Infi steel?

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Here's an album with the pics of the FBM, the brush I was cutting and the area of the blade where the edge really took it on the chin.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/oldjimm...7630091941718/

I'll try and directly link to one of the pics of the chips here:
Click to expand...

This absolutely should not happen. I have seen pictures of people chopping cars with Busse knives without chipping or even rolling. It seems more likely that this is a quality control issue rather than the usual response of the knife to impact. To view the pics of cars being sliced with Busses check out the 'Infi superiority' sticky on the Busse subforum.

Anyway, regardless of the cause of the edge failure, Jerry Busse has a no questions asked warantee which covers all major failures. It even covers gross abuse. Jerry has frequently replaced knives which had been used to chop concrete blocks even though their owners had thinned the edge geometry down to a thinness inappropriate for this 'application'.

Finally, I don't know about you, but I'd always rather see video evidence, much harder to fake. Below is a link to a video that convinced me of the true toughness of Busse blades, chopping through concrete, hit with a sledge and chiselling steel plate:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7u1WVDBnhY

ps. remember that this vid is using one of the thinnest Busses with a 3/16'' thickness, not some 1/4'' monster! Anyway, whatever you decide, enjoy!
 
joshiecole said:
This absolutely should not happen. I have seen pictures of people chopping cars with Busse knives without chipping or even rolling. It seems more likely that this is a quality control issue rather than the usual response of the knife to impact. To view the pics of cars being sliced with Busses check out the 'Infi superiority' sticky on the Busse subforum.

Anyway, regardless of the cause of the edge failure, Jerry Busse has a no questions asked warantee which covers all major failures. It even covers gross abuse. Jerry has frequently replaced knives which had been used to chop concrete blocks even though their owners had thinned the edge geometry down to a thinness inappropriate for this 'application'.

Finally, I don't know about you, but I'd always rather see video evidence, much harder to fake. Below is a link to a video that convinced me of the true toughness of Busse blades, chopping through concrete, hit with a sledge and chiselling steel plate:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7u1WVDBnhY

ps. remember that this vid is using one of the thinnest Busses with a 3/16'' thickness, not some 1/4'' monster! Anyway, whatever you decide, enjoy!
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I just watched that, that's about the same edge damage I had with 5160 on the cinderblock.

I think all this stuff is cool, anything to make knives better!
 
joshiecole said:
This absolutely should not happen. I have seen pictures of people chopping cars with Busse knives without chipping or even rolling. It seems more likely that this is a quality control issue rather than the usual response of the knife to impact.
Anyway, regardless of the cause of the edge failure, Jerry Busse has a no questions asked warantee which covers all major failures.
Click to expand...

I didn't think it would chip either after what I'd read and seen in videos. I honestly chalk this up to operator error and using the tool incorrectly. My personal opinion is that 23 degrees was too aggressive for what I did, which wound up being hitting some rocks as hard as I could swing. And to be fair, hard rocks (the non-sedimentary kind) like chert nodules and calcite concretions are quite a bit harder than friable cinder blocks which come apart pretty easily. I'm just not going to do anything stupid like swing it into a rock again. I predict it will work just fine for my purposes in the future, which don't include busting up rocks with it.

I also have a Sarge 7, custom Fusion Steel Heart, a Team Gemini on order, and I'm not about to let any of them go. My Sarge 7 has a razor sharp convex edge on it that slices paper with ease, but I haven't used it much yet. My opinion is that I need to have some basic common sense when using the FBM in the future and that my assumption that it was "unchippable" was misinformed.
 
Checked out your channel, good stuff!

Im already a big fan of 5160 -- as the proud owner of one kukri already (and another one as soon as my sister gets back from Nepal!) I know that 5160 is a classic. In fact its the same steel Ernest Hemingway recommended for making knives (not quite sure what his credentials as a metalurgist were though lol!)

I think the benefit if INFI is to combine that level of lateral strength, toughness and pretty good edge holding ability all at about 60RC
 
I honestly chalk this up to operator error and using the tool incorrectly. My personal opinion is that 23 degrees was too aggressive for what I did, which wound up being hitting some rocks as hard as I could swing.
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JimmyJohn, don't be so hard on yourself lol! These blades should be able to more than cope with some contact with a few rocks. It could quite possibly be a heat treat fault, or some other manufacturing error, possibly the steels structure was compromised.

The best thing to do would be to drop Jerry an email or call the shop -- They are very helpful.

The standard hard use Busse Combat grind is 40 degrees (inclusive), so i would have thought that 23 on either side should have been more than fine...

Good luck
 
I make my own 5160 monsters that do everything i need them to including pulverizing bricks, and punching through steel!
ELMAX is vary similar to INFI.
knives544.jpg

heres some 5160 that i batoned through some AUS-8, and i missed the heat treat hence the the broken sword but i wanted to see where it was at anyways, i had to beat the crap out of it to shear.
Greg
My bacon maker is a safe queen!
 
Infi Destruction test. 4 lb hammers, concrete, steel cutting, vise and pound the tang sidedways for a while.

Long video, so skip to where he starts spiking through the concrete.

3/16 thick steel.

There is another with .30 thick, but it is more impressive with the skinny.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irEZB8hvGzw

It is tough as nuts.

Even better, they make many models with very thin profiles. Bony Active Duty, CABS, lots of skinny ones.


joshiecole said:
JimmyJohn, don't be so hard on yourself lol! These blades should be able to more than cope with some contact with a few rocks. It could quite possibly be a heat treat fault, or some other manufacturing error, possibly the steels structure was compromised.

The best thing to do would be to drop Jerry an email or call the shop -- They are very helpful.

The standard hard use Busse Combat grind is 40 degrees (inclusive), so i would have thought that 23 on either side should have been more than fine...

Good luck
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Not in my experience. Of the 11 I have owned, I don't believe that a single one was at 40 inclusive. I re profiled all of them.

Busse's warranty is top notch, and they will take care of any problems.





jimmyjohnjohn said:
I have a geology degree, so I studied chemistry and the properties of compounds, what happens in a melt as it cools, grain size and all sorts of things for 4 years. So I know a little about what's going on in a blade; I'm not a complete noob. I've been getting into knives pretty seriously for about the last 12-18 months and recently gave Busses a try. I read every bit of info I could find about them.

I got a FBM and was using it to clear a few scrub brush small trees in my back yard. There is limestone directly under our soil here, so there's some loose limestone and chert in the soil. My FBM did contact the soil and a few rocks (limestone and chert) a few times. I was working outside for about 30 minutes. When I inspected the blade, I was a bit shocked. I didn't expect to see any chips. I saw three chips that were about 2-3mm long and parts of the edge that were just obliterated. I thought I'd see some folding, possibly, that could be straightened up with a hone. I took some pics of it and resharpened it on a EdgePro Professional, removing the chips. It took about 90 minutes to get the edge back; it's a big blade. My own take away from this experience was that the steel is human, not superhero-like. I had a 23 degree edge profiled on the FBM. This may be too acute if you think you might be impacting rocks hidden in the dirt. I still like INFI steel just fine and have plans for buying several more, but I'll be a bit more careful in the future and not expect that I can swing the blade into anything and it will escape with just some minor folding.

Here's an album with the pics of the FBM, the brush I was cutting and the area of the blade where the edge really took it on the chin.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/oldjimmyjohnjohn/sets/72157630091941718/

I'll try and directly link to one of the pics of the chips here:
7171260365_d0d02e2d5f_b.jpg
Click to expand...


I'd like to see a pic of the whole edge to get a sense of scale on that pic.


If you smack rocks while chopping, you will get edge damage. Infi or no Infi. Just tends to be a bit easier to fix with Infi.

Good stuff!
 
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Bigfattyt said:
1. I'd like to see a pic of the whole edge to get a sense of scale on that pic.
2. If you smack rocks while chopping, you will get edge damage. Infi or no Infi. Just tends to be a bit easier to fix with Infi.
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1. I still have the uncropped originals. They are about 5 megabytes and 5000x3000 pixels, so they are large. I'll have to find somewhere to host them. I may have to put them at a file hosting site like RapidShare. I'll take a look at that when I get home from work tonight.
2. I agree, from my experience anyway. I've already resharpened the edge and it will slice paper like a razor now.
 
Busse, swamp rat all are good knives but the advertisement and testing is partial bs. Their edges are not ground to cut/slice when doing those tests. Not even close. I have owned 9 of them and ALL needed work to be a good cutter. Once done and beat on, their blades were no better than any other. I did a side by. Side with a swamp rat ratweiler and my becker bk7. The becked did better in every possible test and had considerably less edge damage. Good knives but a lot of sales hype!
 
tryppyr said:
Here we go.

I predict a flood of fanboys defending the Busse name.
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Followed by a flood of doubters that have never tested one.

The funny thing is, both sides of the argument will have plenty of contributors who have never really tested one out.

To be fair, there are some that have thoroughly tested these things out...and I am not one of them;)
 
Okay. I do a fair amount of cut testing. My arm is still a little sore from wailing on a Cashen just this morning. If someone wanted to send me a relatively thin INFI user they don't mind me sharping I can at least post a relative comparison of edge retention in abrasive media and edge stability in rough use in hardwood.

What my test looks like: http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/839148

It's a non destructive test so it won't highlight the "indestructibility" of the knife, but it can be pretty brutal on the actual edge. Any takers? (Jerry, you readin this?)
 
jimmyjohnjohn said:
1. I still have the uncropped originals. They are about 5 megabytes and 5000x3000 pixels, so they are large. I'll have to find somewhere to host them. I may have to put them at a file hosting site like RapidShare. I'll take a look at that when I get home from work tonight.
2. I agree, from my experience anyway. I've already resharpened the edge and it will slice paper like a razor now.
Click to expand...

http://www.onthegosoft.com/shrink_pic.htm

www.tinypic.com
 
I'm most interested in the manufacturing process of INFI
How is it smelting? such as Electrosmelting? VIM? ESR? or even VIM+VAR
smelting equipment?
the size of ingot?
Impurities and gas content in the steel?such as O\N\S\P
Forge Process? etc.
 
They are not going to tell you that. Many folks think that is something akin to a modified S series steel with nitrogen added.
Yushu_withwind said:
I'm most interested in the manufacturing process of INFI
How is it smelting? such as Electrosmelting? VIM? ESR? or even VIM+VAR
smelting equipment?
the size of ingot?
Impurities and gas content in the steel?such as O\N\S\P
Forge Process? etc.
Click to expand...
 
Here you go. Not too bad for hitting rocks. I have done it a few times, with significantly thinned out edges. Stock edges, are pretty robust (for the most part, especially on certain models).



One of my favorite models too! FBM with the CBT just looks so cool. Great thickness for a hard user, but not unnecessarily thick or heavy.

I used to have a FBMLE, but I got too many big choppers, and moved that one on, because it was worth the most (was able to pick up three other pieces of infi from the sale).

Now I rock a KZII, and B11 for my big choppers.

I sure miss the FBMLE, because the full flat grind, with my polished convex sure bit like a gator. It had hand shaped mags, so it was a joy in the hand to.
 
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I have a busse basic 7 and bought it because I'd heard so much good about it from my dad who liked his.
If I understand correctly, the basic 7 is a Modified infi steel, whatever that is.

I'm curious from you guys who know a lot more. You're supposed to sharpen only one side of the knife,
leaving the other side with a rounded edge?
Any thoughts on why that edge geometry? Sounds like some of you guys with a busse have sharpened
it to different edges?
Any suggestions for me on that edge. It's a basic survival type knife that at 7 inches I almost feel to self conscious
to wear the thing. I like four inch blades, don't know why I didn't buy the basic 5.
 
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