Random Thought Thread

Nathan the Machinist said:
And some of you may know, I've been making some pretty good knives for a long time now.

And the knives I make now are the best knives I've ever made.

We started out making tweaked D2 that initially caused a lot of arguments and drama here amongst other makers but it eventually set the industry standard.

And we started making tweaked 3V. At a certain point, when our resources allowed us to, we finalized and formalized the best tweak that was fully optimized and, to differentiate it from previous tweaks, we called it Delta 3V, "Delta" indicating change. It is indicated as 3V inside of a Delta triangle.

We have capabilities and resources now that I never had access to before. And, buying the entire billet of material, we can have it any way we want it and we have been taking advantage of that to offer better optimized materials. The Delta 3V we produce today is the best we have ever made and I believe it is the best in the entire industry.

It is my sincere belief that we make the best knives of their kind in the world.

We've been doing some more development work over the winter, as we do, and this winter I decided to revisit 3V. This time with deep pockets and access to people and capabilities and steps of the steel production process we've never had access to before.

One thing that strikes me about our development process is, years ago we changed from 20 DPS in the process down to 18 in order to make differences more obvious.

The cut testing I was doing today, I really needed to go narrower than that to see any difference because nothing was causing any meaningful damage.

But anyways, after cutting a small mountain of cardboard, and pine and whittling cuts in Osage orange, it took not just bright light and magnification, it took a proper stereo microscope to find any differences in edge loss between the samples because it was difficult to find any. 20 years ago this would have made my head spin. We really are living in the Golden era of advanced metallurgy.

However the difference became more apparent when we started chopping Osage, carving the slivers off of the nails, and chopping nails and bolts which is where some of the difference starts to show.

So anyways, this is a long way of saying we've spent an enormous amount of time and money making tweaks to a wide range of variables to provide a product that I can almost guarantee you will never notice the difference between it and the Delta 3V we all know and love.

Delta 3V is really really good. Trying to improve upon it feels like trying to move a mountain.

So, after a significant investment, the new tweak, which includes a number of significant changes, is practically the same performance. But, for some applications anyways, it is a little bit better. And that was the goal really. If it was drastically better that would mean I hadn't done my job right in the first place. But it really is a little bit better. In some ways. And really, that's all I was hoping for.

You will enjoy slightly better edge stability in rough use which will equate to slightly better edge retention. And it only adds about $5 to the cost of the blade, although it does require purchasing large amounts of material at a time. Which isn't a problem, we already do that.

You would never notice a difference without controlled side by side testing. Which is not disappointing to me. If there was a big difference, that would mean that I did it wrong the first time.


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Here's a cool picture from the development process, on the 18 DPS test samples. (20 DPS would not show much damage).

This tweak is not just to the heat treat, we have made small changes that go all the way back to the first steps of the steel making process. This would be analogous to a chocolatier controlling the production of a cacao plantation.

We will be offering this tweak on some of our Delta 3V offerings in the future. Patterns where I feel the tweak would be of benefit. The first pattern that will be available is going to be the Field knives. You should check it out, I can almost guarantee you'll never notice a difference.
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Love it!!! CQI (Continuous Quality Improvement)! Another reason I'm a big fan of Spyderco too.

yoko said:
I'm in for double D's 3V!!!!
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DD's FTW!!!
 
Mendoman said:
Nathan the Machinist Nathan the Machinist do you have any thoughts about how the steel tariffs may effect the knife industry or your own production, that you will share?
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Anything that helps the amazing high end steel manufacturing in America, helps me.

It is difficult to acquire genuine excellence. And excellence is often the first victim of the race to the bottom.

I don't care if it doubles the raw material cost (it won't) if it helps the American steel industry, it helps me acquire the best materials possible. I don't care what it costs.
 
I did a double take this afternoon. At first I thought maybe Nathan had finally pushed the hauling limits on one of his old Fords too far ...

Screenshot_20250211-221354_Gallery.jpg

I have to add that despite looking like the truck was broken in half ... the motor actually purred like a kitten and the duals sounded great as the guy drove away after filling it with gas. 🤷‍♂️
 
JJ_Colt45 said:
I did a double take this afternoon. At first I thought maybe Nathan had finally pushed the hauling limits on one of his old Fords too far ...

View attachment 2788234

I have to add that despite looking like the truck was broken in half ... the motor actually purred like a kitten and the duals sounded great as the guy drove away after filling it with gas. 🤷‍♂️
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#still runs 🤣
 
JJ_Colt45 said:
I did a double take this afternoon. At first I thought maybe Nathan had finally pushed the hauling limits on one of his old Fords too far ...

View attachment 2788234

I have to add that despite looking like the truck was broken in half ... the motor actually purred like a kitten and the duals sounded great as the guy drove away after filling it with gas. 🤷‍♂️
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No lowball offers! I know what I got!
 
JJ_Colt45 said:
I did a double take this afternoon. At first I thought maybe Nathan had finally pushed the hauling limits on one of his old Fords too far ...

View attachment 2788234

I have to add that despite looking like the truck was broken in half ... the motor actually purred like a kitten and the duals sounded great as the guy drove away after filling it with gas. 🤷‍♂️
Click to expand...
It's so this doesn't happen. Kinda like how empty flat-bed trailers are arched, and flatten out when loaded.

Broken-2020-Ram-3500-camper-truck-Facebook-2.png
 
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