Question for Cliff Stamp re: Ed Fowler's knives...

[rdangerer]

I'm trying hard not to be a s&#104it stirrer here, trying to ride the fence as it were... but a couple things need to be said, and I'll do it.

Originally posted by burke531
I can tell you without a doubt that this knife was made at least five years agoand probably longer than that.

I'm sure Ed could date this knife somewhat accurately if he were willing to take a look at it. Maybe this knife had a prior owner and was made more than 5 years ago. Maybe the prior owner did something to the blade. I dunno.

I'm sure Ed's abilities have improved over time, and he's apparently a generous teacher.

But, did this knife have his Mastersmith stamp on it? Journeyman Smith? I don't see it on the knife from the pics at the BG link. But Ed has been a Mastersmith for a good while now. And I'm not talking about dating the knife now. I'm talking blade quality.

Originally posted by burke531
I seriously doubt that we will see any more of Ed on these forums for a while as he has come to the conclusion that his time is better spent making knives to pay for the new shop. I hope to be posting pictures in a new thread soon.

I've thought about this statement. And that's a cop out, but it was Bill typing and not Ed, so I'll wait for Ed to speak for himself. It doesn't take but a handfull of minutes, on the forums or behind the scenes, to deal with this in some reasonable manner. I'm tempted to say "make it right", but I have no idea what Gabe wants out of this at this stage. Maybe he's gotten what he wanted already.

In fact, it would appear that Cliff has indicated that he tried to deal with this behind the scenes, which would have been a proactive way for Ed to have addressed some questions.

A few minutes of typing, here or behind the scenes vs. an issue of one's QC and one's hard-won reputation? A phone call or two? It's not even about needing those extra 5-10 minutes... or 30 minutes, to work on a knife to pay for a new shop.

Also, Cliff... please find a way to post the hardness readings you get made, hopefully this week. With whatever caveats you need. I don't care about the "hardness isn't everything crowd"... hardness readings are the primary indicator of a knife's heat treat, followed by grain size, and other things.

Originally posted by burke531
And I have found from my own dealings with NWKC that what they tell you may not be the way that it is.

In fact, unless I very much misread something in this thread, Gabe bought it from BladeGallery, and NWKC was implicated in the provenance prior to this recent purchase.

If you have some specific complaints about NWKC, post them. Or take it to GB&U. But don't directly or indirectly blame the dealer to muddy the waters. You know dealers don't sabotage, or test, or sharpen, knives before reselling. When they do alter a knife, in my experience, they always send it back to the original maker for a refurb.
http://www.bladegallery.com/knives/knife.asp?knifeid=2160&pics=small&alt=one

 

[burke531]

, did this knife have his Mastersmith stamp on it? Journeyman Smith? I don't see it on the knife from the pics

Ed does not stamp any of his knives.

I've thought about this statement. And that's a cop out

Just passing on what I was told

And I have found from my own dealings with NWKC that what they tell you may not be the way that it is.

I only meant to say that this is an older knife and was not forged recently as they (NWKC) told Gaben. I apolagise for anything other than this that may have been read into what I wrote. I should have worded it differently.

 

[Ed Fowler]

First things first: North West Knives are highly ethical, honest and reputable. I can not say enough good things about them. Sometimes folks who sell them knives don't know when the knife was made. Used knives come from all over the world, facts gat mixed up in translation, even within the same language.

I offer no apologies for the knife tested. She could have been made any time from 1992 to 1999, possibly even earlier. In her day She was a great knife, a lot has influenced the qualaties of knives made today, she was one of the pioneres and helped develop the knives made today. When she was made 80 cuts was about as good as it gets. Most knives in her time were limited to under 30 and few could accomplish that. Looking at the grain structure in her photo, she was pushed to her limit. She was beautiful and did well. Was her blade soft? Yes, it would appear to be so to those who have limited knowledge about the nature of cut. She would outcut harder blades due to her grain structure. She was also easier to sharpen. You will note that she did not break, she bent and this was one of my goals.

I wore out one knive from her venue and still carry one of her sisters from over 8 years ago, those knife have performed admirably.

Blade performance has come a long way since Rex joined out team, we have learned a lot and shared our knowledge without reserve, we continue to learn more.

Many times I have stated that early knives forged from ball bearings knew great differences in steel. Uniform reliable steel cannot come from scrap. When using scrap you have to vary forging and heat treat to match your steel, unknowns cause problems.

I am amazed at how some who have posted on this thread ignore history and how far we have traveled. I just read a news paper article that proclaimed that Custer and his troups had traveled over 1.000 miles in 60 days. It seems pretty trivial when we judge from our state of transportation now, but then it was a significant accomplishment. The same goes for knives, great even 10 years ago is now mediocore judging from how far we have come. The knives of Richtig, Scagel, Ruana and others will always be great to the knowledgable, insignificant to the ignorant.

Those who know history about knives have a much greater understanding than those who tend to ignore knowledge.

 

[mikemck]

So the knife Cliff tested is actually normal and results he got are to be expected?

I'm certainly no knife or steel expert, by any stretch of the imagination, but I don't like being called ignorant, even in a roundabout way, because I expect more from a knife than what Cliff is reporting here. Especially from a custom knife that has been touted as superior to anything else out there, for many years in this forum, and in numerous publications.

I have been using knives for lots of years, and I have used knives that were made before I was born, so I do have at least some experience with older inferior knives. Further, it looks like Cliff has tested some knives that would seem to be at least as old as the Pronghorn, and it looks, to my untrained eye, as if he did not get the same kind of results from those. This is further reinforced by his reaction to the results he got with the Pronghorn.

In story form, which you seem to enjoy, this would seem to be along the lines of "The Emporer's new clothes".

I might be ignorant about quite a few things, but the results reported here are, to me, so far out of whack that I also felt sure something must be wrong, until you removed all doubt, and then tried to say I was ignorant for expecting anything else.

 

[stich]

In light of your review, Cliff, the motives of others becomes even more transparent. Me thinks some protestedeth too much. I am, of course, absolutely ignorant of the amazing leaps in knife making technology that have occured in the last 4 to 11 years that are roughly parallel to the leaps in transportation technology that have transpired over the last 150 years. But then again, something must be responsible for all those doubled and re-doubled performance gains. Actually that does seem much more plausible now, if true.

 

[Cliff Stamp]

Ed :

She would outcut harder blades due to her grain structure. She was also easier to sharpen.

Cutting ability isn't influenced significantly by blade hardness, that is just geometry, if you are talking about edge retention, you can't make up for lack of significant hardness by wear resistance as edges blunt mainly by rolling on many materials. Wear resistance is an advantage, but hardness can not be so simply ignored.

Phil Wilson (among others) did experiements with this in CPM-420V and noted the edge retention drop down to parctially nothing once the hardness got too low, the edge could roll on one cut through a hard material like plastic. See also work done by Mike Swaim and blades made by Alvin Johnson which was old news back in 1998.

The blade also was not easier to sharpen, regarding time, as more material had to be removed because of excessive indendation. The ease of machining will counteract the extent of blunting to some degree, but rarely to the full extent. Ease of sharpening in mainly an issue of geometry and suitability of the steel to the tasks of the knife (no excessive wear, deformation, chipping or corrosion).

[92-99]

When she was made 80 cuts was about as good as it gets. Most knives in her time were limited to under 30 and few could accomplish that.

It is easily possible that this was true for the knives Ed worked with or had used at that time, since he won't give specific references to which knifemakers he is talking about, it is impossible to say. However ask around for knife makers and see if they will admit changes in quality of their knives of the kind of magnitude being described (more than 10 - 15).

As an example, Busse has upgraded his steel several times, worked with ATS-34, D2 in the beginning, did a lot of work with A2, did cryogenics early on, switched to INFI recently (relatively). With his INFI blades he has done *thousands* of hemp cuts on full one inch rolls live. Ask him if his A2 blades could get just 30. Ask about makers in general during that time period, for edge retention look specifically at Mel Sorg, David Boye, Phil Wilson, and Alvin Johnson (these are obviously not the only ones, just the ones I am familiar with). How long has Dozier beeing working with D2?

There were also lots of people spring tempering spines back then (cryo was used before 2000), and edge retention was much greater in lots of other blades, look at swedish laminates with hard edges as well as japanese versions of such blades for traditional very old sources. I don't known much about the ABS guys not having worked with a lot of them, but I would be surprised if 30 cuts was the norm for mastersmiths in that era.

Since Ed seems to have commented that the blade performance was to be expected (I don't agree with some of his summary, nor comparisons to other blades), I'll make the video publically available shortly and everyone can judge how ignorant they are for themselves. I know one thing, before I made this public, no one spoke of just how easy this was to bend, in fact the opposite was argued, so obviously there is a lot of such ignorance in existance.

The part which is more than slightly off putting is that if Ed had simply mentioned this in email or in the thread I never would have bent the knife and Gabe could have had the Pronghorn back with just cosmetic damage from sharpening and miscellaneous cutting. There would have been no reason to bend the knife had the ease at which it bent made known and he was asked quite clearly several times about this exact property.

Some quotes which seem to imply that this was the expected performance :

Many times I have stated that early knives forged from ball bearings knew great differences in steel. Uniform reliable steel cannot come from scrap. When using scrap you have to vary forging and heat treat to match your steel, unknowns cause problems.

I offer no apologies for the knife tested. She could have been made any time from 1992 to 1999, possibly even earlier. In her day She was a great knife, ...

-Cliff

 

[Steelhed]

So in the end we think we know something about one knife, and a great deal more about one maker and one tester.

 

[Rick Baum]

Steelhed, Why the frown following your post.

So in the end we think we know something about one knife, and a great deal more about one maker and one tester.

The operative word in your quote is "Think". One knife was tested by an individual. That's ALL! The tester has no credentials that I am aware of. If there were a ANSI certification or at the very least an ISO rating attached to Cliff's evaluations then it would mean a whole lot more to me. In my humble opinion, the evaluation with all of it's fancy numbers and acronyms seemed more to be taking passive agressive shots at Ed's knives than to be giving unbiased test results.

......(grains of salt)

Rick

 

[Citori]

Are there ANSI or ISO standards for knife testing?

(I'm assuming you don't mean ISO as in ISO 9000. If you do mean ISO 9000, never mind)

 

[Cliff Stamp]

The Catra group has a solid standard for knife sharpness and edge retention on a particular class of material cut in a particular way. The various materials tests would also be pretty standard for steel info (charpy, tensile strength etc.).

-Cliff

 

[Steelhed]

Rick Baum - The frown is because this didn't turn out too well for anyone involved. I maybe know something about one knife, and the acrimony littering this thread serves no one well. I think Cliff tries to be unbiased in his testing, but the testing of one knife by one tester leaves me somewhat cold. The idea of knife testing is wonderful in concept, but this thread points out some very real concerns when it involves custom knives, especially one custom knife. It may serve as a caution for future tests - avoid testing one knife from one maker. Test a few of them to see if quality control stands up across a line, and to root out possible anomalies which are bound to occur from time to time. Ed Fowler seems to think the knife performed as he designed it, yet the tests indicate the knife performs at a relatively low level compared to other knives of similar size, material and design. Something is askew here, and I am not sure just what it is. So in the end I don't know that I learned much of anything, except that one Fowler knife did not perform well in one tester's hands, and that Ed and Cliff are now completely at odds with one another to the detriment of both. That is what I take from this thread, and it leaves me a little sad. Your mileage may vary.

 

[rdangerer]

Originally posted by Rick Baum
The tester has no credentials that I am aware of.

Can you cite someone who you think has adequate credentials to test knives...someone whose testing you'd trust over another's, and why? Anyone in the ABS? Knifemaker's Guild? Production house? Would they have to be involved in ANSI or ISO testing methods?

Originally posted by Rick Baum
If there were a ANSI certification or at the very least an ISO rating attached to Cliff's evaluations then it would mean a whole lot more to me.

Rick, I think your position is a bit extreme, but it is interesting.

Why do I say extreme? How many howls would we hear if a Fowler blade did poorly in a CATRA test to the exclusion of other “real world” tests? Does CATRA reflect the scope of work Ed designs to?

I would suggest that the CATRA is one very good test machine, which can be used to produce quite reproducible results, but it is basically putting a perpendicular load on a blade into standardized paper embedded (or coated?) with silica…i.e. sand-like particles. So it’s a pretty good test of edge retention for slicing into abrasive media. Toughness would be tested, I’ll suggest, only to the extent that a “tough” steel didn’t microchip at the edge, thus dulling it at some point (at first it would be like miniserrations, then it would degrade the edge a good bit).

I tried a little with Google to find an ANSI test related to knives, but didn't come up with anything yet.

Here is what I could find on CATRA's web page… 3 standards that apply to knives, and one that seems pertinent, ISO EN 8442-5, listed first below. And the CATRA edge testing machine, which Sal Glesser bought and uses extensively at Spyderco, is a machine designed to test to ISO EN 8442-5.

http://www.catra.org/servicesFrame.htm

Now, there are 23 of these CATRA edge testers in use world wide apparently (I'd guess they are $50k-$100k or more per copy). The challenge would be to find someone that owns one of these that would be willing to test a Fowler blade or three against some similarly edge beveled (edge angle, especially) mules of various materials and various hardnesses.

Blade Sharpness and Edge Life Testing to ISO EN 8442-5
Catra lists their knife edge testing machine as testing to the above ISO standard. Their machine:

www.CATRA.org
“Measures the sharpness and edge life of a large range of blades & knives for quality control, research & development and competitor product evaluation

Quickly and accurately provides important cutting performance data

Completely programmable to allow operation to the standard or users' own specification

23 units in use throughout the world

The only proprietary knife edge testing machine as testing to the above ISO standard.

The only proprietary cutting test machine on the market to this standard

Designed to carryout sharpness testing to International Standard BS EN ISO 8442-5.2003”

Table Cutlery/Flatware Testing to ISO EN 8442-2 and BS 5577
(don’t know what this one entails)

Kitchen Knife Testing to ISO EN 8442-1, and Professional Trade and Food Process Knife Testing to ISO BS 8442-1
This standard specifies the material and performance requirements for cutlery and related implements intended for use in the preparation of food. It does not cover those features of the cutlery which are matters of personal choice for the user such as shape/size, etc.

It specifies two grades of cutlery:-
1. A normal grade which can whtistand dishwasher cleaning procedures
2. A special grade which can withsatand dishwashing and sterilisation cleaning procedures

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Per CATRA's web site:
The following companies/organisations have the CATRA cutting test machine within their facilities.

Dexter Russel ----USA
Cutco -----USA
J A Henckels ---- Germany
World Kitchen ----USA
Richardson ----UK
CATIM ---- Portugal
Buck Knives ----USA
Goutebarge ---- France
Leatherman ---USA
Fiskars Montana ---- Italy
Madrid University ----Spain
Albacete University ---- Spain
FGW ----Germany
Wenger ----Switzerland
Bettcher ----USA
Spyderco ----USA
Imperial Schrade ----USA
ICEL ---- Portugal
Master Cutlery ( Global Knives) ----Japan
Stanley Tools ----UK
W R Case ---- USA

Anybody have any connections with someone at one of these companies? Someone with enough courage to test a Fowler blade and allow results to be published publicly?

 

[2knife]

In the chapter "Forging and Heat Treating", in Knife Talk 1, Ed Fowler documents many of his early test results. One would just have to read the graphs that clearly show Ed Fowler's results. There's no hype involved. I see no deception, since it clearly represents where he was about ten years ago. Now he is further along the road and with Bill Burke and Rex Walter, they have pushed the limits beyond where they were years ago. This single knife represents a moment in time, which shouldn't be taken for granted.
Ed Fowler is a dedicated man, and has a unique creative impulse. Like my friend said, "How many custom knife makers, if you line up fifty knives, clearly show the authorship of one man?" Too many people in this industry copy every one else. (So many) That's why, to me, Ed Fowler's knives are so great. He developed this style using sheep horn. I think they are truly beautiful. Even if all you believe there is to a knife is a cutting test, there is still a whole dimension to Ed Fowler's work that you miss. Not everyone wants just a plain old Ginsu knife. To me, there isn't anything new or interesting about the hundreds and thousands of production knives that come out every day. I would rather read one of Ed's monthly stories in Blade and feel a little of the life that makes this hobby fun. Reading one of Cliff's damaging reports, be it Ed Fowler or R.W. Clark or whoever doesn't inspire me to think any less of a great knifemaker and writer.
Cliff, I wonder does your esteemed friend Phil Wilson make knives you would describe looking like a "cartoon rabbit"?
David

 

[kile]

When this thread started I hoped that Ed's knife would blow Cliff away, and be all it is hyped to be. Now I don't think Cliff is trying to attack Ed, or anything else like that. If anything Cliff seems very disappointed that this knife didn't wow him. I know that people hate to see there heros questioned, and I would list Ed Fowler as one of my knifemaking heros,as is R.W. Clark. I should have some kind of dislike for Cliff, but I don't. I just feel bad at the way things turned out. I realize not everybody is going to believe what they read, so I would like to make a sugggestion to Gabe. I think these two knives the pronghorn, and the R.W. Clark model 10 should be subjected to a passaround. I know I personally would love to get to hold and use these knives and form my own opinion. While my opinion may not be worth much to anyone here I think there are others who's opinions would be very well respected. I would like to see Joe Talmadge get his hands on these two knives for a while, and I would like to see Jerry Fisk get a hold of the Pronghorn to see what his thoughts are. Obviously this is totally Gabe's choice as he owns the knife, but if we got several reviews, it would add more credibility to the testing.
Kyle Fuglesten

 

[Keith Montgomery]

This sure has been an interesting thread. I never put my Pronghorn through anywhere near what Cliff put Gabe's through, so I really can't comment on Cliff's findings. All I know is that for me the Pronghorn represents the finest knife I have had up to this point.

Kile, I doubt that Jerry would be interested in doing a review of the Pronghorn. It would not be prudent for him to do so. If he found problems with the knife there would be those that would say he had an axe to grind. If he praised the knife some would say that he was sticking up for another ABS Mastersmith. It really would be a no win situation for Jerry. Also, he probably has little time to put the knife through its paces. Jerry is one busy, busy man.

 

[Evolute]

Rick Baum said: "If there were a ANSI certification or at the very least an ISO rating attached to Cliff's evaluations then it would mean a whole lot more to me."

I just rejected the experimental and research results of Galileo, Franklin, Faraday, Michelson and Morely, Pasteur, Watson and Crick, Mendel... Sadly, I've been able to find only very, very, very few people in the history of science who were properly certified or rated, and thus, the entire body of scientific findings means a whole lot less to me.

I'd reject my own results, as posted on bladeforums--except then I'd be certifiably insane, and once certified, my results would mean a whole lot more, again.

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

On a couple more serious notes:

Mr. Fowler, will you please directly state whether the tip bending from having the knife tip broken out of wood after a stab, as described in Cliff Stamp's review, is the expected and acceptable behavior of one of your knives made 5-11 years ago? And today?

Thank you.

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

Also, Gabe graciously offered a personally and financially valuable knife for testing, and it has ended up damaged. If someone wants to start a fund to buy Gabe a new Pronghorn (or other knife of equal value, or just compensate him for his loss), I'll chip in 10 dollars. I can be contacted at:

mikespinak@hotmail.com

(Expect a slow response, I live outside and travel a lot, and don't always have internet access.)

--Mike

 

[mikemck]

but if we got several reviews, it would add more credibility to the testing

Some of you people are simply amazing.

How many more reviews do you need when the maker himself has stated in this very thread that the results Cliff got were normal?

It's just bizarre. Some of you are still going on about Cliff's methods and apparently completely disregarding the makers post altogether, because now neither could really know what they are talking about, right? Now they are both wrong, because any knifenut worth their salt knows the Pronghorn is the ultimate knife, and for anyone, even the maker, so say otherwise is just complete BS.
More testing is obviously required, so that both the tester and the maker can be proved wrong about the knife in question, and the earth can the be righted on it's axis.

Good luck.

 

[Cliff Stamp]

Steelhed :

I think Cliff tries to be unbiased in his testing, but the testing of one knife by one tester leaves me somewhat cold.

If a maker or manufacturer wants to see multiple blades tested I will gladly do so, and have done so repeatidly in the past. It isn't a problem, and as you noted would very readily allow a measure of QC to be determined.

Ed Fowler seems to think the knife performed as he designed it, yet the tests indicate the knife performs at a relatively low level compared to other knives of similar size, material and design. Something is askew here, and I am not sure just what it is.

That seems relatively simple, your viewpoint of acceptable performance is different from Ed's. I know mine certainly is very different.

... Ed and Cliff are now completely at odds with one another to the detriment of both.

I am not at odds with Ed or anyone else about knife issues. I am a very mellow person and it takes a lot to get me upset and even then I don't stay that way for very long, life is too short. I would rather be doing things I enjoy, and there are a lot of people who I enjoy talking to about knives, makers and users so I interact with them. If at any time Ed wants to stop ranting about how ignorant I am and talk about knives I would readily forget all the personal attacks he has made. Like I said life is too short.

I don't agree with much of what Ed has to say about knives, however I don't agree with a lot of others makers either, and I get along with them fine. For example R.J. Martin uses a lot of chisel grinds on utility and tactical knives and hollow grinds on large chopping knives, I personally would not choose either of them for those classes of knives, this hasn't stopped us from exchanging productive emails from time to time.

rdangerer :

Can you cite someone who you think has adequate credentials to test knives

Jesus.

2knife :

... Phil Wilson make knives you would describe looking like a "cartoon rabbit"?

None that I have seen, however he is making all the swords for the new Shrek movie and they look cartoonish. He is finding it very difficult to make the knives by stock removal since they are animated, I suggested he try forging them but he can't fine a cartoon hammer of the right weight.

Mike :

I just rejected the experimental and research results of Galileo, Franklin, Faraday, Michelson and Morely, Pasteur, Watson and Crick, Mendel... Sadly, I've been able to find only very, very, very few people in the history of science who were properly certified or rated, and thus, the entire body of scientific findings means a whole lot less to me.

A rather ridicilus viewpoint indeed. Some of the early work done without the benefit of the digital age were crude to be sure, however that didn't stop some very important information from being discovered. Mike Swaim made a lot of progress in illustrating the influence of grit and edge angle on the cutting ability and edge retention of various steels, and as far as I know he did very little detailed measuring, which isn't needed when the change in magnitude is so very large.

It is like the critism that Chad Engleheart made awhile ago that I only use an ordinary scale to measure the forces when cutting rope (this can't possibly be scientific right?). In general precision and accuracy have to be smaller than the variance from external influences, better offers no productive information. For example five cuts on the scale (uncertainty in reading is +/- 0.5 lbs) : 50,51,49,48,52 gives an average of 50.0 +/- 0.8 lbs. With a digital balance (uncertainty can easily be 0.1 lbs or less) this could be : 50.1, 51.2, 48.8, 47.9, 52.2 for an average of 50.0 +/- 0.9 . No functional gain because the increase in precision is swamped out by the inherent variance in the nature of the cutting.

When I started doing thread cutting to check on sharpness, I brought a couple of knives in to one of the labs and cut loops of thread hung from a force meter which was computerized (the whole lab is that way, very interesting undergradute experiments all measuring by computers). It was interesting but in the end no more productive than just using a spring scale. The problem is that sharpness will vary along the edge of a knife, even on the most consistent ones by about 10 grams (100 g is a very sharp knife, past hair shaving), thus measuring 0.1 grams of precision is not significantly more useful than 5.


Rick :

... the evaluation with all of it's fancy numbers and acronyms seemed more to be taking passive agressive shots at Ed's knives than to be giving unbiased test results.

I was doing reviews like this before Ed was on Bladeforums. In fact I was doing reviews with similar methods back before there was a Blafeforums. They are based on work done by Joe Talmadge and Mike Swaim which was even further back before there was a Knifeforums. They have nothing to do with Ed Fowler. They are also not "fancy", they are very basic, push a knife through a piece of rope and measure the force. This isn't very complicated, especially in the light of promotion of grain structure refinement which is dependent on properties of molecular and solid state physics.

-Cliff

 

[JERRY SHIPMAN]

Well, I'll start by saying one can not judge a maker by one knife or one tester . I had a forged blade snap on me in Nov. that very well could have cost my life and another persons. I could have condeemded this maker by listing his name and putting it in a national mag. but did not and am now glad I did it the way I did. I talked to Ed about this knife and believe what he had to say . I see alot of posting by a few and with the usual condesending atttitude , why don't you pick up the phone and talk to Mr. Fowler?

Cliff, Ed is having a fall hammer in as far as I know . Come on down and lets do some testing in person . I'll bring my five knives and you anty up some cash and buy one and we will go at it . Please don't use the excuse that it is to far( or that you are to busy, you are still in school ,right) as It is just about 2200 miles for me so just come across the border and let some of us casual everyday users see you in person and get to see these amazing sharpenings and how a real knife tester goes about it . I will pay for a copy of your tape and also want very much to see the certified copies of RC testing.This is in no way a slam on you Cliff but I read so much about all your test and would like to have you show some of us the test in person as most of the knives you test are American made , please I beg you to come to the hammer in. I would venture a guess that we could start a Cliff fund to help pay some of your cost if that is a problem.I do thank you for your time in this project but as stated before , it is one mans' statement and what about all the testimonials from Eds' clients over the years. Have we all been lying or do we just not understand knife performance ?

O.k. , I have opened my mouth and ask for Cliff to come down so I'll offer the 1st hundred bucks up for the Cliff fund. Now some of you guys that have posted all the smack on Ed anty up. Mr. Fowlers address is posted in Blade so lets just send the tuition for Cliff there . Any other takers?

In hopes of saving the usual post about , you just seem to be a Fowler friend, grouppie or what ever . The answer is yes I am damn Proud to call Ed a Friend and will continue to do so.I had the same surprise about this review as most but it doesn't seem to have lessened the desire for his blades as I have the same folks offering to buy my Fowlers and a few new ones by the week .





Regards,

Jerry

 

[Cliff Stamp]

mikemck :

How many more reviews do you need when the maker himself has stated in this very thread that the results Cliff got were normal?

As many as it takes until the review depicts the desired performance.

[the reviews]

I don't fool myself into thinking that the numbers and testing have any meaningful information for me

I started out doing really subjective reviews, however people starting asking questions like how does this knife compare to this other knife. Trying to remember how a knife performed from months or years ago was really difficult so I started looking for ways to keep track of the performance which would allow better answers. Some of these worked, some did not for various reasons (see the older reviews for details).

Some of the numbers are independent of the tester, which means you would get the same thing if you did them, sharpness testing for example, some of the cutting ability (rope cutting is not significantly influenced by me, the dowel cutting is very dependent on strength level), and most of the edge retention work. Using it has to be done in a relative sense which is why the knives are constantly compared to other knives, similar and not so similar.

If I say I chopped through a 2x4 in 30 seconds and the knife was still sharp does that tell you anything about the knife? No. There is no information given on the type of wood or my chopping ability. If the wood is fresh clear pine, then you can conclude that I can't chop very well or the knife is not a great chopper. However if I use a bunch of knives, and use a number of techniques, then you can get a decent estimate of the relative chopping ability.

The durability work has to be done the same way. Just chopping on a concrete block isn't that informative. How much force was used and how old was the block and just what was the consistency of the concrete. However again use a bunch of knives, and cut the same size of notch with each one in the same number of hits (to get similar impact energies) and you can then comment on the relative levels of durability.

[repeat, repeat, repeat of course when possible using different samples of the knife when able]

Of course the number are of most value to me, but others can extrapolate from them with various degrees of accuracy. Ideally I would like to have the reviews complemented with work by others, this has always been clear from the start which is why the reviews contain so mnch embedded links, and I frequently send the knives around for additional reviews.

The reviews however still have a ways to go, the bending work for example rarely has the force applied measured, which it should be. The high impact work should also have the impact energies estimated and so on. Some sections I don't think you can do much more than just give an opinion like on the handle ergonomic and security issues as that is just too person dependent. You can point out problem areas (sharp edges and so on), but not everyone will see these the same. Video like Dan has been doing in the HI forum would also be a very positive path.

Jerry :

Have we all been lying ...

Read Mike's post just above yours, it is kind of a critical point which you are missing completely.

As for meeting with Ed, I have tried to contact him several times to discuss the performance of this knife during its use, he ignored me with all attempts and restricted online references to juvenile name calling. Now you want me to seek him with an international flight so I can confirm the results of a knife which he already confirmed on line.

Yes, this makes perfect sense especially when I could use the same time and money to visit the shop of makers which I have productive conversations with (and there are many) and buy multiple samples of their knives who I am much more inclined to spend money on for obvious reasons.

You have money to donate, or a Pronghorn to spare, give it to Gabe to replace the knife which was damaged completly without need had Fowler bothered to simply respond to any of the questions asked and indicated the knife would indeed bend as readily as it did.

-Cliff