Rick Hinderer sent Cease and Desist to Youtuber for saying the steel was soft in his knife?

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The last I will say is this:

1. I understand the "you mess with the bull, you get the horns" comments. I don't understand what I perceive as delight in seeing someone getting the proverbial horns.

2. TK seems to believe he is telling the truth. TK seems to genuinely believe that he is advocating for things that make better knives. Whether he is right as an empirical matter is a separate question. In my personal opinion and given what I believe about his motives, I am inclined to extend him some latitude.
 
Given the difficulties with meaningful testing, are we to believe that Subway is selling real tuna?
That case must have had some interesting legal maneuvers.
 
Hackenslash said:
I'll try to keep it short with a few simple bullet points.
1. Experienced Technicians. There are many elements to any test procedure that require finesse and talent. The more physical the test procedure, the greater the need for skilled operators, like the hardness test in question. Sure, anybody can press the "start" button on a spectrometer and let the host PC do the work, but even with equipment like that there's a sample prep element that can be highly skewed if prepared slightly irregularly.
2. Data Review. All test data is stupid, dumb numbers. A trained engineer/scientist/manager needs to evaluate the data. I've seen so much data come from experienced technicians that's utter BS because it takes a high level review to determine if the data falls within the realm of norm for the test, or is even statistically significant. We used to call that "passing the Ho-Ho test."
3. Sample Integrity. We may be experiencing this issue with the knife in question. There needs to be a "chain of custody" to establish sample integrity. You need to accurately identify the subject material, know where it came from and properly classify it to administer testing in the proper scope. Contaminated samples have wreaked havoc on multiple industries. There are many instances where the method of testing is determined by proper identification of the sample material.
4. Quality Assurance and Calibration. It's not just enough to calibrate the equipment performing the test, you need to calibrate (or verify) the calibration equipment. There are lab standards for a broad spectrum of physical tests and they need to be verified or replaced as the calibration materials drop out of date. Even standardized weights and feeler gauges have to be re-verified of replaced on a regular schedule.
5. Quality Systems. There needs to be a process to address non-compliance, whether of test materials, equipment or technicians. Peer review is critical to periodically "refresh" the lab processes and root out failures. Shared, round robin samples need to be evaluated and graded for your lab's performance against a pool of other professional labs.
6. Continual Training and Development. Test methods are always changing and new methods are added while others retired. ASTM, AASHTO, NIST and EN publish new, revised methods each year. A lab must always train and retrain staff to insure the latest, accepted methods are complied with. There are a lot of famous failures in the private lab business that derive from a 2-year old method being run in error.

This is really just the tip of the iceberg, but I am highly skeptical of social media personalities who buy a piece of equipment, read a test method and think they can report accurate results.

Sorry for making everyone's eyeballs bleed...

Edit: I want to add that if anyone wants to do their own testing at home to learn and understand, I fully support that. The difference comes when you state it as "fact" via social media, you damn well better have everything mentioned above in place or you will loose any challenge that comes as a result of your claims. No lab operates without a generous liability insurance policy either...
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Thank you for sharing.
 
SCTorrero said:
You might be right, but I don't know how you know this, especially considering you haven't handled (or care to handle) the comparison. But you might be right.
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Remember, I was responding to a pretty preposterous claim. "This IG dude's stuff is better than everything else on the market". Yeah, that's a huge claim and I don't believe it for a second. Especially since, as has already been covered the guy doesn't actually seem to make anything other than blades. There are an awful lot of cheapo knives out there that cut great.
 
3D Anvil said:
I'm all in for Brian's counter suit against Hinderer. Because unlike Brian, Hinderer actually *did* attack Brian's character and his professionalism. All Brian said was that he got a veeeery slightly soft blade, and that Hinderer's customer service rep was rude to him.
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Calling a company's products "suboptimal" is a little more than just saying that he got a "very slightly soft blade", come on now. As soon as he posted that, a ton of people in his comments were like "I KNEW IT! Hinderers are trash!!"

Also, you can't go off on Hinderer like TK did, and pretend that that was professionalism come on now.

Man, I don't even like Hinderer knives this much, I just hate the logic of "Big company "picking on" the little guy, so they're automatically the bad guys" logic that seems to be flowing around this situation.
 
3D Anvil said:
I'm all in for Brian's counter suit against Hinderer. Because unlike Brian, Hinderer actually *did* attack Brian's character and his professionalism. All Brian said was that he got a veeeery slightly soft blade, and that Hinderer's customer service rep was rude to him.
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Where did he attack his character and professionalism?
 
Quiet said:
Calling a company's products "suboptimal" is a little more than just saying that he got a "very slightly soft blade", come on now. As soon as he posted that, a ton of people in his comments were like "I KNEW IT! Hinderers are trash!!"
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Well, if the target hrc is 59-61, and the blade tested below 59, then it was literally suboptimal. But he also stated that he tested 11 other blades that were in spec. Curious that Hinderer hasn't challenged those readings.
 
Quiet said:
Remember, I was responding to a pretty preposterous claim. "This IG dude's stuff is better than everything else on the market". Yeah, that's a huge claim and I don't believe it for a second. Especially since, as has already been covered the guy doesn't actually seem to make anything other than blades. There are an awful lot of cheapo knives out there that cut great.
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This may all be true, but it has nothing to do with the price of tea in China. I was responding to your claim, that you KNEW TK's knives were not better than Spyderco's. Which again, may or may not be true.

I appreciate the context and I understand how people talk when making arguments. I am not trying to bash you or anything.
 
3D Anvil said:
Well, if the target hrc is 59-61, and the blade tested below 59, then it was literally suboptimal. But he also stated that he tested 11 other blades that were in spec. Curious that Hinderer hasn't challenged those readings.
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I guess the main question was, why did TK make such a big deal about one knife out of 12 being out of spec?

Also, this goes back to the possibility of what Hackenslash Hackenslash was talking about, where if his entire testing regimen is in question, why would RHK want to engage on this? Also, why was it public to begin with?

Both parties have acted like children about this, though I'm more on RHK's side here because this whole thing seems more about satisfying a social media following.
 
SCTorrero said:
This may all be true, but it has nothing to do with the price of tea in China. I was responding to your claim, that you KNEW TK's knives were not better than Spyderco's. Which again, may or may not be true.

I appreciate the context and I understand how people talk when making arguments. I am not trying to bash you or anything.
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Actually, it has everything to do with it. Preposterous claims that aren't believable deserve a little hyperbole in response, wouldn't to you agree?
 
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