"Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Martensite..." by the intrepid Mr. Cashen

[Tai Goo]

Post 101!

 

[fitzo]

As always, very creative and enjoyable, Tai!:thumbup:

 

[Tai Goo]

I was thinking about this thread last night and had about a million different conflicting and contradictory thoughts run through my mind, a frame of mind I haven't been in for a while... I guess I'll just leave it open ended for now. It's a mystery!... too much to factor in! I don't have the answers, just a whole lot of questions... and the "facts" that I do have just raise more questions...

Maybe the questions are more important than the answers...

 

[Kevin R. Cashen]

...Probably the main reason I don't push metallurgy or talk about it more, is that I really get tired of hearing false metallurgy, incorrectly applied, incomplete, inapplicable "gibberish" in regards to promoting bladesmithing or certain bladesmiths. So, I've just kind of strayed away from talking about it in general, and don't want to be associated with those people, or add to the confusion.

And this brings us full circle, if the isolated facts in a single article at least provide the public with enough information to tell the next joker who tries this trick they are full of #$@ then it has served a valuable function. You are tired of it, but I had a belly full of it some time ago and decided to deprive them of their power to deceive. From all the correspondence and feed back that I get it would appear that people have been more intimidated by the false metallurgy than actually fooled by it (common sense holds a little power of it’s own), I am continually approached with “atta boys” and how they herd this joker say _____, thought he was talking trash but didn’t have the understanding of metallurgy to say exactly why. Metallurgical writing that I thought would bore people to tears, is most often described as “a breath of fresh air”, by a population that has had nothing but B.S. thrown at them for too long.

What should be a dead giveaway that somebody is using metallurgy as a gimmick or scam with no intention to understand or actually apply it properly, is when they are more than happy to embrace it and liberally throw the terminology at people in order to baffle and bedazzle, but as soon as they are called on it, or real metallurgy contradicts them or does not support their product or process they suddenly have no use for it. Before folks had easier access REAL metallurgical information the slicksters could misuse metallurgy without limits, but now one minute metallurgy is their friend and says their product is the greatest, and then as soon as they see that the crowd may know enough to see that they are talking trash, they will immediately reject all that “science” that so often leads us astray and rarely has all the answers. You can tell when somebody got caught with their pants around their ankles when the metallurgical jargon instantly turns to poetry. Heck, tap dance and start quoting the bible if you have to but just keep dodging and weaving, what ever it takes to stay one step ahead of the befuddled crowd! HAROLD HILL! If you don’t instantly get the reference I implore anybody reading this to rent a copy “The Music Man” and see if you don’t recognize the Harold Hills in the knifemaking business. “Oh, we got trouble! Right here in bladesmithing! With a capital “M”, and that rhymes with “them” and they stand for SCIENCE!...”

Me, I will climb high or get taken down a peg or two with science, in fact I feel metallurgy is working best when it tells me something I didn’t want to hear! When testing shows something bad about my process, it has served its most legitimate function, if I will only turn to it when it will stroke my ego and provide me with a great P.R. hook then it is not serving its function at all, but being misused as a tool to mislead.

The martensite article may not tell you how to make a 75% better blade tomorrow, but just last night I received a phone call from a bladesmith that has been around much longer than I have who I have wanted to meet for some time. He looked me up just to tell me how much he enjoyed that article and we spent some time discussing many of the same things we have addressed here. That alone makes the article quite worth while for me. But one cannot dismiss the satisfaction of making of making it possible for a budding knifemaker to walk away from a sales pitch knowing that the pitcher didn’t really know squat about martensite.

 

[Phillip Patton]

Kevin, would you please check your email?

 

[Tai Goo]

And this brings us full circle, if the isolated facts in a single article at least provide the public with enough information to tell the next joker who tries this trick they are full of #$@ then it has served a valuable function. You are tired of it, but I had a belly full of it some time ago and decided to deprive them of their power to deceive. From all the correspondence and feed back that I get it would appear that people have been more intimidated by the false metallurgy than actually fooled by it (common sense holds a little power of it’s own), I am continually approached with “atta boys” and how they herd this joker say _____, thought he was talking trash but didn’t have the understanding of metallurgy to say exactly why. Metallurgical writing that I thought would bore people to tears, is most often described as “a breath of fresh air”, by a population that has had nothing but B.S. thrown at them for too long.

What should be a dead giveaway that somebody is using metallurgy as a gimmick or scam with no intention to understand or actually apply it properly, is when they are more than happy to embrace it and liberally throw the terminology at people in order to baffle and bedazzle, but as soon as they are called on it, or real metallurgy contradicts them or does not support their product or process they suddenly have no use for it. Before folks had easier access REAL metallurgical information the slicksters could misuse metallurgy without limits, but now one minute metallurgy is their friend and says their product is the greatest, and then as soon as they see that the crowd may know enough to see that they are talking trash, they will immediately reject all that “science” that so often leads us astray and rarely has all the answers. You can tell when somebody got caught with their pants around their ankles when the metallurgical jargon instantly turns to poetry. Heck, tap dance and start quoting the bible if you have to but just keep dodging and weaving, what ever it takes to stay one step ahead of the befuddled crowd! HAROLD HILL! If you don’t instantly get the reference I implore anybody reading this to rent a copy “The Music Man” and see if you don’t recognize the Harold Hills in the knifemaking business. “Oh, we got trouble! Right here in bladesmithing! With a capital “M”, and that rhymes with “them” and they stand for SCIENCE!...”

Me, I will climb high or get taken down a peg or two with science, in fact I feel metallurgy is working best when it tells me something I didn’t want to hear! When testing shows something bad about my process, it has served its most legitimate function, if I will only turn to it when it will stroke my ego and provide me with a great P.R. hook then it is not serving its function at all, but being misused as a tool to mislead.

The martensite article may not tell you how to make a 75% better blade tomorrow, but just last night I received a phone call from a bladesmith that has been around much longer than I have who I have wanted to meet for some time. He looked me up just to tell me how much he enjoyed that article and we spent some time discussing many of the same things we have addressed here. That alone makes the article quite worth while for me. But one cannot dismiss the satisfaction of making of making it possible for a budding knifemaker to walk away from a sales pitch knowing that the pitcher didn’t really know squat about martensite.

I agree 100%,... and it brings us full circle again.

Even though certain perspectives and applications of metallurgy don't make sense, doesn't mean the knives made by those folks won't do what they say. It just doesn't make sense to us metallurgically,... but maybe it doesn't have to.

99.9 percent of the time the metallurgy I apply is so basic, straight forward and routine,... times come when I need to step outside the box and "experiment" with an open mind, regardless of whether of not it makes sense metallurgically,... just to keep it interesting, and see what I can learn.

I like to experiment with "concept". Since the medium is metal, metallurgy is involved reguardless of my understanding of it.

Is reality fixed.... or malleable through different "concepts" and perspectives?

I really don't know...

 

[Will Leavitt]

I think it's safe enough for me to enter this conversation now, I felt like a child listening to professors argue over the finer points of some arcane subject.

Regarding the chef's analogy, my brother, best friend and I have a catering business. My best friend Brother Malcom was an executive chef for years before a car accident limited his ability to stand. I'm at best a semi-automated food processor and pot stirrer. This thread reminds me of the "biz" crowd at my favorite local watering hole where a lot of chefs will argue flavor development and technique to arrive at the same final dish. Does it matter to the customer if you started with a sautee pan or a frying pan? To some it does because they're more into the science of the cooking process and love to talk to chefs about their techniques and processes. To most customers they're very happy to get a fine meal.

I have customers that could care less what metal and processes I used to deliver their knife, there are customers that want some knowledge of my processes and how I arrived at delivering their finished knife. There are customers that I know I turn off because of my limited knowledge of metallurgy. I don't BS people, I let them know the limits of my knowledge and let them decide if they'll trust me to make their knife.

I have a story about the value of not BSing someone.... I was doing a trade days demo in North Alabama near Huntsville. This nice lady Constable bought one of my EDCs, she asked the normal questions about heat treat and steel used and my ideas behind my processes. I explained my process and how I understood the process to work and why I did what I did based on my limited knowledge. After I finished she laughed and said I did a pretty good job of explaining it in layman's terms. I asked how long she'd been a constable, she laughed again and said she only did it on the weekends, she worked at NASA full time. Her degrees included metallurgy, geophysics and about 3 other fields. I know now if I tried to BS her she would've laughed at me and dismissed me as a snake oil salesman or worse. She's a very valued customer and orders knives from me on a regular basis.

I read what I can get my hands on regarding steel, I experiment when I can and most importantly I know:

I won't BS people on my limited knowledge. I get austentite and martensite mixed up a lot and just explain that "it's one of those sites."

Through experimentation some of the sexy cryo HT's won't improve the simple 10XX steels I use.

That I'm fascinated and will continue to improve my knowledge of steels.

I can't stand people that throw around terms that they can't pronounce and barely understand, they use it cause they read it on the 'net or some other big name maker's site and they think it impresses people.

At the end of the day 90% of my customers don't care if I soaked the blade in the forge, a salt bath or a pot of flaming pig lard to get the heat treat that I deliver, they just want the heat treat I deliver.

Mainly I'm just happy to be able to sit and walk around after my back surgery Monday.

Will
formerly known as badbamaump

 

[Tai Goo]

We can all look at the same object of “reality” and each perceive it and interpret it differently,… and each be equally correct from our various perspectives.

An example would be traditional Japanese swordsmithing. Although they didn’t have any concept of metallurgy, as we think of it, and looked at it more spiritually and ritualistically,… we can apply all kinds of our metallurgy to it and study it from a different perspective. At any rate, and which ever way you want to look at it,... the work was outstanding and unequaled in many ways!

The object of “reality” never changes,… but our perspective changes the “reality” of it…

It’s a mystery!... an enigma... an open ended equation...

 

[Tai Goo]

... We can look at traditional African bladesmithing and say, "What great art!",... but they didn't have any concept of art or science, as we think of them,... and didn't make any distinction between the two.

Everything was "art" and "art" was everything!

 

[resinguy]

Kevin, will you be able, at some point in the future, to make this article available to the general public?

 

[Tai Goo]

Of course, as much mystery and surprise as you feel is necessary as an idividual maker. IF you want to go all mystical naked and painted up in the moonlight banging away on leafsprings, with a hammer blessed by a voodoo preist, or in the shop using power hammers and salt pots and microscopes, and factory steel stock, it is all up to everyone what compromise to make.

I think it gets back to what Sam was saying, right there.

In spite of his poor grades in school,... it's a "brilliant" concept of "reality"!

 

[Tai Goo]

Circular or linear, which ever way you want to look at it... it eventually boils down to the same thing...

 

[Kevin R. Cashen]

... We can look at traditional African bladesmithing and say, "What great art!",... but they didn't have any concept of art or science, as we think of them,... and didn't make any distinction between the two.

Everything was "art" and "art" was everything!

This is a good point that I can agree with.

An example would be traditional Japanese swordsmithing. Although they didn’t have any concept of metallurgy, as we think of it, and looked at it more spiritually and ritualistically,… we can apply all kinds of our metallurgy to it and study it from a different perspective.

I also agree with this… but…

At any rate, and which ever way you want to look at it,... the work was outstanding

now while you still have me I can see it coming and…

and unequaled in many ways!

Now you lost me and let me explain why. The whole idolization of the Japanese smiths by western culture has always been a pet peeve of mine. As bladesmiths, how many present have had their share of folks who will invariably hit you with “oh, so you’re a bladesmith, you know I am to understand that those Japanese sword makers…”. This is often presented on the context of telling you something that you probably didn’t know since you are just a guy from America who makes blades, not a real swordsmith like they have in Japan. I have had people try to rub my nose in the fact that Japanese swordsmiths train their whole lives to learn their craft, and I have at times answered “screw you! I have been pounding out blades since I was ten years old so what am I chopped liver?”. The idea that the Japanese sword is unequaled is a modern invention spewed out by Hollywood. They were good swords but they were no where near as extraordinary as pop culture has made them- decent swords no more and no less, other cultures made some swords that were just as wonderful but in different ways. If the smiths of ancient Japan had things figured out so much better than any other culture then why didn’t they make a steel that didn’t have to have all the crud forged and folded out of it and then could be through hardened with a proper balance of strength and toughness? Instead they came up with the best compromises that the medieval mind could devise, clever for its time, but still medieval. Normally I have a policy when I am trying to discuss rational metallurgy and bladesmithing and somebody holds up what they heard, seen or read about what the Japanese smiths do, I simply smile and walk away as I am not going to get through to them until they have a deeper grasp of the topic than that sad level. Not that you have done that here Tai, but I am venting now for all the times I swallowed being a lowly wanna-be to be beat over the head with the omnipotent Japanese smith. When did the Japanese smith become infallible anyhow? When people throw this at a bladesmith with whom they may other wise lose an argument it is as if they are holding up a crucifix to an undead bladesmith to which he must immediately submit. To hell with that, that juju doesn’t work with me because my standard reply is “So! There are just as many boneheads in Japan as there are in the U.S.!”

… I have customers that could care less what metal and processes I used to deliver their knife, there are customers that want some knowledge of my processes and how I arrived at delivering their finished knife. There are customers that I know I turn off because of my limited knowledge of metallurgy. I don't BS people, I let them know the limits of my knowledge and let them decide if they'll trust me to make their knife…

That is just being honest and if people don’t recognize that as the best reason to buy from you then they perhaps deserve what they get from the hucksters. Many times in this thread the point has brought up that the metallurgy doesn’t matter as long as the results are what we are looking for or that the knife can do what they claim, well here we have yet another problem. The slick marketers have the consumer coming and going. How can the public determine if the knife is all they say in spite of metallurgical ignorance, when they have managed to redefine what a knife should do? It sounds ludicrous but it has been resounding success for many when faced with the possibility of not improving a knife in traditional areas to simply change the definition of performance. “Buy my knives because, due to my special process, they have a deeper hue of blue than any other knife on the market!”, and instead of asking what the heck this has to do with using a knife for it’s intended purpose the public just buys it. How do we know the maker achieves anything without metallurgy when there is no real useful definition of what they are even trying to achieve?

Another pet peeve of mine results from kind of the same problem, the defensive line “well it works just fine for me!”. An example of this would be suggesting to a person that axle grease may not be the best quench, only to get slapped back with “well it works just fine for me!” In other words it skates a file afterwards. The knife or the quench didn’t actually work just fine, instead the expectations are low enough that it could meet them just fine. Once again, how do we know folks are doing just fine despite an absence of metallurgy when can’t even establish the goals by which to determine success?

I know that Tai has suggested here that everybody can have their own definitions and that is just fine, however if anybody's definition of a process working is equally as valid than there can be no standards by which anybody can measure, and in order to make the best knives in the world all you need to have is the most convincing schpiel and gimmicks. Whatever you can get the public to believe becomes reality. Personally that idea scares me to death with its irrationality.

Kevin, will you be able, at some point in the future, to make this article available to the general public?

You are not the only one to ask about this, making me realize that it may not be fair to go on about an article that not everybody can read, while on the other hand it would not be fair of me to freely distribute an article that I did for another publication. What can be done is start a thread here focusing specifically on martensite and the topics addressed in the article. This would actually be better for folks who do not receive the newsletter, since it was a very basic article and not really in depth. In a thread here folks could ask any questions they want and allow the discussion to get as deep as they like. If anybody would like to start a martensite discussion thread I would be more than happy to participate.

 

[Larrin]

I stole an ABS magazine at the Reno show and read the article. It was a fun article, a good read.

 

[Kevin R. Cashen]

I guess you are in demand when people will steal to read your stuff Don't worry Larrin I won't tell

 

[Tai Goo]

"Now you lost me and let me explain why. The whole idolization of the Japanese smiths by western culture has always been a pet peeve of mine. As bladesmiths, how many present have had their share of folks who will invariably hit you with “oh, so you’re a bladesmith, you know I am to understand that those Japanese sword makers…”. This is often presented on the context of telling you something that you probably didn’t know since you are just a guy from America who makes blades, not a real swordsmith like they have in Japan. I have had people try to rub my nose in the fact that Japanese swordsmiths train their whole lives to learn their craft, and I have at times answered “screw you! I have been pounding out blades since I was ten years old so what am I chopped liver?”. The idea that the Japanese sword is unequaled is a modern invention spewed out by Hollywood. They were good swords but they were no where near as extraordinary as pop culture has made them- decent swords no more and no less, other cultures made some swords that were just as wonderful but in different ways. If the smiths of ancient Japan had things figured out so much better than any other culture then why didn’t they make a steel that didn’t have to have all the crud forged and folded out of it and then could be through hardened with a proper balance of strength and toughness? Instead they came up with the best compromises that the medieval mind could devise, clever for its time, but still medieval. Normally I have a policy when I am trying to discuss rational metallurgy and bladesmithing and somebody holds up what they heard, seen or read about what the Japanese smiths do, I simply smile and walk away as I am not going to get through to them until they have a deeper grasp of the topic than that sad level. Not that you have done that here Tai, but I am venting now for all the times I swallowed being a lowly wanna-be to be beat over the head with the omnipotent Japanese smith. When did the Japanese smith become infallible anyhow? When people throw this at a bladesmith with whom they may other wise lose an argument it is as if they are holding up a crucifix to an undead bladesmith to which he must immediately submit. To hell with that, that juju doesn’t work with me because my standard reply is “So! There are just as many boneheads in Japan as there are in the U.S.!” Kevin

We can evaluate and critique knives and swords from a variety of perspectives, metallurgy, concept, culture/religion, history, design, aesthetics, originality, performance etc... If we only look at them one or two ways, then we miss out on a lot.

I wasn't trying to imply that the traditional Japanese swords are superior to yours metalurically or in terms of pure performance. They are more like cultural/religious artifacts. It's apples and oranges.

Has modern technology and metallurgy done anything to improve the "person" or smith himself?

I understand your peeve though...

I'm not sure which one of us is more of a nerd?

 

[Tai Goo]

"I know that Tai has suggested here that everybody can have their own definitions and that is just fine, however if anybody's definition of a process working is equally as valid than there can be no standards by which anybody can measure, and in order to make the best knives in the world all you need to have is the most convincing schpiel and gimmicks. Whatever you can get the public to believe becomes reality. Personally that idea scares me to death with its irrationality." Kevin

What the public or any individual believes doesn't become reality, it becomes "their reality"... which is malleable...

Scary, irrational,... but true...
... and that's exactly what we're up against here.

 

[RogerP]

Kevin, will you be able, at some point in the future, to make this article available to the general public?

It would be a nice idea for the ABS to make a feature article or two from their magazine available for viewing by all on their web site.

Roger

 

[Matthew Gregory]

It would be a nice idea for the ABS to make a feature article or two from their magazine available for viewing by all on their web site.

Roger

Roger, that's gotta be one of the funniest things I've heard in a long time! THE ABS actually doing something to update their website!?!!!???

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!


Sorry, that was mean.

True, but mean.


Until we, as knifemakers, find common ground regarding the can and can-nots of steel, then the BS professed by charlatans will be allowed to hold sway over the general public (read 'uninformed'), and their malleable reality will be allowed to perpetuate - as reality. If I suggest on the internet - or in print - that the Luddites were correct, I would be ridiculed and stamped down. NOT because of my religious fervor, but because the concepts I espouse have been proven beyond any rational doubt to be FALSE.
I see nothing wrong with the cultural value, or historical value of an object or an identity, and I'm sure this is where Kevin and Tai are both leading. My difficulty lies in the mythology that translates into modern belief (e.g. katana's cutting gun barrels in half).

---is any of this still on topic?

 

[Tai Goo]

Kevin, I’ve heard you use the term “best knife” quite a bit. However, what the best knife is, is subjective not objective, a matter taste, opinion and perspective. No one has a monopoly on it.

We have to be careful here not to become our own worst enemy, or fall into the same category as the one’s we criticize…

... I’m not trying to make a better knife, I’m trying to make a knife better. LOL