My List of Steels in order for Edge Retention So Far

well we have disintegrated into fighting once more & perhaps i'm as much to blame or even more so than anyone individual. my emotive outburst against broos probably catalyzed the disintegration from positive knowledge to our shouting match. i abhor my initial outburst as much as all that followed.now once more we are debating instead of really exchanging information. black mamba offered some newer perspectives but we need to move from hostility to more cooperation if that is possible. as gator mentioned it's possible we interpret criticism of test criteria as personal attacks against ourselves.i beleive all cutting tests can tell us something but few of our tests can ascertain a lot of conclusions.perhaps the one positive that is occuring is the passion we feel about blades, as once declared " passion lives on long after logic is dead" i'm certainly morose for my emotive declarations. hopefully we can get back to doing some new work. dennis
 
Gentlemen, let me remind you to focus on the knives and the testing and not on each other.
Personal attacks make this thread useless, and a useless thread might as well be locked.
 
Yeah if it keeps going the way it's been going I will close it.... :mad: :grumpy:
 
It's just a reminder at this point. A legitimate test series will be contentious anyway: all of us have opinions based on more than the steel or geometry.

We have perfectly acceptable levels of confidence in certain companies and certain styles of knives, even if for reasons other than precisely how long the edge will shave. We find some knives more comfortable, some constructions more durable. The real-world value of a knife is more than how bald it can shave your forearm.

But it's good to add in some methods of evaluating the primary knife material: the steel. We just have to stay with evaluating the test and not rehashing old personal insults.
 
Esav Benyamin said:
It's just a reminder at this point. A legitimate test series will be contentious anyway: all of us have opinions based on more than the steel or geometry.

We have perfectly acceptable levels of confidence in certain companies and certain styles of knives, even if for reasons other than precisely how long the edge will shave. We find some knives more comfortable, some constructions more durable. The real-world value of a knife is more than how bald it can shave your forearm.

But it's good to add in some methods of evaluating the primary knife material: the steel. We just have to stay with evaluating the test and not rehashing old personal insults.
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I will continue it as long as I continue to get knives to test in different steels. :D

I have 2 coming in 154CM from different companies, Benchmade and Spyderco that I will add to the list before I do the hard use testing on them. :thumbup:
 
pwet said:
please,

teach me !

how have you eliminated geometry from your test ? i may have missed it.

you are perhaps THE knife tester here but i am a knife user. i use kitchen knives for a living and sharpen them almost every single day. and from my experience the geometry of the last inch of blade as A LOT to do with edge retention given the same final edge.

i've verified this with two same knives (hiromoto AS gyuto, aogami super, 63-4hrc) , one i bought for me, the other i bought for one of my employees at the same time. both same brand, same lenght, same model, same steel, same everything. mine i thinned to paper thickness freehand then applied a microbevel via edgepro (like his, 15° 3k tape) the other stock thickness.

we did swap knives several times to see if it wasn't about lighter hand and technique or whatever, the thinned knives ALWAYS last 1,5x to 2x before needing sharpening.

why don't ask me i'm a chef, not a knifemaker but that's the way it worked for us in this case.
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Sure. You may start with this and follow links to BF discussion where all this were explained several times already:

http://playground.sun.com/~vasya/Manila-Rope-Results.html

Thanks, Vassili.
 
one thing is for sure most chefs do as much cutting in a day as any of us in a week . i guess butchers & deck hands on fishing boats follow. big game guides certainly do a lot of heavy knife workouts in the season. when i was a prep cook before God was born i did tons of daily cutting [in the 60s]our knives were dexter -russell & as low performance as they were we certainly got a lot done. i think people whom are actually doing a lot of knife work really learn how to wring out the blade performance.dennis
 
nozh2002 said:
Sure. You may start with this and follow links to BF discussion where all this were explained several times already:

http://playground.sun.com/~vasya/Manila-Rope-Results.html

Thanks, Vassili.
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Vassili. I've criticized your work before, but one thing particular of your tests for some reason does not bother you. You did the Yuna Hard 2 twice, and it jumped from 16th place to 5th place. What does that tell you about your test? How do you justify that ZDP should be in 5th place and not the 16th place it initially was?
 
bubblewhip said:
Vassili. I've criticized your work before, but one thing particular of your tests for some reason does not bother you. You did the Yuna Hard 2 twice, and it jumped from 16th place to 5th place. What does that tell you about your test? How do you justify that ZDP should be in 5th place and not the 16th place it initially was?
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I answered several times already. It is really annoing to repeat again and again and again one same things, especially in reply to someone who just criticizing.

Please, do some homework - check my testing discussion in this very subforum. I am not going to do this again and again just because someone do not feel like bother to pay minimal attention.

As well I am not interested to fight every one who like to criticize, for one or other reason. I honestly do not care. I only interested in someone else test results, to compare with what I have.

Thanks, Vassili.
 
nozh2002 said:
I answered several times already. It is really annoing to repeat again and again and again one same things, especially in reply to someone who just criticizing.

Please, do some homework - check my testing discussion in this very subforum. I am not going to do this again and again just because someone do not feel like bother to pay minimal attention.

As well I am not interested to fight every one who like to criticize, for one or other reason. I honestly do not care. I only interested in someone else test results, to compare with what I have.

Thanks, Vassili.
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I have never met a person this arrogant about his science.

P.S Blade forums should just all chip in for a CATRA machine and this debate will end.
 
At this point, I think it is obvious that anyone who responds to nozh2002 at all deserves the non-answer he gets. Let it go: Do Not Feed The Trolls. Do not complain to the mods when you do feed the trolls and they spit it back at you.

Do not make this thread more trouble than it's worth. Continue the discussion with productive, cooperative members.
 
Any of you posters ever pick up a Car & Driver or R&T?

Read the "car tests" to determine the best "supercar"?

Bet your a$$ you have. Maybe you even decided to buy a car because of a "car test".

But how "scientific" are they? Not at all. They supply information in an entertaining manner.

A car tested at sea level will out-accelerate the same car at 2500' ASL. A car run at the track one day may run better lap times than the same car the next day. Different drivers will likewise equal different results.

OP's tests supply information in an entertaining manner. Take them for what you consider them to be worth.

OBTW, if your requirement for purchase is that there be empirical evidence that they are superior to other knives/steels, well that's one way to save $, cause it ain't gonna happen.

If you want the knife tests done perfectly, without possibility of argument, just have your wives do em. ;)
 
Fubarski said:
Any of you posters ever pick up a Car & Driver or R&T?

Read the "car tests" to determine the best "supercar"?

Bet your a$$ you have. Maybe you even decided to buy a car because of a "car test".

But how "scientific" are they? Not at all. They supply information in an entertaining manner.

A car tested at sea level will out-accelerate the same car at 2500' ASL. A car run at the track one day may run better lap times than the same car the next day. Different drivers will likewise equal different results.

OP's tests supply information in an entertaining manner. Take them for what you consider them to be worth.

OBTW, if your requirement for purchase is that there be empirical evidence that they are superior to other knives/steels, well that's one way to save $, cause it ain't gonna happen.

If you want the knife tests done perfectly, without possibility of argument, just have your wives do em. ;)
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Ever worked with Z scores? Yes a lot of different products including knives to cars will preform x one day and y the other day. Maybe a car will run the track faster than another car one day, and slower the next. However there is something called a standard deviation to those tests. If tested hundreds and hundreds of times, you will find that a particular model of that car will fall under a certain range of time, and the mean time being the most likely of the bunch. So If it ran the track in 50 seconds once, and 60 seconds once, but 55 seconds 3 times. It means the average most likely is around 55. How much you eliminate the human factor into it will decrease the deviation and get it closer to the most likely average time.

That being said, when doing only one test run (for simplicity sake lets use Top Gear's race track) like the Nissan GTR has a time of 1:19.7, with the same driver and the same track and nearly the same conditions, the Austin Martin DB5 did a time of 1:44.6: Is it fair to say the Nissan GTR out does the DB5? Yeah, because most likely the the best the DB5 can do, can no where reach even the minimal of what the GTR can do. But if given a Porsche Carrera GT with a time of 1:19.8, does that mean the GTR is superior to it? Probably not, because the deviation is probably greater than .1 of a second. In that it's possible on a second run of the GT and the GTR we would keep having results that says the GTR is better or the Carrera is a better car. That's the deviation.

Back to knives, if we were to test 420J2 vs S30V, we would find a huge gap between them no matter how many times we tested it and would probably show that S30V is superior in every ways shape and form in terms of edge retention. But if we tested say... AUS10 vs 440C, since they are so close we'd probably keep getting results saying AUS10 is better or 440C is better, just because of our errors.
 
Fubarski said:
But how "scientific" are they? Not at all. They supply information in an entertaining manner.
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You are making false assumptions though. Acceleration from 0-60 is a fixed time and speed. I.e. we know exactly that the car went to 0 to 60mph. That is based on quite accurate instruments.
If I read car test which said "car went from about 0 to about 60-ish" and I knew that 60-ish was driver's guesstimate I'd either ignore that test altogether, or be very skeptical about conclusions.
Same problem with Nozh's tests. Ankerson to his credit, got the edge angles far more precise than Nozh ever did, because of the edge pro, and uniform abrasives, hence his tests are more accurate, but I still have doubts with conclusions, which is fine, test results are supposed to be open for discussion, it's not another bible or some sort of taboo right?
Unknown hardness is a big factor and it alone can determine test's outcome one way or another.

Would you judge car A better than car B based on the test which didn't mention engine horsepower, or if you knew one car was loaded with extra weight, or had a flat tire, or 2 out of 8 cylinders were disabled, would you still consider the test fair, accurate etc?

Or if two cars were compared on the racetrak, but one was driven by a pro racer and another by average grandma? Do you really doubt what the "test" outcome would be or would you need a test at all?

Fubarski said:
OP's tests supply information in an entertaining manner. Take them for what you consider them to be worth.
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Sure. And for the same reason, disagreeing with conclusion doesn't mean personal attack or slander, or worse. The "other" tester for example wants his tests taken very seriously...
 
I find the test results for CPMS35VN to be extremely interesting, especially since it was my knife that was tested. Somewhere on BFC (perhaps Knarfeng?) they listed the hardness of the S35VN mules at an average of 58.5 HRc. This steel has gotten little ink compared to some of the other "supersteels", but seems to perform very well.

Jim said it was quite a bit better than S30V in his tests, which is usually run at a little higher Rockwell (59-60). I know the M4 Mules are much harder, around 62-64, yet Jim rated the S35VN higher even than those.

I am not saying that S35VN is "better" steel than M4. All kinds of practical cutting experience points to M4 at higher Rockwell being one of the very best at edge retention (specifically to failure). What I think these tests indicate better than anything else is just how foolish it is to say one steel is "better" than another, without being VERY specific about just which parameters are being considered. I also think we need to keep in mind just how blessed we are to have so many excellent steels to choose from--we really are in the Golden Age of cutlery ste
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Trust me when I say I'm not contradicting Jim's results at all. I believe he's showed a very fair, and professional approach, has integrity, and has excellent skills to go along with these attributes.

Nevertheless it confuses me when S35VN gets rated higher by Jim than CPM M4 ( at a higher hardness no less). Crucible themselves rates CPM M4's abrasive and adhesive resistance higher for M4 than for S35VN.

They were both mules no less. Both sharpened to the same angles at the same grit.

Seemingly this should be a no brainer given the chemistry, the hardness of both steels, etc.

Yet Jim gets these results. Heck, even more surprising is CPM 154 coming in higher, though that wasn't a mule though and the results could be overlooked by some for that reason.

These anomalies are to me what makes these tests so captivating. If everything worked the same way we think it should I suppose we wouldn't need tests eh?

It also appears to show that the steels with the evil, "devil worshipping" large vanadium carbides aren't the best ones to have when going for the really fine, shaving type edges. :)

Regards, And Thanks Jim.

Joe L./raleigh
 
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batches of metal can slightly vary from time period to next inception time. consider that just a .25 percentile can be a big difference when we discuss carbon or niobium. although our metals are the most precise in history as in all production methods variances can occur.engineers can certainly elaborate on this.however a much more likley culprit is cardboard which is rampart with variations in proportional properties. months back i was able to obtain lots of cardboard from the same company & of the same strength which certainly gave myself more confidence in the cutting reports i posted. this occurance has'nt been repeatable so any tests i report certainly will have a varible beyond my control. as many are aware all manufacturing processes change from time to time depending on raw materials, new innovations, & even profit concerns .
 
The Mastiff said:
Trust me when I say I'm not contradicting Jim's results at all. I believe he's showed a very fair, and professional approach, has integrity, and has excellent skills to go along with these attributes.

Nevertheless it confuses me when S35VN gets rated higher by Jim than CPM M4 ( at a higher hardness no less). Crucible themselves rates CPM M4's abrasive and adhesive resistance higher for M4 than for S35VN.

They were both mules no less. Both sharpened to the same angles at the same grit.

Seemingly this should be a no brainer given the chemistry, the hardness of both steels, etc.

Yet Jim gets these results. Heck, even more surprising is CPM 154 coming in higher, though that wasn't a mule though and the results could be overlooked by some for that reason.

These anomalies are to me what makes these tests so captivating. If everything worked the same way we think it should I suppose we wouldn't need tests eh?

It also appears to show that the steels with the evil, "devil worshipping" large vanadium carbides aren't the best ones to have when going for the really fine, shaving type edges. :)

Regards, And Thanks Jim.

Joe L./raleigh
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Thanks for the kind words. :D

Like I said before my tests aren't the final word on anything and most likely they would be different if someone else did them. :)

I will continue to update the list as I get more to test and some of the same steels but from different manufacturers. :D

If they are the same steel, but different I will edit the list adding them with maker.
 
Jim, the BG-42 SOG is on its way. Should arrive Friday or Saturday. Looking forward to your video test with it.
 
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