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

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I must confess, I own a Hinderer with a "sub-optimal" blade, but it's also Vorpal so I consider it a push.
 
Insipid Moniker said:
I definitely see why some view it negatively, and that's the biggest reason I think Hinderer may have erred with the response, not because it was the wrong thing to do, but because despite being extremely litigious our society isn't very well versed in actual law and, as we've seen in this thread, don't seem to realize that a C&D is the very lowest level of legal response you can make. If, as the letter suggests, they'd already reached out to the guy through social channels, I think this response is entirely appropriate and that TK very much brought it on himself.
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This. It’s business. Happens all the time. That’s all. Could it have been handled better/differently? Sure. By both sides, I reckon. But this is how it goes down all the time when it isn’t. It’s one reason lawyers exist and why businesses employ them. I think it’d have been far worse for RHK to call TK out to a televised steel cage match, or get into a weiner-measuring diss track YT back-and-forth.

That said, why does it matter to us? I don’t think anyone here considers RHK knives precision, surgical tools, nor will anyone disagree that there are knives that cut better having better edge geometry. And that’s why there are so dang many to choose from.

I asked who made the letter public, because I know if a law firm sent one to me on behalf of a business entity following something I did or said against them, that’d be no one’s problem but mine to handle with them… unless I told everyone about it… and maybe had a fanbase I needed to seem more credible to. Now, I don’t have a YT channel or a knife business, so the question is merely hypothetical, not accusatory, but what would I possibly gain by making a private matter public?
 
While I can see many points in the argument. I have to point out something regarding hardness of the knives. RHK is known for making knives that are meant to be used and used in hard use situations. For the steel to be tough and chip resistant it will need to be on the softer side. Lower on the hardness results in a tough steel that will resist chipping or other edge deformation but will require you to sharpen more often as well. As you go higher on the hardness scale the material will become more brittle resulting in chips or other edge deformation to occur. The higher hardness will result in a better edge retention but at the cost of strength. This TK sounds like he thinks that a higher hardness results in a better blade material but that thinking may also be incorrect, while it may result in a good cutting edge it will also make the knife less tough or able to handle side loading or other hard use tasks that may arise. RHK are made for hard use and unforseen circumstances that may arise, therefore they would want there knives to be on the softer side of the scale and to have beefier edge geometry. Ultimately both RHK and this TK have different philosophy of use thoughts. In a hard use folding knife you want to have a softer material that is more forgiving against chipping or other edge deformation. If you only plan on cutting fruit, soft veggies or other such items with no unexpected hard use thrown in then a hard super edge retention steel may be ok. However I think that i would prefer a steel on the softer side for my hard tasks, knowing that I would just have to sharpen more often due to wear. So to summarize. Higher on the hardness scale = more brittle tendencies. Softer on the hardness scale results in more forgiveness and toughness with the loss of some edge retention. The goal of a proper heat treat is to arrive at a balance of strength, toughness and hardness for your intended application. Both of these parties (RHK and TK) have very different thoughts on the application of a knife or so it would seem.
 
Paratrooper06 said:
They challenged the equipment, not the hardness of the blade.. so why would they need to challenge the equipment 12 times? Isn’t one claim of the equipment and his operation being challenged enough? If the equipment is malfunctioning or he doesn’t use it properly, none of his reading would matter.. but the damage to the business is done because of his focus on the blade “out of tolerance”.

Basically, what TK did was like me walking into a lab that tests the clarity of diamonds after reading up how to operate it on YouTube, using my own equipment in testing the clarity of some of Tiffany’s diamonds and saying to a lab tech: “nah, dog… your clarity reading is off on this and I’m going to go blast you on Instagram”.
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I also agree, you are making sense! Wtf is happening!?
 
NebulaMask said:
Maybe this is where we disagree, I don't think this is an objectively right or wrong situation. I can see where both sides are coming from on this.
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Seems like one side made this public. Sounds like Hinderer said that the heat treat may have been compromised when grinding off the flipper. The blade was also purchased second hand. I don't see the issue questioning Kim's expertise with testing. Seems reasonable to ask him to stop speaking about it if Hinderer feels that he is wrong.
 
Grosse318 said:
While I can see many points in the argument. I have to point out something regarding hardness of the knives. RHK is known for making knives that are meant to be used and used in hard use situations. For the steel to be tough and chip resistant it will need to be on the softer side. Lower on the hardness results in a tough steel that will resist chipping or other edge deformation but will require you to sharpen more often as well. As you go higher on the hardness scale the material will become more brittle resulting in chips or other edge deformation to occur. The higher hardness will result in a better edge retention but at the cost of strength. This TK sounds like he thinks that a higher hardness results in a better blade material but that thinking may also be incorrect, while it may result in a good cutting edge it will also make the knife less tough or able to handle side loading or other hard use tasks that may arise. RHK are made for hard use and unforseen circumstances that may arise, therefore they would want there knives to be on the softer side of the scale and to have beefier edge geometry. Ultimately both RHK and this TK have different philosophy of use thoughts. In a hard use folding knife you want to have a softer material that is more forgiving against chipping or other edge deformation. If you only plan on cutting fruit, soft veggies or other such items with no unexpected hard use thrown in then a hard super edge retention steel may be ok. However I think that i would prefer a steel on the softer side for my hard tasks, knowing that I would just have to sharpen more often due to wear. So to summarize. Higher on the hardness scale = more brittle tendencies. Softer on the hardness scale results in more forgiveness and toughness with the loss of some edge retention. The goal of a proper heat treat is to arrive at a balance of strength, toughness and hardness for your intended application. Both of these parties (RHK and TK) have very different thoughts on the application of a knife or so it would seem.
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That's also Emerson's whole validation of a softer ht.
 
Not to mention how much revenue has been generated by views of the relevant videos. Between gofundme and advertising revenue, the plaintiff is making bank by slandering a well-known knife maker.

Just say “no” to social media. Our economy is under enough strain as is.
 
Insipid Moniker said:
Who knew getting 'silenced' was so profitable. 🙄
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He's said that unspent funds are going to a charity that will be named later, mentioned knife rights and DV stuff and he won't be pocketing anything from the donations. The ones that seem like they might come out ahead after all of this are the lawyers.
 
Grosse318 said:
While I can see many points in the argument. I have to point out something regarding hardness of the knives. RHK is known for making knives that are meant to be used and used in hard use situations. For the steel to be tough and chip resistant it will need to be on the softer side.
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Agree, but if that was the case all RH would have had to say, if he was going to say anything at all ... is just that. "We intentionally run our knives in this range because we feel it offers the best balance between toughness and edge retention."

TK's response would be that, if you value toughness, M390 isn't the best steel choice. Which is probably why Hinderer is using S35vn for his X knives, and why CRK uses S35vn and S45vn.
 
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