Is everyone buying their knifes wrongly or i am getting something wrong?

Lansky diamond kit, turnbox set comes with diamond rods too, sharp maker has them optional. All the nicer system come with or have diamond options. I had to upgrade my stuff and did, I fail to see the issue.
 
Whatever side of the argument you land on, I think we can all agree the Super Steel Steve is a terrible superhero name. Dude needs some rebranding...
 
Steely_Gunz said:
I think a lot of the issue has to do with trying to quantify something that is a personal qualification.

Some wont be happy unless they can polish an edge to a mirror that will slice free hanging tissue paper. Some simply require an edge just north of "butterknife" that can be pushed into service for years without touching it up.

My personal preference: I dont let my edges go dull...period. its just like I dont drive my car until the check engine light comes on. I can maintain any steel I purchase with ceramic rods and a loaded strop. If I happen to damage the edge beyond that, I have a couple of inexpensive diamond hones that will get it in good enough shape for me to finish up with rods and strops.

One of the traits I value on an outdoor/camping knife is that it be made from a traditional carbon steel over a super steel. In the event of an emergency, i want to be able to get a workable edge with an Arkansas stone.
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Well said!
 
I've never seen any advantage to expensive steels, they don't do more work, but they take more work to sharpen and they tend to chip easier. Worthless to me.

I like the knives that guy in your vid makes, he's a pretty excellent knifemaker and knows what he's talking about. Certainly not some "utube nitwit".
 
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comis said:
In terms of 'rope cutting edge retention' test, I think the outdoors55(the youtuber) did a pretty good job explaining what he think could be the variables, and did try to control those variables as much as he could in his tests. And I tend to agree with his findings--that within those two samples, Spyderco did a fantastic job with that particular Tenacious, and his S30V was not bad either, since he did mention it was on par with other knives of his.
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Can you link to his video where he talks about variables? I could not find it with a search. I've done a ton of rope cut testing, following what Pete from Cedric & Ada does. The variables are numerous. My tests all remain unpublished until I can get the variables under control.

The biggest surprise variable for me was the rope. Same rope, same manufacturer, bought at the same time. Average thickness can vary by 40%. One package of rope is visibly smaller than another, and this was confirmed by measuring the rope every 50' or so. I can't possibly hope to get consistent results with this much variability in rope diameter.

Other variables include sharpness, my arm vs. another arm, amount of blade used to how, how we cut (force, push vs. pull, etc), cutting surface, blade geometry, and heat treatment of the steel. I try to find the same knife in different steels to rule out geometry as a variable. Not easy to do. Spyderco Mules help. (I've tested 24 different Mule steels, Buck Vantage in 5 different steels, and will try to do the same with a PM2 or Para 3. Getting all the PM2 or Para 3 steels will be a challenge and expensive. I'll have to retest them all once I get my rope figured out.)

PaultheCarpenter said:
I've never seen any advantage to expensive steels, they don't do more work, but they take more work to sharpen and they tend to chip easier. Worthless to me.

I like the knives that guy in your vid makes, he's a pretty excellent knifemaker and knows what he's talking about. Certainly not some "utube nitwit".
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Different steels clearly have more edge retention. Not sure that = more work, but it does = more time between sharpening. They chip easier than what? 4V is quite tough and has significantly better edge retention than may other steels. I've never chipped S90V, M390, or many other high end steels, although I'm sure I could.

Does chipping vs. rolling matter that much? You have to sharpen it out either way. With the right stones it takes me no more time to sharpen M390 than lower carbide steels.
 
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Here is the video where he talks about his methods of testing and what he did to try and keep the variables in check, but he does admit he's not perfect. And Paul the Carpenter, if you chip more expensive steels, you probably need to get through burned factory edges before you get to good steel. It's a common problem, and unless you have something like s90v or s110v, it shouldn't take that long to sharpen. I completely redid the bevel on my M390 Contego one day, and from coarse diamond all the way through Fine Spyderco, took me about 30 minutes. If I was just touching it up it would have taken a few minutes. Diamonds are efficient and fast.

I've also not had any chipping problems from any of the steels I use (8cr all the way through s90v). My 4max Scout did have some edge damage from me chopping at a branch, but I've since gotten rid of the factory grind and shouldn't have that problem again (Aus10).

 
Rhinoknives1 said:
Diamond is harder than all steels and if you move to diamond stones and sharpen with them & worry less about utube nitwits. You’ll have sharp knives & be happy!
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Learning to use diamond stones requires some effort and practice but once you can hand sharpen with a diamond stone, you can sharpen anything.
 
If you're new to diamond stones, just a heads up, a lot of them are pretty rough and gritty when you first start using a new stone, but they smooth out to something that feels more like a traditional stone with minimal use. They level out and stay that way for a good while before eventually getting real slick and then it's about time for a new one.
 
I use a wicked edge sharpening system which has diamond, ceramic and leather stroping sharpeners. It accurately puts an edge on any blade to a fraction of a degree. It works on any steel and just about any blade type. I worked at two steel mills and a large machine shop that made blades for the sheers that cut steel at mills. If you think all steels are equal and there are no superior types then, I am afraid you are sadly mistaken.

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I just want mu blade to be tough and edge to be decent. I don't care about crazy edge retention.
 
David Richardson said:
Can you link to his video where he talks about variables? I could not find it with a search. I've done a ton of rope cut testing, following what Pete from Cedric & Ada does. The variables are numerous. My tests all remain unpublished until I can get the variables under control.

The biggest surprise variable for me was the rope. Same rope, same manufacturer, bought at the same time. Average thickness can vary by 40%. One package of rope is visibly smaller than another, and this was confirmed by measuring the rope every 50' or so. I can't possibly hope to get consistent results with this much variability in rope diameter.

Other variables include sharpness, my arm vs. another arm, amount of blade used to how, how we cut (force, push vs. pull, etc), cutting surface, blade geometry, and heat treatment of the steel. I try to find the same knife in different steels to rule out geometry as a variable. Not easy to do. Spyderco Mules help. (I've tested 24 different Mule steels, Buck Vantage in 5 different steels, and will try to do the same with a PM2 or Para 3. Getting all the PM2 or Para 3 steels will be a challenge and expensive. I'll have to retest them all once I get my rope figured out.)


Different steels clearly have more edge retention. Not sure that = more work, but it does = more time between sharpening. They chip easier than what? 4V is quite tough and has significantly better edge retention than may other steels. I've never chipped S90V, M390, or many other high end steels, although I'm sure I could.

Does chipping vs. rolling matter that much? You have to sharpen it out either way. With the right stones it takes me no more time to sharpen M390 than lower carbide steels.
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In Outdoor55 video, he did briefly talked about those variables or margin of error:

Rope 2:47
Human margin of error 8:50
cutting surface 16:28

And at 17:20, he talks extensively about variables, and listed out all the potential variables in the video.

I am not a data scientist, so I can't say what could be the best approach to do this as scientific as possible. But I tend to agree with him that some variables are difficult to control(as you've mentioned, for example, rope thickness/abrasiveness/impurity), and for his purpose, he tried his best to control them and take them into account while doing the test. And he specifically said since those variables exist, this test will be a one-time deal where it won't be used as a data point to compare to previous/future test.

Personally, I would think these kind of tests, by nature, are difficult to be conclusive.

For the test mediums, we just don't know the consistency of the rope/cutting board/paper used, and will their density/impurity/abrasiveness remain constant or negligible enough to ignore them? How about humidity and temperature. If done in cold dry winter vs hot humid summer, will the cutting board be tougher or softer to cut?

The human factor could be huge variable, what if we cut harder into the board, will it dull the knife faster? How could we be sure we didn't use excessive force on knife A vs knife B? And for paper slicing, does it matter we cut across the grain or with the grain?

I too have gotten many feet of manila ropes long time ago and was planning to do some comparisons, just for fun sake. But after thinking it through, I realize the point of doing these tests might potentially be moot and never did bother to do them.
 
Eli Chaps said:
Buy knives you like. Matching steels and HT to specific tasks is great. But beyond that, steel's performance should be down the list of cares.
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So much this. I suspect these youtubers need something for their channel so they can maintain whatever schedule gets them ad revenue, so they venture way down the list of cares to have something to talk about

Steely_Gunz said:
My personal preference: I dont let my edges go dull...period. its just like I dont drive my car until the check engine light comes on. I can maintain any steel I purchase with ceramic rods and a loaded strop. If I happen to damage the edge beyond that, I have a couple of inexpensive diamond hones that will get it in good enough shape for me to finish up with rods and strops.
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also this. if i notice a knife is getting less sharp than I like it, i have a sharpmaker and an old leather belt to strop on that it get it back to my preference, usually it only takes a few minutes. i see things about people spending really long periods of time on sharpening one knife, and I wonder if they were just hacking into concrete /using the knife til it is duller than a spoon or if their sharpener just takes that long to set up.
 
Since when is a sample size of 1 good enough to make these kinds of judgements? Like you said, there’s so many factors to consider, you’d have to test 100s of knives to get any useful data.
 
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