Extreme Judgement : just some spec's and a little splitting

[Ebbtide]

Jedi, it means (or implies) that the person quoted had input in the design process.

 

[jedi_pimp]

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

 

[wetdog1911]

JP

I don't see why not. All those activities with the same knife? Sure. But none of those sound like a life or death type of situation except shelter building where you would be putting max strain on your blade to get it done right now.

Ask Featherstone45 what he used to cut himself out of the 4x4 that went down the mountain the wrong way (Wasn't a Busse OR a Fherman) I don't think he was thinking of fuzz sticks at the time. Thank God he got out ok regardless of what he used.

Rob

 

[Evolute]

Featherstone,

Slightly off-topic, but now you've got me really curious. You said:

"I have cleaned out wild boar which is hell for a edge, due to all the damn dirt and mud those suckers roll in over time... This is something I havent seen before with edge holding when cleaning a pretty big boar( about 350 pounds)."

Are you sure you are talking about wild boar? It sounds to me like you are describing feral pig. They are not the same.

--Mike

 

[Lukers]

Wetdog1911
Your point about the live testing is a very valid one. What continues to amaze me with Busse is the live testing. No one else has subjected their blades to that sort of public scrutiny. It is truly amazing because that moment at a show or where ever could break a company if something went wrong. Live testing shows uncompromised confidence. The performance doesn't end at the show though....it keeps going and going and going.

 

[Ebbtide]

Jedi, reread post 82...he's talking about his favorite brand.

 

[featherstone45]

Evolute,

The reason I said "wild boar" was incase someone didnt understand the term feral pig, but over here the wild boar can get that large I have seen two, but the more common big ones are around 250 pounds. The one we got was scatterd but tusks were 8 inch, Stronger then any pig I have hunted and I have hunted alot, But at this size they are not as tasty as the small ones......Oh yeah his armour had taken two shots one at 120 yards right in the vitals and the other shot was taken at from a tree at 20 yards in the spine LOL both shots were 180 grain 30-06.............Dont ask cause you know why I was in that tree for the second shot lol........
The Javelina are the real small ones but just as damn mean, we call those lunch on four legs great for bow hunting, lots of fun........

 

[featherstone45]

JP

I don't see why not. All those activities with the same knife? Sure. But none of those sound like a life or death type of situation except shelter building where you would be putting max strain on your blade to get it done right now.

Ask Featherstone45 what he used to cut himself out of the 4x4 that went down the mountain the wrong way (Wasn't a Busse OR a Fherman) I don't think he was thinking of fuzz sticks at the time. Thank God he got out ok regardless of what he used.

Rob

Gee thanks Rob, bring up old nightmares again LOL, There is a night I would rather forget............I used a Swamp Rat Camp Tramp, afterwords the edge was useless but yes it did save my life that horrible time.I just wish I would have had a mini version of the jaws of life LOL.
I know that my Busses or Fehrman's would have got me out of there, and there is no blade that would have been good for cutting chores afterwards when I was finished LOL........

 

[Brian Jones]

What Featherstone said about Fehrmans: Usually a 1/4" thick blade is too thick all the way down to slcie easily with. My first test with the First Strike was to slice a tomato for a sandwich. Many 1/4" thick blades just mash the tomato. Eric's cut it like "buttah". I was shocked.

Then, I went out and chopped all sorts of things from lots of hardwood to some bones. No edge damage visible. The shooting stand thing was fun, too -- it has great lateral strength. The Fehrman cuts like a knife should, and it has taken all the abuse I could think of and still rocks. My favorite all-around outdoor blade for heavy work, and it doubles as a camp knife if I need it to....

Cliff, just so we're all on the same page, when you describe edge chipping, etc., are you describing a view with the naked eye or do you put it under one of the microscopes in your lab?

 

[Cliff Stamp]

You take INFI down to a .02" edge, and it is no longer the super steel that people seem to think it is with that thick factory edge. It chips just like other steels.

Steels get more flexible not less when they are thinner.

A 3V Espada reviewed on here some years ago cut through a shank of beef, including over 9" of flesh and more than 3" of bone without effect on the blade or splintering the outcut on the bone, even after repeated cuts.

And an AUS-6A blade did the same. This then isn't a high standard. Your blades matched the performance of low grade factory stainless.

I have had a customer bend an Rc61 CPM-3v blade to 90 degree repeatedly before it finally broke on the fourth bend, twice back and forth, though not all blades will do that and I certainly don't recommend it.

I called yesterday and had my brother bend my Battle Mistress back and forth 270 degrees 10 times without fail. It returned to true each time.

The blade was bent in styrofoam.

If you actually had a blade at 61 HRC bend in a *vice* at 90 degrees and it wasn't 1/64" thick that would be very impressive - assuming of course you guarantee said performance can be duplicated by the user. Of course if it bent in wood it is meaningless.

Rocks or aggregate (rock) containing concrete are not what I consider reasonable test media. Concrete in general is highly variable in its structure.

So is wood.

Is cutting concrete useful....no....

Can you really not understand its purpose. You don't cut concrete so you will know how your blade will shape concrete, you do it to examine the failure mode of the edge, the propogation of failure (main grind blowout), for accidental impacts.

You use concrete because its easy to get, easy for anyone else to duplicate as the geometry and construction are consistent. You can also check for variations by using a standard test blade to make sure you don't use an extra hard aged one and a fresh soft one on two different knives.

And again, it isn't even a hard test anyway. Ray's Kirks thin edge ABS knives passed it easily and it is way more acutely ground than any tactical knife. It makes no sense to call it abusive that means your knives have a lowever durability standard at the edge than Ray's extremely fine ground blades.

I'm sure Eric Ferhmann could make a knife that could chop concrete like a mofojackhammer, but then it would not be much of a knife.

The Swamp Rat's are, they cut right along side the other large tacticals I have used, exceed many of them in fact. The edge geometry isn't massively thicker, in fact the edge angles are more acute than most tactical knives and Hossom's edge spec's which I have seen him quote are actually thicker.

My first test with the First Strike was to slice a tomato for a sandwich.

As long as the blade is sharp it will do this, you can do it with the GB axes. if you want to examine the edge geometry you have to use something which exerts a high binding force, like a turnip, assuming you want food as a testing media.

... when you describe edge chipping, etc., are you describing a view with the naked eye or do you put it under one of the microscopes in your lab?

Both as noted. The smaller damaged can be felt by nail and was examined under mag to see if it was deformation or chips.

As for the Busse bias, what this would mean is :

a) I choose tests which make the Busse look good and the other knives look bad

Considering along these lines that

a) I have never refused to examine the performance of a knife in a way the maker asked for - I will gladly illustrate any aspect of performance that showcases the strengths of their knifes
[*]

b) I also specifically ask makers this question, what would you like to see included in the review, what does your knife do really well

If you actually read the reviews you will see that through the 100+ of them, the vast majority have little to no reference to Busse unless it is a similar designed knife, and that when they are compared the Busse never wins 100% of the time in any comparison.

And of course if you feel a review is baised, instead of just making vague inflammatiory statements, do somethign useful like drop me an email and say "hey, that review shows an obvious bias there are all these things that the X blade can do better than Y blade why don't you mention them" and then I'll look at what you mentioned.

Again if you read the reviews you will note that this is done from time to time where people have pointed out a weakness I described can actually be a positive under the right conditions and that there are strengths I have not considered, different people use blades in different ways and all that.


Now if you want to see a biased review, I can tell you many which are used by makers to promote their knives which include no references to the weakness of their blades, where they fail to perform, where you would be better off somewhere else, where lots of other blades could do the exact same things or better, etc. . That is a bias.


The above offer still stands. On a any knife I still have that is any way function I will add to a review something a manufacturer feels was left out, At any time during a review suggestions for additional tests can of course also be made.


As for the first line, read the rest of the post. I bought the knife because hell I could have been wrong and if it the performance was just off I could readily sell it for a small loss no problem, and if there was a problem I didn't forsee a refund issue. I have the time to use the knives, it doesn't bother me, I have to split and cut the wood anyway, so using one isn't killer over another. I currently split like over two dozen rounds a day, then make kindling out of two. So I cut a lot of wood constantly. It is not like I had to make up work to do.


[*] The only things I have not done are a couple of times where I was asked to do comparisons with knives I didn't have, like it would be useful to compare XXX with a Fisk bowie or something similar, yeah that would be nice, and I would if I had one.

-Cliff

 

[crossada]

so out of all the over 9" blades you have tested where does the EJ rank? obviously not first but is it in the top 10?

i know i would like to see what your top 10 big survival knives are just out of curiosity

 

[Ebbtide]

So the testing is unbiased when the tester admits his bias in the first sentence?
Then the tester implies that he was part of the design process of the competitors brand?
I will give you credit for waiting for your 5th post to mention the B brand.

Whether you mean to be biased or not, it comes off that way because you always get around to the brand that you are affiliated with (that goes back to the we I quoted earlier).

Now you would not be accused of bias if you did not mention the other brands at all.
So if you were to test knife brand A, & make no mentions of the other brands...C-Z...including brand B, that would be an unbiased review.
Here is knife A, it can do this well and doesn't do that well.
Once you start comparing to your favorite...you ruin your credibility.
:yawn:

 

[OwenM]

Steels get more flexible not less when they are thinner.

And when they get thinner they get weaker and more fragile too, and hence more susceptible to damage, more susceptible to both rolling and to breaking/chipping on a hard impact, or when torqued. A wire edge is thin and flexible, but it doesn't flop around when you use it hard. It breaks right off.
My favorite "heavy-duty beater" knives are Busses, and I know what happens when you thin them out. Mine cut much better than they did from the factory, and still handle heavy use quite well, but they're not bomb-proof any more.

Did you do other work with the Extreme Judgment aside from the frozen log splitting before getting into the knotted wood? I've never screwed up a knife batoning it through wood, and split around or away from knots 'cause it's easier and faster. I'd really be interested in hearing how this thing chops more than anything. Thanks.

 

[Cliff Stamp]

I've not yet had a chance to test myself would perform.

You stated that the knives were built to your exact specifications including the heat treatment and that no cost was spared in the execution as it was all about performance but yet you have no idea on the performance? Plus there was no prototyping stage at all?

So the testing is unbiased when the tester admits his bias in the first sentence?

Read the rest of it. A bias in the way I used it just means preconcieved expectations. For example, if a student does very well on their first 8 assignments I would expect them to do well on the next thus I have a bias about their performance. This of course doesn't mean they automatically get a good mark, just that I think it is likely. You of course grade them on what they do, not your preconceptions.

Any preconcieved conceptions I have don't extend to the reviews as noted. As noted, reviews would be biased if I left out performance which didn't ilustrate what I wanted to showcase, or didn't test in a particular way because of the expected performance which again I didn't want to mention. Again, in not one case have I refused to do tests which a maker, or even user actually suggested would show the benefits of a steel or design.

Then the tester implies that he was part of the design process of the competitors brand?

No I just asked him. You could try it some time if you wanted to know about the R&D they do. It is not a big secret, I don't think there is a ninja death squad on me now for revealing trade secrets.

That info came when I sent off an email like "Hey, how did you settle on the HRC ratings for the edge and spine for the big rats, what kind of flex/stiffness were you looking for?".

As far as I know Busse doesn't have a black list of people that he and a secret group of makers won't tell these things to.

I didn't design the knives, if I did he would be paying me for it and I would say I designed them. Just like I said that I had a bias in the first line of this post.

You see I don't really care what your opinion of me as a reviewer is, or me as a person so my credibility in your eyes is meaningless to me.

I don't sell knives, so it has no effect on my life. I write reviews because I enjoy doing the work, I have the time to write it, and people enjoy reading them and find them useful and it has caused me to meet a lot of people.

I'll continue to do them for the same reason. Of course if you have suggestions for work as noted fire away. This doesn't mean I will limit the reviews to that work, but I will try to include it if at all possible.

Whether you mean to be biased or not, it comes off that way because you always get around to the brand that you are affiliated with (that goes back to the we I quoted earlier).

What are you reading, because it isn't what I am writing. Read the reviews. This statement is competely unfounded. You should try some facts instead of just making up stuff.

As noted the knives are compared to lots of other brands, some well over a dozen, and yes these may include Busse knives at times, if they didn't that would be a bias actually.

In such comparisons, again, Busse never wins 100% of the time. Your Busse bias is strongly showing because as soon as it is mentioned that is then all that you see ignoring everything else.

For example, the review of the CU/7 :

http://www.physics.mun.ca/~sstamp/knives/becker_cu_7.html

Compares the knife to over a dozen similar 7" blades, as well other knives for light cutting ability and then machete like use.

All of the reviews are like this, some of them like :

http://www.physics.mun.ca/~sstamp/knives/mora_2000.html

Contain little to no reference to Busse.

A, & make no mentions of the other brands...C-Z...including brand B, that would be an unbiased review.

No that would be useless as it contains no references to allow the performance to be judged. It is also biased as it is just showcasing the performance of one knife. There is no way to tell if performance is impressive or not if you don't say what knives also pass and what knives fail said test. This is how tests get defined meanings.

Like for example if I say I chopped on wood for 4.5 hours and the knife never got blunt or damaged. Well maybe I am really weak or the wood is really soft. However if I do it with a dozen knives and some get damaged and some don't on the same wood then obviously you have a lot more meaning.

If I say it takes XXX chops with a knife its the same thing. Is that really good, or am I really good, or is the wood like a piece of Balsa and anyone could do it with anything. Do it with a bunch and give them all and now its meaningful.

And when they get thinner they get weaker and more fragile too, and hence more susceptible to damage, more susceptible to both rolling and to breaking/chipping on a hard impact, or when torqued.

No, again, fracture damage is less likely when cross section decreases. The edge will get damaged more readily sure, by deformation. I have brought edges down to 8 degrees per side and hacked into knots, they will fold yes, but not chip, assuming they didn't chip before anyway.

Same reason it gets easier to induce larger bends on longer blades. It isn't impressive to bend an 18" machete or sword to 90 degrees, the radius of curvature is the critical point. Wilson can induce sets in his S90V blades, then don't fracture when bent unlike 1/4" thick blades because they have greater effective ductility.

A wire edge is thin and flexible, but it doesn't flop around when you use it hard. It breaks right off.

That is because it is overstressed steel, cold working creates preset fracture lines.

Did you do other work with the Extreme Judgment aside from the frozen log splitting before getting into the knotted wood?

Yes as noted. The cutting ability is high. Chopping is in the same class as the GB hatchet, binds a little more, but fluid enough on most woods, except for soft pine, but that is so easy to cut it doesn't really matter as you are chewing 2"+ chunks out of it anyway.

I focused on the harder work because I bought it as an survival/emergency use knife. I don't see the sense anymore in doing a lot of work with a knife only to have it be unable to perform key duties. I did in the beginning as I needed to build a basic understanding of geometry and steel.

If I buy a knife now as an entry tool, then I will check that out first. Then if it passes that I'll look at general utility. If I have time or whatever I'll do the lighter stuff first if I have it on hand. Like I did work with the EJ in the kitchen and light brush work.

I would have done more stock cutting (rope, hardwood, phonebook) had I been home. I am away at work now and most of of gear is 500 km away, so I just had a lot of frozen knotty wood at hand. I was planning to do more cutting during the mid-term break next week.

-Cliff

 

[OwenM]

Thanks for the info on the knife.
As for arguing about thinner edges not chipping....adios

 

[Jerry Hossom]

Cliff, if you're going to paraphrase what I say, kindly do so accurately. Everything I've said on the project has been on my forum.

http://www.knifeforums.com/ubbthreads/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=JHTKF

 

[jedi_pimp]

77777777777777777777777777777

 

[SteelDriver]

No, again, fracture damage is less likely when cross section decreases. The edge will get damaged more readily sure, by deformation. I have brought edges down to 8 degrees per side and hacked into knots, they will fold yes, but not chip, assuming they didn't chip before anyway.

Same reason it gets easier to induce larger bends on longer blades. It isn't impressive to bend an 18" machete or sword to 90 degrees, the radius of curvature is the critical point. Wilson can induce sets in his S90V blades, then don't fracture when bent unlike 1/4" thick blades because they have greater effective ductility.

You're plain wrong here, Cliff. You cannot extrapolate the results of bending an entire knife to the behavior of the steel at very thin cross sections. Edges don't behave like thicker pieces of steel. Because thin knives bend more easily than thick knives, thin edges will deform instead of chip if a thick edge from the same knife didn't chip? You will find that a LOT of us have found otherwise.

Charpy test results can't be directly applied to thin cross sections either. Talk to Dick Barber at Crucible Steel if you don't believe me.

 

[Ebbtide]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ebbtide
So the testing is unbiased when the tester admits his bias in the first sentence?

Read the rest of it.

I did.
I stand by what I said. I'm sure you choose your words carefully as I do mine. The most important sentence of a book or news story is the first sentence.
It sets the tone, direction and orientation of the story/article.
By announcing your "preconceived expectation", in the first sentence, without providing the counterpoint, you imply bias.
The counter point wasn't mentioned untill the 3rd paragraph when you said:
"However it all turned around when I looked at the blade".
If the first sentence read: (your words just re-arranged)
"To be quite honest I was biased against this knife from the start and opened it looking to be disappointed, however it all turned around when I looked at the blade."
The tone, direction and orientation would be completely different.
You see Cliff, it's not what you say as much as how you say it.

Quote:
Whether you mean to be biased or not, it comes off that way because you always get around to the brand that you are affiliated with (that goes back to the we I quoted earlier).
What are you reading, because it isn't what I am writing. Read the reviews. This statement is competely unfounded. You should try some facts instead of just making up stuff.

I'm reading what you wrote
Here from post #82. I copied the whole paragraph, so it will be taken in context.

This wasn't by chance, the knives were edge set at at a wide range and tested inbetween until the performance was reached. Then the spine was tested over a range until the required amount of flex and strength was obtained. This isn't a case of lets ask Crucible or let some heat treater decide. It is lets evaluate the cycles over a bunch of ranges and see what works best for what we want. A lot of time and a lot of broken blades later and a knife is born.

Now, when you say "we" it implies that you were part of the process, doesn't it? Is that what you meant to say? I don't know, but it is what you wrote.

Your Busse bias is strongly showing because as soon as it is mentioned that is then all that you see ignoring everything else.

I have no Busse bias. My issue is with the fact that the overwhelming majority of your reviews come back to your favorites. Again implying that your favorites are better.

Just to clarify my lack of Busse bias. I have spoken out against the pack mentality that the 'macho/paramilitary/tactical' brands seem to generate. Look to the near death of the OSF forum down the street.
I understand that the head of a company cannot control or be responsible for fans of said company. Just as Jerry Garcia couldn't control or be responsible for the Deadheads.

I have questioned the necessity of a knife that has prying listed as a major attribute. Not the number one reason that I would buy a knife. But then again I wouldn't list out of the box sharpness as a top reason to buy a knife either. That's me, opinions and noses, we all have one.

I think Mr. Busse is a very bright guy. He did his marketing research very well and built around his niche in the market. He identified his customer base and caters to them. That is what successful business is about.
I have never defamed him or his product. I wish him all the luck in the world.

I have asked questions though. Not Busse questions, but 'sharpened prybar' questions. Questions like: Who has ever had to pry their way out of a life threatening jam with a knife, any knife? (As opposed to What If scenerios. I think there was 1 or 2 replies)
I have asked "Can that knife sharpen a pencil and slice a tomato?"
I have asked "Wouldn't an axe be the better tool?"
And the ever popular "Why on earth would you chop on a cinder block?"


As far as

Quote:
A, & make no mentions of the other brands...C-Z...including brand B, that would be an unbiased review.
No that would be useless as it contains no references to allow the performance to be judged. It is also biased as it is just showcasing the performance of one knife. There is no way to tell if performance is impressive or not if you don't say what knives also pass and what knives fail said test. This is how tests get defined meanings.

No that would not be usless. If you stick to your 'Stock Tests of Sharpness', come up with other stock tests (ergos etc) then catagorize what constitutes Excellent, Good, Fair & Poor you'd have a scale to refer too and there would be no reason to mention the other brands.
Only where Knife A falls on the Stamp Scale of Quality.
Then there would be no implications of bias from either side.

You see I don't really care what your opinion of me as a reviewer is, or me as a person so my credibility in your eyes is meaningless to me.

I think I've been polite to you, even though I have asked some hard questions. And I do care about you as a reviewer... + or -3 cinderblocks.

 

[jedi_pimp]

Cliff,
In your first post, giving the specs, you wrote:

The edge specs out at just over 0.025" and is ground at 15-16 degrees per side - which is exactly as I recently specified the edge on a similar custom.

What is the intended scope of work of the custom knife you ordered with these same specs, and what is the blade steel? Do you think this new custom knife will be better able to withstand knot chopping?

Will its thin edge make it more durable?