Hype vs. Honesty

Sword and Shield said:
Last week, there was a guy in the gym who legpressed 350, and challenged anyone in the place to beat him. I can press 600. Yet, I didn't take him up on his challenge.
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Do you promote yourself on your ability to leg press and make your living this way? This being the critical difference. If you did, and then someone started promoting themselves superior, public statements, interviews and promotions in magazines would it still not be worth your time? It would be a tremendous benefit if you did win a challenge. In fact the actual challenge event itself would be of benefit simply on the additional publicity it would draw.

As for the car stab, yes that isn't a high standard of performance. However you have to start somewhere and it isn't like the other people making folders were promoting higher standards. Similar to a lot of what Lynn does, you could duplicate it, in fact exceed it with many folding knives, however you don't see a lot of people advocating such use, not that Thompson does either of course which is the real problem with said promotion.

-Cliff
 
Cliff Stamp said:
Do you promote yourself on your ability to leg press and make your living this way? This being the critical difference. If you did, and then someone started promoting themselves superior, public statements, interviews and promotions in magazines would it still not be worth your time? It would be a tremendous benefit if you did win a challenge. In fact the actual challenge event itself would be of benefit simply on the additional publicity it would draw.
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Perhaps. But there's also the old adage of "Don't wrestle with pigs. You only get filthy and the pigs just enjoy it."

There are people like Glesser, de Asis and the Busse family who don't seem to feel the need to engage in the circus acts and strong-man challenges, and their reputations are excellent and it hardly seems their livelihoods are less than sufficient.

Personally, I have nothing against Mr. Thompson or CS, but I'd rather buy from the "other" sort of craftsmen.
 
MGF said:
There are people like Glesser, de Asis and the Busse family who don't seem to feel the need to engage in the circus acts and strong-man challenges, and their reputations are excellent and it hardly seems their livelihoods are less than sufficient.
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Busse and Cold steel had an interplay due to Cold Steel's claims which took place in various forms, Busse also has a live performance challenge which has come up several times on the forum when the performance of the knives has been in question.

As for it being a circus act, many of the things Lynn does which his blades are showy, similar to but not as bad as the ginzu demonstration, however these types of things which while often not appealing to the Bladeforums members are appealing to the public at large.

-Cliff
 
Cliff Stamp said:
As for it being a circus act, many of the things Lynn does which his blades are showy, similar to but not as bad as the ginzu demonstration, however these types of things which while often not appealing to the Bladeforums members are appealing to the public at large.
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And there you have it. That is why it is done, to sell knives to the masses. The hype is not directed at the educated knife folks.
 
Much of what they do is relevant to discriminating buyers, the lock strength tests, rope cutting, wood chopping/digging, heavy shock impact on some of the larger knives, etc. . the only problem is the performance isn't guaranteed so it is hype. Much of the commentary is biased because of opinions about Thompson, watch how a well liked maker gets reacted to when they do similar work. Thus the thread does have a point, but ignores that Thompson isn't innocent of causing the bias against him.

-Cliff
 
Hey Cliff have you personally found any of CS's knives not able to perform to the standards that Thompson says they will? I know I don't agree with you most of the time, but this seems to be an area where you would be able to play "Mythbuster". I am sure his sales pitch and marketing works, and his knives are strong and sharp enough to appeal to the general knife buying public. Heck there are a few knives, like the Vaquero, that I like a lot, but just don't buy due to me not liking what his company is telling us about their knive's performance.
 
My father purchased a master hunter in carbon V. He has sharpened it by hand with stones and with a lansky system with set angles. He kept getting a wire edge and asked me to try. I am a hobby maker and only use carbon steel and I can get it to where the wire edge is gone but after a few minutes of use it is back. I asked a local maker that I look over his shoulder sometimes to give it a try with similar results. The steel is just soft. I emailed the company and politely asked if they could maybe look at it as I thought the heat treat might have been bad. The responded saying this is not covered under warranty (defects in material or craftsmanship?!?) but they would sharpen it for $10-20 (dont remember exactly). To me, this is a company I dont want to deal with. My experience with their product and customer service has been less than satisfactory in my experience and I will not give them my money. I have had problems with other companies (kershaw, benchmade, spyderco) and emailed them and received parts in the mail without asking for them (a pocket clip and the little safety latch for a kershaw speedsafe knife) and very friendly and enthusiastic responses about wanting to get the problem taken care of. This type of service will always get my business hands down. I would rather buy a design that I dont like as well as another from a reputable company that I know will take care of me if I ever need it.

Ryan

PS Anyone want to buy a CS master hunter?
:D:D
 
CS's use of 420 bladesteel is hilarious in light of the fact that Thompson wrote opinion columns years ago that were critical of the steel. I wish I had the links. They've been posted on these CS threads in the past and made for some interesting reading. Maybe someone will post the links (hopefully).
 
Cold Steel makes a few decent products; the shambok, their Carbon V knives, Voyager line, their high end fixed blades and probably a few other items I'm forgetting. I have a few of their products, and haven't had any problems.

Note that I said their products were decent; not spectacular or even close to the best. They have some good knives for a reasonable price. Many of their other products are junk. Cold steel rips off the designs of others and makes up data to support their claims. Sorry, AUS8 is not the greatest steel ever.

The advertising is over the top, but that seems to work for Thompson. The claim that some of their models will outperform most custom knives is pure fantasy. They might outperform a custom knife made by some random guy who doesn't have a clue, but not a legit maker.

The majority of Cold Steel's customer base probably doesn't take knives as seriously a many of us do. They beleive the hype and don't know any better.
 
Sword and Shield said:
I do get a kick out of how they claim AUS-10 will outperform ATS-34 in a cutting test. :) Not in any knife I've ever seen.
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AUS 10? I dont think CS uses that steel.
 
Rat Finkenstein said:
AUS 10? I dont think CS uses that steel.
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Yeah they used it in the Tri-folders before switching back to AUS-8, and there may have been another.
 
DngrRuss1,

You ask why the Cold Steel Hate....you only have to look at your post for the answer. Over the years I have never seen any other knife manufacturer constantly berate, take jabs, throw poo and see what sticks against their competition. And why else would Cold Steel do it? Increase their own sales? Knock off the competition thru smear campaigns since they can't beat them at the cash register?

You don't see Sal Glesser smearing Greg Lightfoot or Ernest Emerson throwing hand grenades at Chris Reeves. All I see is Cold Steel writing how this company sucks cause they use this steel and that company sucks cause they make a Kerambit or this company sucks cause they are trying to make a buck off the military. Never mind that half the CS blades have military type names also.

So as far as the Cold Steel Hate, any company that spends it's time hiring PIs to dig up dirt on their competition since they can't beat them at the cash register is garbage in my book.:thumbdn:





DngrRuss1 said:
I wonder if you are willi:D ng to be just as vicious with other companies when those companies motives and integrity are called into question.
Be patient- I'll have more soon
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No, because we already know your motives when you have more soon.:barf:
 
Advertising for any companiy is of course to boost sales and to let the public know that they exist. The way a company advertises can only hurt or help their sales. There are commercials on TV that are so irritating to me that I won't buy the product because of the commercial. Some are funny and cleverly done that will convince you enough that the product is worth buying. Companies pay the boys on Madison Ave big bucks to come up with a crafty ad compaign that will sell their product. It takes time for knife companies to get loyalty from their buyers. IMO,word of mouth is the best form of advertising. Real people using knives in real world activities and not over the top ridiculous torture tests are what sell knives. Any torture tests done by the manuturer are done as quality control of their product. If they choose to use it for advertising, they better be ready to back up their claims. All knives are made from different steels. The bottom line is to use a good quality cutlery steel, heat treat it properly and the knife should perform without a problem.
Scott
 
Well, say what you will about CS, but when I talked to Lynn umpteen years ago and worked the deal for Cliff to get a Trailmaster and Recon Scout to destroy and compare to other blades, Lynn had no problem with that. He may be a BS'er but then he believes his own BS, because he is willing to put up, unlike so many others in the industry.

His knives fared miserable against Busse's Basic . and I would bet that on the whole Spyderco would beat any CS folder in overal durability and performance. However, the sharpest knives I have ever handled out of the box, have almost always been CS knives. Their CarbonV series is very good and made by Camillus if I am not mistaken, so not a bad deal there.

You don't have to buy their products but I can tell you that at 5/16 inch thickness. flat ground and convex grind edge, there aren't many knives custom or production that will best out a Trailmaster or recon scout in a do it all competition. I think any of the CS knives are worth their retail prices, but a good discount they are worth a look.
 
USAFSP said:
Hey Cliff have you personally found any of CS's knives not able to perform to the standards that Thompson says they will?
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I don't doubt that Cold Steel has actually done the demonstrations, I don't think they have Penn and Teller working for them to create the effects. The problem is they don't support the claims they make so they are meaningless.

The likely reason that any evaluation of these claims will void the warrenty is that often just a slight variation of the method can cause a massive difference in the results and thus the demonstrations while strictly true are quite misleading.

For example I can take a piece of clear pine and do some digging, whittling, splitting and chopping, to showcase the performance of a knife. Now if I don't specify the type of wood, and the person watching/reading doesn't know that much about wood they could be very impressed.

A lot of what CS does is like this, there isn't usually enough information to tell if it is impressive or just average and and attempt by the user to investigate leads to a voided warrenty. For example I viced a Vaquero Grand and leaned on the handle to examine the lock strength.

Now the lock stood up fine, however the little pins readily sheared through the plastic frame and the knife came apart. Consider how they promote the strength of the locks and see if that would be a reasonable conclusion.

Razorback - Knives said:
Real people using knives in real world activities and not over the top ridiculous torture tests are what sell knives.
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As far as I know, no one uses fake people to evalaute knives. Lynn Thompson isn't an android. Some of what he does is extreme to some, but he does a lot of fairly normal activites as well, cuts rope, cardboard, wood and the like, take what you want and ignore the rest.

What is also extreme to some is normal for others. Justin of Ranger Knives is a real person, who has taken his knives and done some things which constantly get lots of people upset such as smashing and cutting into concrete, hacking up metals, heavy prying etc. . He has a military background and developed his knives based on things he needed to do.

Most of it isn't extreme for any one doing simple labor or construction work, it isn't all "high speed operators", regular working joes put very high strains on their tools, impact as well as lateral loads, however it doesn't sell as well to say your knives have been evaluated by a construction worker as it does some vague reference to "operators".

Quite simply look at the threads about seal knives and similar, there is a fair amount of the market who are interested in and will buy knives simply because they have that association regardless of the actual performance of the knives, some of which like the SOG SEAL which have that attachment are very low.

As for what sells knives, as Mike Turber noted long ago, the ginzu demonstrations were massively successful and caused the sale of a tremendous amount of knives. In general these kinds of tests do sell knives, Bladeforums members in genral don't well represent the average public.

Any torture tests done by the manuturer are done as quality control of their product. If they choose to use it for advertising, they better be ready to back up their claims.
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Yes, I don't see it as any different than any other performance claim. If they note a blade can bend 40 degrees without taking a set, or readily push cut 500 pieces of hemp rope the user should be able to do either and check.

-Cliff
 
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