- Joined
- Apr 10, 2000
- Messages
- 3,794
Well, at least some of the knives are designed to be strong. Whether or not they are actually strong is a different matter and it is very possible some of them will fail due to design or implementation faults. Some of that is clearly in Noss testing area.
It is their choice and as long as they're not lied and mislead intentionally and by falsifying facts that's the way it should be. I mean everyone is free to make their choices based on their conclusions and desired use of the knife. If someone's #1 priority is the price and #2 is toughness then that GI tanto is perhaps their #1 knife, what can I do, even if I don't like CS knives that much and some of their policies at all.
If that's what they want, then it is best for hem. Being into Japanese kitchen knives, I know in my mind that there is no way that a thick 440A or 440C knife can be better knife than let's say my Watanabe Honyaki guyto. Neither in terms of edge holding, nor in terms of cutting performance or nimbleness. Still, a lot of people argue that German knives are better because you can open lobsters with them and then chop onions and I'd most likely break my honyaki on the same lobster. That's how it is. And doing that with a kitchen knife on daily basis, is more of a knife abuse as chopping bolts for testing.
I would agree that misinformation and deliberate lies are bad for the community. If Noss was rigging his tests somehow to favor one brand over another, setting up some tricks to make knife A fail and help knife B succeed in the same test, etc than I would say it's very bad and ban him or whatever else we can do.
However, as of today he hasn't done any of it. His test goals are well documented and so are his criteria and ratings.
He wants to test knives for toughness. if someone else is interested in just that for his/her use, or doesn't know any better that a good knife needs more than toughness then that's it. That's no reason to bash Noss for the choices others made. And however unscientifically he breaks those knives, the truth is that human being is more likely to replicate Noss' tests than multi-ton press or some other rig.
Agree with the statement itself, but I think you're hanging something on Noss that he hasn't done. he gave very good ratings to many expensive knives. And just because the knife is expensive it's not necessarily good. There is a merit and value to price/performance ratio evaluation, but not in price alone.
The question is how much and how well that applies to knives for starters, and then how well it will apply to the knife wielded by a human being. Bross for example think there is no difference, I based on daily observations tend to think it will be quite different.
It'd be probably good if someone did that. Never heard of that so far. Interesting question is what'd happen if someone modeled that unlucky green beret and try to model spine impact. Would it break at the same spot or no?
If you are using just those two sources you'd be missing a lot
Makers and their followers have a very understandable tendency(not that it does good service to the users though) to exaggerate positives of any given product (save for some miserable failures) and dismiss any(all) negatives. I suspect you also use critics/non followers (random buyer/user) input to get more balanced picture.Well, how easy/hard it was for someone to dismiss manufacturer is not very clear. However, design failure is design failure and pointing that out and criticizing the maker/product for that is absolutely fine.
a) Nobody is asking to disregard maker's reputation based on broken knives, but may be to look into the matter deeper and see if there indeed is a problem with the product. Fans simply dismiss those failures. On the other hand I really didn't see very severe impacts in that particular test.
b) Heat treatment for example is not just "few knives", it's all of the knives fora given design, from that steel... I have my own understanding and they have their own.
No, but if you look in this thread one of the arguments why Noss should be banned or burned alive was the number of his bashers here...
It depends on the evaluation criteria. Lamborghini for example, it is a perfect Saturday night/chick magnet/show off car. As for the rest... If I was looking for a city commuter or economy car, I'd give it 0 from 10. So, making analogy with knifetests, if I put up the site and I say I am evaluating cars for economy and mileage, and give Lamborghini 0 wheels out of 5 , I'd be right and I'd still get a lot of bashing from Lamborghini fans. Same applies to rally and racing...
There are 3500 posts a day on this forum and I have time to read between 20 and 50 per day. That leaves about 3450 posts unread by me, the average user. If not for this post I'd have never heard of that site and then I'd never know how my knife fairs against a hammer or cinder block.
