sharpened on a benchstone in order to remove the fractures and restore the edge. Basically INFI didn't fracture and just deformed and so was easily restored by steeling, CPM-10V fractured a little and needed some light work with a rod and CPM-420V fractured a lot and need to be honed.

-Cliff


[This message has been edited by Cliff Stamp (edited 04-12-2000).]
 
Too bad you weren't able to include a 3V blade in this test.
 
The 3V blade I have was out on loan when I did this, I have it back now and will be repeating similar types of work with it.

-Cliff
 
Another interesting thread! The html is kind boched up, though. I need to figure out how to do this "steeling" thing. What's the technique? Guess I'll search for a youtube vid....
 
Steeling is like stropping.

INFI Dulls pretty Rapidly cutting Gritty Material like sod, but will Steel or strop easily back to being sharp.

That Being Said if you want to Cut Sod or other gritty Material, go ahead an use your Swamper, it will last longer before it needs re-sharpened, but will need more work to get back to Sharp.
 
papathud said:
Steeling is like stropping.

INFI Dulls pretty Rapidly cutting Gritty Material like sod, but will Steel or strop easily back to being sharp.

That Being Said if you want to Cut Sod or other gritty Material, go ahead an use your Swamper, it will last longer before it needs re-sharpened, but will need more work to get back to Sharp.
Click to expand...

actually, I beg to differ. The two steels that cliff compared INFI to are extreme wear resistant steels. 420V use to be the steel of the century. I remember it quite well, because it was so hard to sharpen if you didn't have diamond you might as well forget it. About as bad as Vascowear, hehe. 10V is also a real pain. INFI compared to these did fairly well as it is 10 times tougher than either and not meant to be able to hold an edge as well. The 420V chipped as expected. INFI just rolled and was easy to get back to shape.
 
I am speaking from personal experience.

Infi Dulls pretty Fast in Cutting Sod, then will steel or strop back to sharp pretty easy and Fast, no removal of steel, just the quick use of a Crock stick to get the edge back out where it is suppose to be.

Like you said, the edge rolls over and rolls back pretty easy

I am not speaking about the Steels that Cliff compares to, I am talking about The first Big Swamp rat knives, They hold an edge, useful enough to cut sod, longer than a Straight Steel Heart with an asymetrical grind cutting the same sod, but then need more effort to resharpen.

Try it for your self, or just dig a hole in the ground with a Big Infi Knife and a Big knife made of SR-101, The INFI dulls faster and re-sharpens with light Stropping with a Crock Stick, at least the INFI with an asymtrical grind, it is part of why I really, really like(Love) INFI in a Big Chopper, and why I sold all my Swamp type big Blades.

I kept a couple Swampers far a while for Teener use, but went back to all INFI all the Time after a few outings, more rust than I care to deal with and more work to re-sharpen(INFI makes me lazy)

I don know anything about the Steels Mentioned by Cliff for comparison, I just know about the knives I have owned and worked with.
 
And If I want Rubber Handles, I have the Basics to fall back on.

I do like the Basics just fine.
 
On the Other hand INFI retains an edge in soft clean materials better than any knife publicly Tested,,,,,,ever.

Combine the Edge holding with the Malliablility(How is that spelled?) at the Hardness of steel, the flexability, the ease of re-sharpening, the Heft, the Weight, and the Design, why bother with anything else in a Big knife.

I am in the end a Fan.
 
papathud said:
I am speaking from personal experience.

Infi Dulls pretty Fast in Cutting Sod, then will steel or strop back to sharp pretty easy and Fast, no removal of steel, just the quick use of a Crock stick to get the edge back out where it is suppose to be.

Like you said, the edge rolls over and rolls back pretty easy

I am not speaking about the Steels that Cliff compares to, I am talking about The first Big Swamp rat knives, They hold an edge, useful enough to cut sod, longer than a Straight Steel Heart with an asymetrical grind cutting the same sod, but then need more effort to resharpen.

Try it for your self, or just dig a hole in the ground with a Big Infi Knife and a Big knife made of SR-101, The INFI dulls faster and re-sharpens with light Stropping with a Crock Stick, at least the INFI with an asymtrical grind, it is part of why I really, really like(Love) INFI in a Big Chopper, and why I sold all my Swamp type big Blades.

I kept a couple Swampers far a while for Teener use, but went back to all INFI all the Time after a few outings, more rust than I care to deal with and more work to re-sharpen(INFI makes me lazy)

I don know anything about the Steels Mentioned by Cliff for comparison, I just know about the knives I have owned and worked with.
Click to expand...

I have not done enough with the Rats.
Do you think that this dulling would be the case with equivalent Rc's? I think Todays Busses are at 58 or so and the Rats end up at around 60 or so at the edge, right? (not sure on the exact number). The older 1 of 300's were at 62 Rc and SHBM's that came after were at around 60 (Ron hood had one of his three SHBM's Rc'd all over and it was between 59.8 and 60 throughout). Todays blades run at just over 58. Would be interesting to compare at eqivalent Rc's.

Anyway, the steels that it was compared to, especially 420V was the S30V of it's time. It had more wear resistance/edge holding than S30V but sharpening it was so hard that once you dulled it good luck. I bought several folders out of it and 440V as well and sold them all off except one mint one that I still own.
 
Cobalt,

Back when I was a Dealer there were no Swamp Rats.

I sold a knife to a Fella that did Landscaping for a living, it was a Steel Heart or a Battle Mistress, I do not remember which.

He was not pleased at the Rate that the Busse knife got dull cutting sod, I told him(again) how to Sharpen it with a crock stick, and decided to try it for my self and to ask Jerry.

I used a Strider to compare with and told Jerry about my results, he was not pleased and spoke about Edge Geometery and I said, as the knives were sent from the Factory the Strider did better against Sod, Cement Blocks andfor Chopping mild steel.

I said this Publicly several times, as I said Jerry was not pleased that I as a Busse Dealer would ever say such a thing.

The Basics were pretty much gone and Jerry was Testing possible steels and heat treats looking to get the performance possible out of a non INFI Steel.

The Public Tests on the SR 101 seem to me to reflect the one place that some other knife was Better (in the opinion of a few)than a Busse, use against "Hard" Material.

Well, that fixed that, no doubt, The Swamp rats are Highly Flexible and do not Edge Deform as Fast as the More Mallable INFI.

So now if asked, I tell people if they want to Cut Sod, or want to Hack cement blocks or they want to Chop at mild Steel, to get a Big Swamper for the job.
 
This does not match my experrience at all. What I can agree on is that edge retention with the factory edge from Busse can be problematic, but once you do a full resharpening, the edge seems to last 10 times longer than before and outlasts most other steels I have worked with on soft or hard materials.

I think the problem you ran into is what I have run into over the years with Busses and that is a poor initial sharpening compared to other brands. With the exception of the Satin Zero tolerance series and a few Satin SHBM's, the initial edges were not as good as other bldes and seemed to dent easily. After I removed that weak edge, the new edge would outlast everything else I had, except for 440V.
 
My First experience using INFI, while the Box and papers still sat on my desk was chopping seasoned euculyptus fire wood that had sat dry for about 2 years, after chopping for ten minutes or so I checked the edge(also my first experience with an asymetrical edge) and found the knife to be sharper than when I first unwrapped it.

I called Jerry , he said that the knife prolly had a wire edge and that beating the wood had likely taken that wire edge off and polished the resulting edge, Boy was I sold on these knives after that.

The asymeterical edge stays sharp beyond what seems to me a reasonable amount of use in Soft Materials, like wood, skin, hide, hair, or rubbing up against tendons and bone while cutting up game, or dead cows or pigs for that matter.

The last two big Edge retention public tests were done with the asymetricaly edged Busse knives.

I would like to see the result of public Testing with the new edge.
 
papathud said:
My First experience using INFI, while the Box and papers still sat on my desk was chopping seasoned euculyptus fire wood that had sat dry for about 2 years, after chopping for ten minutes or so I checked the edge(also my first experience with an asymetrical edge) and found the knife to be sharper than when I first unwrapped it.

I called Jerry , he said that the knife prolly had a wire edge and that beating the wood had likely taken that wire edge off and polished the resulting edge, Boy was I sold on these knives after that.

The asymeterical edge stays sharp beyond what seems to me a reasonable amount of use in Soft Materials, like wood, skin, hide, hair, or rubbing up against tendons and bone while cutting up game, or dead cows or pigs for that matter.

The last two big Edge retention public tests were done with the asymetricaly edged Busse knives.

I would like to see the result of public Testing with the new edge.
Click to expand...


agreed, the assymetrical edges did seem like they sharpened themselves. LOL

But I have to say that a sper sharp convexed edge I got on some of the older busses lasts forever as well.


this thing shaves hair better than my tripple blade razor

PBFawesome.jpg
 
One Straight Steel Heart and one Straight Battle Mistress and one E model Battle Mistress, in modified INFI one Basic Number 9 and one Basic number three, also an A-2 Steel Heart and an A-2 Mean street.

I do not remember the model of Strider that I used, I have pictures in storage, the Swamp rats used was just the two larger ones that came out first.

Some I just swung, one I used a Dead blow hammer on till it broke the plastic then I used a 2lb hammer to drive the knife like a cold chisel.

I had Teenagers do the worst of it, Handy people to have around some times
My Kids were teeners at the time, they and their friends thought this was a great way to spend a little time.

So, not many, but enough for me to form an opinion, I also practiced throwing at Cement blocks, was less Damaging than throwing at a Cement wall.(I did also Throw at Cement Wall)

Took a bit of sharpening to clean up the knives after chopping cement blocks and Rebar, Hollow Chair legs you could chop a bit then bend and chop through from the other side.

My Straight Battle mistress I worked with a 1 inch plus diameter crock stick alone to fix, I did that at shows in my spare time, people asked me about it and I told them, you can with time Strop with a large crock stick a one quarter inch Deep by five eighths of an inch long deformation back to what appears at first glance to be a straight edge again.

Throwing at car Doors/trunk lids and Hoods was fun and did little to the knives, They cleaned up from throwing at the Car parts with a Crock stick.

I told Jerry about some of what I was doing, I used a Belt sander or a dremel tool to clean up my Mess, depending on what needed done.

Straight swings do little Damage to the edge, off straight down ward agle swings tend to crack or chip the edge more often, straight blows with the hammer dull,roll and deform the edge by mashing, with few chips or cracking.

No need to send any back to the factory, I only really beat up the Basic #3 and that I continue to do.

Not anything but me wanting to see what the knives did, no posts about it here, no talks that might make a Busse knife look bad in this regard.

I heard things, stories and wanted to see for my self how they would do.

I did more and worse over time, but I think this answers the question from Cliff.
 
By the Way.

Safety Glasses were worn.

I also have every intention of doing some really Stupid things with with an American Kensi, just to see how far I can trust one, then I intend to carry one instead of a big knife in the woods, but first I need to practice Big knife skill sets with one, I am confident it will handle small knife jobs better than the Straight Battle Mistress.

I already know it will clean and Fillet small fish better and fits better in a peanut Butter jar.

Both are a lot of work to peel potatoes, but with the AK you just hold the sword still and move the potato.
 
Thanks for the details. I have experienced different, but this would be expected on production knives and as well considering at times the large varianes in usage.

-Cliff
 
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