How good is good enough, Friction Forged?

steelshaper

steelshaper

Joined
Jun 14, 2007
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I realize that this is something that I have to answer for myself but what do you guys think? How do you guage when a knifemakers product is worthy of being put onto the market?

With these new Friction Forged knives that are being hailed as the greatest knives ever are the standerds now going to be beyond the reach of mortals like us? It would seem to me that hand made will become more a matter of art than function.

If I sound negative it is simply to evoke opinions. I have not yet used a Friction Forged knife to know if they are all they are made out to be.

Thanks William Crump
 
The friction forged knives are like many other things in my opinion - a flash in the pan. It may have a place in factory made blades but there is always going to be a demand for fine hand made knives.
 
Personally, I'm not trying to compete with any production knife company. I make knives becuase it's what I love to do. Pure and simple. I make what I want to make. It's my form of art and expression, no two are exactly the same, because they are hand made and that's how I want it. I equate it to buying a hand painted picture vs making a photocopy of a photograph.
-John
 
You are unlikely to see a friction forged knife with a stabilized buckeye burl handle and mosaic rivets. Or....filework; kris; fluted handle; damascus; sword; etc.

They might make a harder edge, but the rest of the knife will be FACTORY. Nothing wrong with that, but my customers wouldn't have it beyond the one they buy as a novelty.
Stacy
 
I expect this is the beginning of a "the next greatest thing" fad, like many others before it. It won't have a huge effect on conventional knife making IMO.

The process and what it does is cool. Unlike the CPM process, it is actually something I think you could do in your garage with some equipment and ingenuity (coming from a guy with lots of stuff heavier than his car in his garage). I predict there will be trade offs and good reason to continue with conventional blades for most applications. And if you really really want to "friction forge", you could probably do it. It looks like they're dragging a spin welder along a blade edge. A rough old CNC mill and a surplus spin welder setup won't set you back very much (God I love Ebay). The tooling doesn't look that exciting.

Now, I had some router cutters quoted today. The cutting edges (which are large) are.020" solid diamond. Not diamond coated, not a film, not multi crystals, but solid diamond. Now that is exciting. They will machine away about five pounds of material per minute, about 60,000 pounds of chips per year. That that's exciting...
 
And if you think diamond router bits are expensive, you ought to price diamond scalpels. Around $2000 for one with a very tiny tip. Bump it on the tray when putting it down and you can kiss it goodbye.
Stacy
 
steelshaper said:
I realize that this is something that I have to answer for myself but what do you guys think? How do you guage when a knifemakers product is worthy of being put onto the market?

With these new Friction Forged knives that are being hailed as the greatest knives ever are the standerds now going to be beyond the reach of mortals like us? It would seem to me that hand made will become more a matter of art than function.

If I sound negative it is simply to evoke opinions. I have not yet used a Friction Forged knife to know if they are all they are made out to be.

Thanks William Crump
Click to expand...

A handmade will be what it is today: a matter of art AND function.
A custom blade is a functional tool, but it is also a work of art and individuality. There will always be a place for that.
 
Hey, guys. With the help of Sam Salvati, I am now forging and making my own knives, so I'm not buying anymore knives....
... BUT...my last knife purchase was a FFD2 Goddard, and there is just no stopping that thing. I haven't put it through the paces like I do my own knives (that I make), but, for taking the backstraps out of deer, it seems like it cuts forever.
I am very impressed by it's ability to hold an edge and its toughness; I purposely let a buddy of mine,(who is very rough with knives and digs the edge into the backbone of the deer every time he makes a "slice" while removing the backstraps) remove said backstraps. I inspected the edge afterwards, and not a chip or a roll....no edge deformation of any kind.
I'm not one for the latest fad, or big on new technology, but, this FFD2 is pretty impressive stuff.
And look, guys, I'm not out to stir the pot, or to get into any debates about what it can or can't do, nor am I here to defend FFD2.....I'm just giving you my opinion of it.
The only gripe I have about it is the price.
 
I think custom knives will always offer something that factory made knives cannot. For one thing, a custom knife can be made custom for you. Secondly, mass produced knives have to fit the masses, they are always in fear of people breaking knives that have superior cutting ability (i.e. thinner edges). This is just a couple things to add to what has already been said.

IMO, the performance of the Friction forged knives could be matched or exceeded. The knives have high hardness and wear resistance (and fine grain size) for wear resistance. So then the question comes in, how would 66 Rc CPM-M4 compare? Or Vanadis 4? These wouldn't have the corrosion resistance however, so that leaves stainless steels like SB1 or possily CPM-154. CPm-154 can be heat treated to a very high hardness, the question is whether it can handle it. SB1 should be much tougher, but it is more difficult to get (made in Germany), and might be difficult to harden above 63-64 Rc. But this isn't the focus of this topic so I will leave it at that.
 
Is there a perception that FFD2 is the holy grail of knife steels? It's good stuff.....no denying that but there are lots of other good steels as well.....yay for us. More good choices for knife buyers. There is plenty of room in the market for customs...semi-customs....production.....whatever you want. I'm just happy makers and companies continue to push ahead to make better and better knives. FFD2 is just another example of this.
 
morrowj_98 said:
Is there a perception that FFD2 is the holy grail of knife steels? It's good stuff.....no denying that but there are lots of other good steels as well.....yay for us. More good choices for knife buyers. There is plenty of room in the market for customs...semi-customs....production.....whatever you want. I'm just happy makers and companies continue to push ahead to make better and better knives. FFD2 is just another example of this.
Click to expand...
Well "better" usually doesn't exist, there are always different properties required for different applications.
 
I remember a brief flurry of articles when someone started making knives out of DeLorro Stellite ( and had the audacity to contract with DeLorro to only allow that maker to make knives out of the stuff) Seemed like the holy grail of cutting (Heck it's used for making tooling that cuts tool steel at extreme heat and pressure) but folks are still making and selling phenominal handmade knives out of old fashoned 10XX steel, and the ceramic knives were supposed to revolutionize cutlery . . .

FFD2 may be freakin' amazing (or not), but I think people are still going to buy great handmade stuff as long as there are folks like us making it.

-Page
 
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