News from Cliff Stamp

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I actually like Cliff and had many interactions with him - as he traces his origin of knife interest back to Himalayan Imports (as do I).

I was sad to see the era come to an end, but I do understand why.

Tom Krein and I reground some knives for him to test. He wanted us to take it down to under 0.010" thick at the edge, even on the big stuff. Obviously didn't always work. But made for some interesting experiments.

Thanks for the YouTube link.

Dan
 
Cliff's style of knife reviews are more like car crash testing. He tested knives to destruction, while that provides information about steel, construction etc. but less about knife performance. Cliff is a one of a kind.
 
Again, knife performance is fairly straightforward---thin edges cut better, thick edges last longer, narrow points penetrate better, deep bellies slice better, weight-forward balance makes for more power in a swing, weight-rearward (or neutral) balance makes for greater agility in detail work. I, personally, don't need tests to tell me this, as it's common sense. What I can't divine from common sense is how a material behaves compared to another material, if I don't have my own experience to pull from. Anybody else's findings should always be taken with a grain of salt, but I'm more interested in the opinions of someone who has clearly put a knife to a great deal of use, than those of a person whose knife still looks absolutely brand-spanking-new after a so-called "test." I disagree with some of Cliff's opinions on geometries, as I've become a major proponent of extreme differentials in bevel and micro-bevel angles (12 degree edge per side with 20 degree microbevel) and thus have faith in more "brittle" alloys than he does, but I also learned a lot from him over the years.
 
One of these days I'll have to go look up which fan boys' favorite knives got disrespected by the infidel. ;)
 
Just for the record.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Originally Posted by kurodrago
Back then people wondered what kind of relationship you had with Jerry Busse...& if mysticism and friendship don't lead you to edited few posts on Knive steel "M-infi....Infi" reviews?
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I never met Jerry, we have no relationship aside from the fact that we have talked on occasion. There were a number of makers who started a rumor on Bladeforums in the password protected forum that Jerry was paying me to do reviews both on his knives and on other knives. That was one of the popular rumors, the other was that I would call makers and demand one of their knives or else I would buy it and trash it on the forums. There was also another rumor, which was short lived, that I was in fact actually Jerry Busse until a number of people noted they had actually met and/or knew me.

I have always been extremely open about what I do and how I do it and report it in extreme detail so anyone who is interested can duplicate it. I also was (and still am) extremely confident of the results I post because of my background in experimental physics so all the work I do I know exactly how to interpret it and how much confidence to put in the results. This is why when Ray Kirk, ABS Smith, asked if I would test four knives of four different steels at four different hardness tests I gladly agreed - even though he would not tell me which steels they were or how they were hardened. The knives were simply marked A, B, C, D.

I put them through a series of tasks which not only identified the relative hardness, wear resistance, grindability, edge toughness and strength - I had no idea what was what during any of the work. Once Ray identified the steels and the hardening (one was actually under hardened by accident by 10 HRC points) the results are exactly as you would expect given the properties of the steels. I am peer reviewed and published in several journals and am used to rigorous standards. I have no concerns at all about the reliability of anything I have wrote. It was exactly as I observed to the letter, and I observe very carefully.

For example when I do a chopping test with two blades, I don't just record the stroke count, I also record the impact energies of the blades, I record the missed stroke count (what the cut should have been if it was perfect) and I record a detailed description of ever single piece of wood cut. What was the species, what was the seasoning, was it clear or knotty, did it break or was it cut clean, etc. . This is second nature, I did it for 15 years doing research in solid state physics, you write down everything you do in detail because when something goes wrong you have to know exactly what is different about what you did in order to figure it out.

http://knifetest.com/forum/showpost.php?p=23232&postcount=402
 
For quite a few years I was manager over a large utility's materials and equipment test lab. We did everything from electrical loss testing to conductor tensile strength testing to pole strength testing to paint durability testing. No matter the area tested or the nature of the tests, there were two typical reactions by manufacturers whose products came up short; attack the problem or attack the tests and testers. (There is one huge player in the electric equipment industry who is almost universally disliked in the utility industry because of their attitude about non-performance of their products
and the arrogance of their sales force.)

My point is that controversy is the nature of the testing game, and should come as no surprise to anyone. As to my somewhat informed personal opinion about Cliff Stamp's tests, they were superior to anything else I have seen on these forums.
 
Very cool for cliff. Those were interesting times mike and honestly, he was never biased, he just reviewed honestly, unlike so many. Look at car, gun, knife, insert item, magazines. Every review is positive with only very minor negative issues. Nobody wants to give a tell it like it is review, "your product sucks." Cliff did and he got roasted and eventually banned for it. Nature of the beast. Everyone wants warm and fuzzies. The CS trailmaster and recon scout that cliff tested and broke came from me. I got them directly from Lynn Thompson. He wanted his knife compared to the BM and thus he sent them to me. He was man enough to stand by his product. They failed, but then again at that time and that price point they were not such a bad knife. It when Cliff started testing customs that the proverbial crap hit the fan. custom makers don't like their knives being disgraced. But those that remember will also remember that all this started on the old KF well before BF existed. In KF we were having the same battles, except with a different group of makers. Those were fun times, lol....Now, this world is so PC it seems like if you say that you don't care for the color, the maker feels butt raped and you get banned. There are only two brands for me, Busse for fixed and Spyderco for folding. That's it.
 
Cobalt said:
But those that remember will also remember that all this started on the old KF well before BF existed. In KF we were having the same battles, except with a different group of makers. Those were fun times, lol....Now, this world is so PC it seems like if you say that you don't care for the color, the maker feels butt raped and you get banned. There are only two brands for me, Busse for fixed and Spyderco for folding. That's it.
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And before KF, it was going on in rec.knives, until a couple of knuckleheads flooded it with so much spam that it became unbearable. But it was fun for a while.

I can't fault your 2 brands, excellent makers that stand by their products.
 
t1mpani said:
Alterations which you and I only knew about because he told us about them in the first place in text and pictures, so I'm still---after all these years---at a loss to understand where the controversy comes from. His primary interest was in alloy comparisons, not in whose name was on a blade, and as he wanted to draw comparisons, he would set edge angles to be equivalent (or at least MORE equivalent) and then run them against each other through various cutting media. Makes a whole lot more sense than running one alloy against another with different geometries and then trying to extract some sort of meaningful data. It's because of that type of lack of understanding that alloys like ATS-34 and S30V gain reputations for being "hard use" because a manufacturer makes saber-ground, 1/4" thick fixed blades out of them with edge geometries like cold chisels. Hell, at that geometry, aluminum is pretty tough.

Don't get me wrong, he could be abrasive at times, I had a few run-ins with him myself over the years and by the time he was banned it didn't come as much of a surprise to me, but as an engineer it was remarkably refreshing to see an ATTEMPT at qualitative analysis versus the typical "tests" that often appear on knife sites (and I won't even bother going into the drivel printed in knife magazines) which leave so much information unaccounted for as to be absolutely meaningless:

"I cut up this cardboard box, and then sliced these carrots (insert picture of knife next to a partially disassembled carrot) and then ate my steak with it, and when I was done the blade didn't explode and it was still kinda sharp. Here's a cool shot of it sticking out of a stump next to a compass. Hence, I think it's a good knife with awesome steel."

................thanks dude.
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Don't you mean quantitative analysis?
 
Cobalt said:
Very cool for cliff. Those were interesting times mike and honestly, he was never biased, he just reviewed honestly, unlike so many. Look at car, gun, knife, insert item, magazines. Every review is positive with only very minor negative issues. Nobody wants to give a tell it like it is review, "your product sucks." Cliff did and he got roasted and eventually banned for it. Nature of the beast. Everyone wants warm and fuzzies. The CS trailmaster and recon scout that cliff tested and broke came from me. I got them directly from Lynn Thompson. He wanted his knife compared to the BM and thus he sent them to me. He was man enough to stand by his product. They failed, but then again at that time and that price point they were not such a bad knife. It when Cliff started testing customs that the proverbial crap hit the fan. custom makers don't like their knives being disgraced. But those that remember will also remember that all this started on the old KF well before BF existed. In KF we were having the same battles, except with a different group of makers. Those were fun times, lol....Now, this world is so PC it seems like if you say that you don't care for the color, the maker feels butt raped and you get banned. There are only two brands for me, Busse for fixed and Spyderco for folding. That's it.
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Interesting.

I've spent my life as one of those technical geeks ... I'm both an engineer and a scientist. I've worked with and managed/led/shepherded large, wandering herds of these species for many decades now. Among the many things I've learned is that, as a species, we're not very good at communicating outside our narrow range, and we frequently 'piss off' the public.

I guess it just comes with the trade. So much effort is spent learning and practicing the discipline that we miss a lot of things we should have learned.

Not true for all of us, but true for most.
 
sodak said:
And before KF, it was going on in rec.knives, until a couple of knuckleheads flooded it with so much spam that it became unbearable. But it was fun for a while.

I can't fault your 2 brands, excellent makers that stand by their products.
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I remember rec knives as well. CLiff was battling over there all the time, I stayed out of that. But could not keep silent when everyone moved over to KF. Really, the only other knives I have are from the only custom maker that responded on this thread, lol. Koster, and they are great.



OldPhysics said:
Interesting.

I've spent my life as one of those technical geeks ... I'm both an engineer and a scientist. I've worked with and managed/led/shepherded large, wandering herds of these species for many decades now. Among the many things I've learned is that, as a species, we're not very good at communicating outside our narrow range, and we frequently 'piss off' the public.

I guess it just comes with the trade. So much effort is spent learning and practicing the discipline that we miss a lot of things we should have learned.

Not true for all of us, but true for most.
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The difference is that what you did was mostly internal for contracts. This is public and it can hurt a knifemakers livelyhood. I can understand why Cliff was not liked. But those makers should have been willing to listen to him and make improvements.
 
Cobalt said:
Very cool for cliff. Those were interesting times mike and honestly, he was never biased, he just reviewed honestly, unlike so many. Look at car, gun, knife, insert item, magazines. Every review is positive with only very minor negative issues. Nobody wants to give a tell it like it is review, "your product sucks." Cliff did and he got roasted and eventually banned for it. Nature of the beast. Everyone wants warm and fuzzies. The CS trailmaster and recon scout that cliff tested and broke came from me. I got them directly from Lynn Thompson. He wanted his knife compared to the BM and thus he sent them to me. He was man enough to stand by his product. They failed, but then again at that time and that price point they were not such a bad knife. It when Cliff started testing customs that the proverbial crap hit the fan. custom makers don't like their knives being disgraced. But those that remember will also remember that all this started on the old KF well before BF existed. In KF we were having the same battles, except with a different group of makers. Those were fun times, lol....Now, this world is so PC it seems like if you say that you don't care for the color, the maker feels butt raped and you get banned. There are only two brands for me, Busse for fixed and Spyderco for folding. That's it.
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Sorry, but I have to correct you there. True, Cliff was roasted, even reviled, for being honest, and argumentative; but that was not why he was banned. He was banned for insulting Spark. It is well know here that mod sass is grounds for banning. Spark sass is even worse.

I am glad to see that Cliff is writing about knives once again, his was and is a valuable voice.
 
resinguy said:
Sorry, but I have to correct you there. True, Cliff was roasted, even reviled, for being honest, and argumentative; but that was not why he was banned. He was banned for insulting Spark. It is well know here that mod sass is grounds for banning. Spark sass is even worse.

I am glad to see that Cliff is writing about knives once again, his was and is a valuable voice.
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Cliff just stated facts and his opinions. The worst thing he said was "this is how far BF has degraded" right before he was banned. show me were he made any serious insult. Cliff was like a computer, he had no feelings, everything was about fact. My personal term for him was Spock and that rubbed others the wrong way because they thought he was insulting them
 
Cliff was legit. He was a gift to the forums and got tossed out over hurt feelings and politics. I will never forget the threads where he would tell very famous makers right to their (forum)faces what is wrong with their knives. Some of them went absolutely berserk.
 
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