How do you assess quality?

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Steve_p

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Apr 9, 2019
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Im steadily getting better at making knives, and I have a few friends and coworkers who are asking to buy them. I’m under no illusions about my skill level and I really don’t plan on trying to make a living making and selling custom knives.

That being said, I would like to get a few out into peoples hands to see how they hold up.

Other than fit and finish how do you asses the quality of a knife and if it’s a piece you would want to put your name on? I guess I’m asking about the functional aspects such as durability edge quality and so on.
 
To me functionality and aesthetics are linked hand in hand. People want matching bevels because of the are un-equal the knife won’t cut straight (usually).
If the handle isn’t symmetrical it will feel funky in the hand, if the scales don’t meet the steel smoothly the handles will hurt to use after a while.
Generally the things that make a knife pretty, regardless of embellishments, are the things that make the knife functional.
As far as durability, it really depends on what kind of knife. A skinner, I’d say that not having to stop to re-sharpen while skinning out a pig, moose, deer etc. is a good place to start.
If it’s a kitchen knife that gets a decent amount of use in a home kitchen, the maybe having to strop ever few weeks to a month would be nice...
this is for simple carbon steels. If you start talking stainless and more complex non-stainless, you can start expecting more specialized and impressive results.
 
1 way is to use the hell out of 1 of your blades and see how holds up. Does it out perform any of the blades that you can buy at Walmart? Is your heat treat protocol better then a factory's heat treat protocol on mass produced blades? Is your edge geometry better then any mass produced blade??
Those are the questions that I would ask myself before putting my name on a blade.
 
if they are friends and acquaintances i would sell it to them cheap-ish with the proviso that you are still learning. offer a generous warranty and ask them to tell you how it holds up
that's exactly what i'm doing
also use your knives. you will be pickier about them than most people
 
Even grinds. Good ego's on handles. No gaps. Thinner grinds and stock performs better for most knife related tasks.
 
I edited the typo in the thread title. Assess - do an assay … asses - two donkeys.
 
Maybe a different objective... but it might help. For me personally its hard to assess if a knife i made myself is good or good enough. I can see if its oke but because i made it, i can see all the imperfections. If you want to get better at making knives and youre looking for honest feedback, it might be an idea to make a knife and ask one of the skilled knifemakers on this forum if you can send it to hem/her to assess it. Ask if he/she wants to give you feedback on the things you want feedback on.
 
the durability and edge quality could be ascertained by using or testing it. as far as fit and finish i used to go to knife shows and notice how shabby mine looked compared to other makers knives :rolleyes:
 
If you really want to know where you stand on your work, get one of your knives into the hands of a well-known and respected MS or JS for an evaluation. This happened to me, by chance, my first year making knives and it helped me tremendously.

With regard to durability and performance, IMO, it is your responsibility as the maker to know EXACTLY how good, or bad, your knives perform. Do all the testing yourself. Test them exactly how you designed and intended them to be used. This way you can have full confidence of the performance when you send one out into the world.
 
I broke some of my blades in half to see the insides (just did it again a month or two ago). Cutting tests can also be really helpful. That helped me catch one that didn’t properly harden. I also gave away knives to friends that I knew would use them. One guy in particular was a big hunter and always ended up on more critters with friends than I ever would. He had the opportunity to use it on several more animals than I knew I could in a season. Give them to friends and ask them to use them and for honest feedback. That has helped me a fair bit and if you’re doing well, corroboration of your processes only builds confidence in moving forward. Their feedback was worth my time and materials for me to learn what they could tell me from their perspective.

Jeremy
 
A little of a side question here so bear with me. I understand testing knives and comparing them with others, I’ve done lots of different tests on my knives. Question is, is there anywhere to get a baseline or standard for given steels? Say I use Cpm154 mostly. Can I find somewhere that gives me a standard of say 200 cuts through cardboard? I know that’s an oversimplified “standard “ but hopefully this makes sense.
 
Thanks to everyone for the input. I have some work to do still, but hopefully I can find a few smiths in my area to look at what I’ve done so far.

I’ll also post some pics here for critique.
Matt Rochester said:
A little of a side question here so bear with me. I understand testing knives and comparing them with others, I’ve done lots of different tests on my knives. Question is, is there anywhere to get a baseline or standard for given steels? Say I use Cpm154 mostly. Can I find somewhere that gives me a standard of say 200 cuts through cardboard? I know that’s an oversimplified “standard “ but hopefully this makes sense.
Click to expand...

I’m also trying to figure out what tests would be good for testing actual usage. Should I go straight to hard destructive testing? Or is there something I can do without destroying the blade?
 
If you are doing backyard heat treating you need a repeatable way of Rockwell hardness testing. The blade performance is based on reaching OPTIMAL tempered hardness for a Given Steel. After tempering to optimal working hardness (59-60 RC) the Blade EDGE geometry needs to be addressed and behind the edge thickness differs for Super Thin Slicers vs Thicker Hunting knives. Comparing apples to apples means a Controlled Repeatable Sharpening system so two identical knives have the SAME degree of edge Angle/Geometry. When you control these parameters then get some One Inch Rope and get to cutting....Take Notes, Sharpen and adjust Edge geometry...People WANT SHARP knives!
 
I gave away quite a few testers when I started out. Then I sold knives for material costs to get more feedback. Participate in a kith to get feedback from more experienced makers, or do a passaround. There is a subforum for that here.

The most important things are heat treat and geometry. Steel is critical but equipment to heat treat higher alloy steels is much more equipment intensive. I was using a kiln and had a Rockwell tester before I sold my first real knife. If I put my name on it, it has to be done right.
 
Warren has a good point.
If you want to know if your chef's knife is good, hand it to a chef and let him use/abuse it for a week or so. Ask him to be honest about the shape, size, handle, and performance. If you don't have thick skin, don't ask.

Same for a hunter/fillet. Give it to someone who hunts deer, elk, moose, a trapper who skins out beaver/muskrat, a fisherman who does 20 big fish each trip, fillet guy at the local fish market, etc. Let tem use it well for a while and tell your their honest opinion.

In either case, after addressing the issues and making a better knife, give it to them as a gift. Let them critique it, too.
 
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