Knives you overestimated

Gaston444 said:
Not micro-chipping but micro-folding, which you can't see unless you rub your nail and it grabs some material off of it on one side only.

As you say, Micro-rolling, and other troubles, are common when chopping wood below 20 per side (around 15 per side is about where I go for chopping, and about half the knives I own fail being trouble-free chopping at that angle: This quite independent of price!), but micro-rolling should appear only slowly, after 30-50 hits, in a very thin depth, and with only a little nail grab that is not completely continuous but "stutters".

All CPM steels I ever tried micro-roll instantly and severely (almost visible by eye) on the very first few hits on wood, even on a very thick 0.040"-0.050" edge base, and even at near 20 degree angles... An RJ Martin Raven was like that, and so was another custom maker in CPM-154. A Gerber 70th anniversary Mk II dagger in S30V had instant and solid micro-folding from slicing the 1/16" thin cardboard of an Evian water bottle box, with the dagger's barely retouched factory edge (but it is a near-zero edge from the factory, so fairly thin even with my added micro-bevel)... I saw this same kind of "slicing" micro-folding on the same cardboard from a cheap Kershaw folder as well...

The reason chips are always mentioned as failures is because people can actually see them...: They don't really see micro-folding, and to be honest it can't really be felt while cutting until you slice phonebook paper: On CPM stainless it probably just hangs on forever, but it does create drag on the cut, even if it still cuts. In most cases it probably just leans and leans and continues to cut in this condition, getting worse and taller until sharpening removes it, but never breaking or wearing off from actual use... Only rubbing the nail can really detect it, and people tend to assume failure is by micro-chipping alone... Even good steel, like 440C, D-2 or Japanese treated Aus-6/Aus-8, will micro-roll a little after a fair amount of hard use at 15 per side: The difference is the speed, the continuity and especially the tallness of the micro-fold, compared to what I saw in CPM steels when chopping...

The tallness of the roll is the biggest problem (when it grabs a lot of nail shavings) , NOT the cutting performance loss, because of the height it takes to erase the roll, which means your edge geometry opens up faster. It is not really an edge performance loss issue, but a geometry height loss issue, which over time becomes a performance loss.

Note that a micro-fold is not quite a wire edge: It has no visible bent "base": It is more like a smooth "orientation" of the apex, which is why it does not break off like a wire edge, but instead becomes taller and taller with use, as the "bend" curls deeper and deeper into the edge, often until it becomes visible without nail shavings.

Gaston
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Too much bullshit here...
 
I'll sum up what everyone else's answers will add up to: everything made since flint knives.
Some people will undoubtedly think that even flint was a bad move, since it chips easier than antler...and edge retention is over-rated. ;)
 
Id say most TOPS knives I've tried. I find that the primary grind on the blades are way too thick, and they tend to lean towards thicker stock blades which in combination make a lot of them difficult to sharpen to a keen edge.
 
Knifecutz said:
Id say most TOPS knives I've tried. I find that the primary grind on the blades are way too thick, and they tend to lean towards thicker stock blades which in combination make a lot of them difficult to sharpen to a keen edge.
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The TOPS Tracker I bought had to be reprofiled quite a bit till it would cut well.
Then it worked quite nicely. :)

The SXB came ready to use though...odd.

I think they may leave some of them thicker behind the edge due to idiots who do dumb things like chopping at bricks and digging in rocks. Those idiots would then go make a YouTube video about "This knife was NOT hard-use capable; lame!", if the edge chipped out, or something like that.
 
Every single variant of the ZT 0560 I've had (560, 561, 560CBCF). And every single one had or developed lock stick, whether it had the steel lock insert or not. Super annoying, so I gave up and will never buy another.

Benchmade griptilian. For me its probably the smallest big knife I've ever seen/owned. It looks like a full size knife in pictures, but it feels smaller. Not sure if that makes sense.
 
stabman said:
The TOPS Tracker I bought had to be reprofiled quite a bit till it would cut well.
Then it worked quite nicely. :)

The SXB came ready to use though...odd.

I think they may leave some of them thicker behind the edge due to idiots who do dumb things like chopping at bricks and digging in rocks. Those idiots would then go make a YouTube video about "This knife was NOT hard-use capable; lame!", if the edge chipped out, or something like that.
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I hear you on that!! "hard use" doesn't mean cutting "hard things, like car doors". I can see that as their intentions. Perhaps I'm entirely too partial to good slicers. I will say this, the BOB fixed blade does cut well they had a winner there.
 
FanBoy86 said:
Every single variant of the ZT 0560 I've had (560, 561, 560CBCF). And every single one had or developed lock stick, whether it had the steel lock insert or not. Super annoying, so I gave up and will never buy another.

Benchmade griptilian. For me its probably the smallest big knife I've ever seen/owned. It looks like a full size knife in pictures, but it feels smaller. Not sure if that makes sense.
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Makes perfect sense. My desire was the small Griptilian but I found a used large one for 20 bucks. That's what I bought and have never looked back. About a year after my purchase, I held a small Grip and could tell that it just would not have worked for me.
 
Gaston444 said:
Not micro-chipping but micro-folding, which you can't see unless you rub your nail and it grabs some material off of it on one side only.

As you say, Micro-rolling, and other troubles, are common when chopping wood below 20 per side (around 15 per side is about where I go for chopping, and about half the knives I own fail being trouble-free chopping at that angle: This quite independent of price!), but micro-rolling should appear only slowly, after 30-50 hits, in a very thin depth, and with only a little nail grab that is not completely continuous but "stutters".

All CPM steels I ever tried micro-roll instantly and severely (almost visible by eye) on the very first few hits on wood, even on a very thick 0.040"-0.050" edge base, and even at near 20 degree angles... An RJ Martin Raven was like that, and so was another custom maker in CPM-154. A Gerber 70th anniversary Mk II dagger in S30V had instant and solid micro-folding from slicing the 1/16" thin cardboard of an Evian water bottle box, with the dagger's barely retouched factory edge (but it is a near-zero edge from the factory, so fairly thin even with my added micro-bevel)... I saw this same kind of "slicing" micro-folding on the same cardboard from a cheap Kershaw folder as well...

The reason chips are always mentioned as failures is because people can actually see them...: They don't really see micro-folding, and to be honest it can't really be felt while cutting until you slice phonebook paper: On CPM stainless it probably just hangs on forever, but it does create drag on the cut, even if it still cuts. In most cases it probably just leans and leans and continues to cut in this condition, getting worse and taller until sharpening removes it, but never breaking or wearing off from actual use... Only rubbing the nail can really detect it, and people tend to assume failure is by micro-chipping alone... Even good steel, like 440C, D-2 or Japanese treated Aus-6/Aus-8, will micro-roll a little after a fair amount of hard use at 15 per side: The difference is the speed, the continuity and especially the tallness of the micro-fold, compared to what I saw in CPM steels when chopping...

The tallness of the roll is the biggest problem (when it grabs a lot of nail shavings) , NOT the cutting performance loss, because of the height it takes to erase the roll, which means your edge geometry opens up faster. It is not really an edge performance loss issue, but a geometry height loss issue, which over time becomes a performance loss.

Note that a micro-fold is not quite a wire edge: It has no visible bent "base": It is more like a smooth "orientation" of the apex, which is why it does not break off like a wire edge, but instead becomes taller and taller with use, as the "bend" curls deeper and deeper into the edge, often until it becomes visible without nail shavings.

Gaston
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I understand the concepts you're trying to get across, but...just a bit too much fluff here. Chopping with steel at 15dps?? you're expecting things from steel that just aren't realistic. And you should know full well when you buy a steel of whatever choice, the limitations and characteristics of that steel type. Not sure what else can be said.
 
The Ka-Bar 1258 short Ka-Bar. The handle is to short for regular sized hands, the hilt gets in the way for smaller knife stuff as well. I got it for smaller knife duties but the handle and hilt makes it harder to use. I should of got a Mark I. Thinking of cutting the top hilt part off or maybe giving it to a niece. For the intended role I got it for made me very disappointed with it, its sharp enough and the metal of the blade and the blade form is good. Its the short handle and the hilt (top part) that is the disappointment maker.
 
kaozer said:
This actually is the worst disapointment ive had. This thing sells for 210$ (cad) which is the same price as a pm2 s110v.
This thing has no detent whatsoever. The fit is okay, finish is terrible (scratches and discoloration on the blade) uneven anodizing poor thumbstud placement. Poor handle shape coupled with the slick aluminium makes it nearly impossible to get a good grip on it.
Edit: i forgot to mention, this thing is on cheap teflon washers!
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I have all the same gripes with mine that you have with yours except the anodizing. Did yours also come with some sort of BS asymmetric edge? Mine is certainly sharp enough but it looks like someone ground the edge with one eye closed. To be fair about the thumb stud placement, they're doing double duty as blade stops... which I dislike. I bought the Katana some time after I picked up their Tactility, which I love (aside from the vertical grind marks showing through the damascus pattern on the back side of the blade). I think I've put the Katana in my pocket twice. It lives in a drawer the rest of the time. Pity, as it could have been so much better.
 
Really surprised bout the Katana complaints. Don't hear that too often.
I have one and the only complaint I have is the spinning pivot is a pain in the ass to mess with.
Otherwise, mine is a great example. Ordered it from Japan. Maybe that has something to do with it??
Joe
 
Mick_1KRR said:
I understand the concepts you're trying to get across, but...just a bit too much fluff here. Chopping with steel at 15dps?? you're expecting things from steel that just aren't realistic. And you should know full well when you buy a steel of whatever choice, the limitations and characteristics of that steel type. Not sure what else can be said.
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A steel type having "characteristics"? What about the characteristics of the grinding? The grinding comes mostly last, and can ruin the edge holding in an instant... Why not talk about grind "characteristics" instead? You don't talk about it because you have no means to verify exactly what happened in the grinding of any particular knife, which, even on the cheapest knives, is a long series of uncontrolled hand actions, so you stick to steel types because that makes you feel like you have control over what you are getting...

Beyond CPM steels being terrible, both to sharpen and to hold an edge (probably because they are so hard to grind, so whatever "characteristics" they have is shot to hell by the grinding), and Carbon steels being really easy to sharpen, and having acceptable, but second rate edge holding, I never observed much "characteristics" by "steel type". I tend to go case by case. An individual knife makes it or it doesn't.

Gaston
 
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Golden Goal said:
Did yours also come with some sort of BS asymmetric edge? Mine is certainly sharp enough but it looks like someone ground the edge with one eye closed
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I dont remember (it has not seen my pocket in over a year), i will have to look when im back home.

palonej said:
Really surprised bout the Katana complaints. Don't hear that too often.
I have one and the only complaint I have is the spinning pivot is a pain in the ass to mess with.
Otherwise, mine is a great example. Ordered it from Japan. Maybe that has something to do with it??
Joe
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That is possible, i ordered mine from massdrop. But still the box of my katana was stamped "QC passed" but that is utter BS. My blade would never had made it trough QC.
 
Gaston444 said:
A steel type having "characteristics"? What about the characteristics of the grinding? The grinding comes mostly last, and can ruin the edge holding in an instant... Why not talk about grind "characteristics" instead? You don't talk about it because you have no means to verify exactly what happened in the grinding of any particular knife, which, even on the cheapest knives, is a long series of uncontrolled hand actions, so you stick to steel types because that makes you feel like you have control over what you are getting...

Beyond CPM steels being terrible, both to sharpen and to hold an edge (probably because they are so hard to grind, so whatever "characteristics" they have is shot to hell by the grinding), and Carbon steels being really easy to sharpen, and having acceptable, but second rate edge holding, I never observed much "characteristics" by "steel type". I tend to go case by case. An individual knife makes it or it doesn't.

Gaston
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If you're going to look at it like that, then mate, you're in for a 100% crapshoot no matter what you buy. Yes, of course the grinding affects the steel, heck everything done at the factory does but you wouldn't know what goes on since you are not there to see what goes on. But, that being said, a 15dps edge is going to struggle for chopping, i don't care what super steel you try. You would need a scientifically controlled experiment on knives you were personally there to oversee in the factory during manufacture in order to get accurate insights to form accurate conclusions on steel. And PS. aren't you the one openly condemning CPM steels? didn't you just basically say lets forget about steel types and focus on grinding? and how that it makes all steel performance a random lottery since it can ruin any steel?.....Contradicting? Surely you would better direct your dislike for CPM steels at the manufacture process, rather than towards the steel its self no? Since you're saying steel "characteristics" are moot.
 
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Gaston444 said:
....Beyond CPM steels being terrible, both to sharpen and to hold an edge (probably because they are so hard to grind, so whatever "characteristics" they have is shot to hell by the grinding), and Carbon steels being really easy to sharpen, and having acceptable, but second rate edge holding, I never observed much "characteristics" by "steel type". I tend to go case by case. An individual knife makes it or it doesn't.

Gaston
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So, Gaston, you don't like CPM steels and you feel that carbon steel is second rate. Tell me, just what steel do you like?
 
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