Gollnick said:
In fact, Mr. Barber specifically said that S30V was specifically formulated such that knife makers would be able to heat treat it properly without exotic equipment.
That was in fact what I said in responce to argument you quoted which was an implication that the brittleness of S30V is simply a maker issue. It makes no sense to blame reports on S30V being brittle because of heat treat issues when it is designed to be easy to heat treat.
As for what it implies, improper means not properly, that is what the words mean. It just makes a much more definate statment when you say it rather than imply it. This is why I would not pay attention to arguements based on implication because you can say a lot that you would never do otherwise.
If you are going to say that reports of S30V being brittle are just due to heat treat issues, actually name the names of the makers that are unable to heat treat it correctly out of ignorance or incompetance.
See those are two pretty harsh words, but that is the reality of the arguement of "improper heat treatment". They either don't know how to do it properly (ignorant) or simply can't do it (not competent). Well they could know both but choose to do it improperly but that seems kind of odd.
Now I am not saying this is what he said because I didn't hear it, but that is what your paraphrase implies, improper is a very harsh term and something which you really want to specifically define as otherwise it can bring up all kinds of possibilities.
That is the use of implied arguements, you can make wide sweeping generalizations, which can be extended indefinately because you place no restrictions on them. If names were named, then not only would various makers be able to contend the statement, it would restrict it to those makers, so in the future other statements would not be so under cut.
Plus the guy works for the company selling the steel, that alone would make me personally be very skeptical of anything he said and be really tight on supporting arguements. Why don't you go to another steel manufacturer and ask them how their top stainless compares to S30V and if they support the performance claims Crucible is making.
It is like Fred's comments recently about how he has used many custom western kitchen knives and they are all inferior to the Japanese models. This paints a brush across all western kitchen knives as inferior, and they can't really argue against it because he didn't say who he was talking to, so it extends even across those who make better knives that he has never used.
Gollnick said:
... I'm not going to question him.
I questioned lots of PhD's when I was getting my degrees who were doing research a lot longer than I was, rarely did they get upset. The vast majority take it as a sign that you are interested and actually want to learn from them. You can't get a better reaction at a conference, do it and most times the guy looks you up after the presentation and you go out and discuss it over a beer (it is a canadian conference, what did you expect).
If you make a presentation and no one questions it, this is not a good sign. I encourage all my students to question me, just because I have been doing it for a hell of a lot longer than them doesn't mean I know everything and can't make mistakes, plus you can't learn anything if your audience just blindly accepts everything you say as divine scripture and presentations are supposed to work two ways, not just be a soapbox. As well it is really dangerous to foster that role in the audience because if you do make a mistake it will never be caught.
The people who don't want to be questioned in general should not be listened to because they have no confidence in their arguement. Not that this applies to the Crucible rep, I have no doubt that he would have responded well to questions and was well prepared. I have talked to them, Severson mainly, and he was generally positive when I asked for supporting data and never once tried to reply with "How dare you question me, I am an engineer." if you actually did that at a conference you would be laughed out of the room.
When he's telling stories from the front lines, I don't question them because he's been on the front lines.
You should, because brittle is undefined, and without knowing who the makers were, and how the knives were being used when they fractured there is a lot less information being presented. It would also be informative to know exactly what the issues were with heat treatment, was it an improper tempering temp, soak temp, times, transfer issues, quench media, what? See if this had been clearifed, then in the future if another complaint came in, the maker could deal with the arguement because it would be defined "Oh, yeah the soak time issue, yeah I am aware of that, I run the same time they recommend."
Would it not be a lot more helpful if the exact heat treat schemes which were giving problems were illustrated and then the proposed solutions by Crucible also given both with materials data to support the claim of superior performance? Of course it would. That is the benefit of asking questions.
-Cliff
