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

[Quiet]

If they are "heavy, thick-bladed knives designed to be abused" then why chose a low toughness steel like CPM-20CV ?
Why not keep the tougher CPM-S35VN that was used before ? I have one XM-18 and one XM-24 in S35VN and, indeed, they are good hard-use folders. I never understood the switch to 20CV for these models.
Here is Larrin comment about M390/20CV toughness :

"The microstructure is relatively coarse for a powder metallurgy steel and it has a high volume of carbide, which means that the toughness of the steel is relatively low."

Hinderer try to compensate this intrinsic low toughness of 20CV by aiming for a low Rockwell hardness. That is clearly suboptimal. And 59-61 HRC is already a very large hardness window so it's disappointing to learn you can find specimens outside this window (on the low side).

Hey, no idea. I'm not a steel nerd, and have no idea why RHK would make that switch, other than to say that it's probably for the same reason all the other knife companies out there change steels: to satisfy a market who wants to see knives in those steels.

 

[nattynarwhal]

No, I'm not. A less than ten degree inclusive edge is ultra thin. If I'd been talking about the thickness behind the edge, I'd have stated it.

Also, all this talk of passion. Why is it cool to be passionate enough to call a major knife maker out on something you think is wrong because you're just way smarter, but when Rick was defending himself, it was just "complaining"?

Lastly, I'm well aware of what a very fine edge and a good heat treat can do.....right up until it chips out. So, I'd pass on that personally. Also, remember, TK "defined" Hinderer's way of doing it as wrong, to his many thousands of followers. Dude responded how any business would in this situation. Two extremely arrogant personalities are clashing, I'm just watching from the cheap seats at this point.

Well, I was talking about behind the edge thickness so you misunderstood me. No knife maker I know of does 10 degree inclusive edge angles no matter how good their heat treat.

 

[Quiet]

Well, I was talking about behind the edge thickness so you misunderstood me. No knife maker I know of does 10 degree inclusive edge angles no matter how good their heat treat.

Ah, ok, so ultra thin BEHIND the edge. Alright, so still a super thin, slicey blade, and we should definitely be trash talking knife companies that make thick bladed knives as being "wrong" because they don't have thin slicey blades, instead of just buying something else, amirite?

 

[Murdamook]

Hey, no idea. I'm not a steel nerd, and have no idea why RHK would make that switch, other than to say that it's probably for the same reason all the other knife companies out there change steels: to satisfy a market who wants to see knives in those steels.

This is exactly it. How many dudes on this very forum probably own a PM2 in M390, 204P, and 20CV? I don’t fault anyone for it. Buy what you want. If this hobby was about practicality, we’d all have an Opinel.

 

[TC]

Is the letter accurate when it states that the knife TK used to come to his conclusion was a second hand knife that was altered by having the flipper tab ground off?

That is something that caught my eye as well: Not the flipper having been removed, that much would be obvious from a simple photo. But how the flipper was removed. How does he know it was ground off? Can't tell that from a picture. Perhaps a manual hacksaw was used and no significant heat introduced into the material at all, or some other "benign" method. And the conclusions based on the assumption are themselves little more than speculation.

 

[Fonedork]

That lawyer letter also says in bold, "...if you do not cease and desist your wrongful conduct and make RHK whole for the injuries you have caused by no later than May 17" and then fails to demand any payment. When you get money in a lawsuit the purpose of that money is to make you "whole" after you've suffered some injury, like someone defaming you and hurting your business. I would argue that letter is a judicially binding admission by Hinderer that if this Kim guy takes down his posts, agrees in writing to cease and desist, and posts that scripted apology, Hinderer will be made whole. Leaving no room for him to demand money.

 

[nattynarwhal]

Ah, ok, so ultra thin BEHIND the edge. Alright, so still a super thin, slicey blade, and we should definitely be trash talking knife companies that make thick bladed knives as being "wrong" because they don't have thin slicey blades, instead of just buying something else, amirite?

No? I've consistently said that users are the ones who can define performance for themselves. But you seem to have an extremely aggressive tone throughout this thread. Are you just looking to argue with someone, or do you feel the need for others to validate your purchase of knives that fit your definition of performance?

 

[Quiet]

This is exactly it. How many dudes on this very forum probably own a PM2 in M390, 204P, and 20CV? I don’t fault anyone for it. Buy what you want. If this hobby was about practicality, we’d all have an Opinel.

With a Magnacut blade!

 

[Murdamook]

With a Magnacut blade!

Brb, calling TK to get ma reblade!

 

[Quiet]

No? I've consistently said that users are the ones who can define performance for themselves. But you seem to have an extremely aggressive tone throughout this thread. Are you just looking to argue with someone, or do you feel the need for others to validate your purchase of knives that fit your definition of performance?

No, but as long as we're discussing personalities, I notice that you really seem to be defending IG guy pretty hard. On his books, are we?

Also, I have two Hinderer knives, and don't have a burning desire for more. I'm just wondering why people are defending an arrogant IG stooge who thought that calling out a major knife maker on his social media platform wouldn't have any consequences? Is RHK handling this correctly? Almost certainly not, but then, I wonder what the alternative is. I wonder if RHK has tried just asking politely for this IG knife modder to stop trashing his products, sorry, calling them "suboptimal".

 

[Bob Denman]

For financial damages, Hinderer would have to prove that his company's business income was directly affected by Kim's statement, which is an admittedly a difficult proof.

However, making a false statement about a person or company is still a legal injury that is entitled to relief and, in a case like this (where no or little financial damages can be proven) INJUNCTIVE relief is still important because, if Hinderer can PROVE that Kim made false statements about his company and/or products, Kim can be forced to retract and no longer make such statements and, if he violates the injuction, he can be subject to civil and ciminal penalties enforceable by the STATE (not Hinderer) and that's no joke!

Besides: Nobody has sued anybody yet...
RHK just had a letter sent to the guy that essentially said: "knock off the crap; or things'll start getting serious"

 

[Richard338]

Better Call Saul!

 

[Bob Denman]

Or my Legal Team:

 

[POCEH KOCEB]

Personally I think his work is way more impressive than anything a production or semi production company does (as it should be because he's a custom maker).

Different strokes for different folk. I personally don’t see anything impressive.
‘I like his “mirror” finish but he’s not the only one that makes it.
I follow TK for fairly long time on IG. He got one or two, I think unfinished knife projects.
He’s blades are not exactly my profile but some of them look decent.
He messes up lots of the blades for various reasons. He appears some how sloppy and moody in
his daily comments. I missed some how the whole Hinderer ordeal, my point is - he is not a knife maker or custom maker in the full sense of the later term. He’s a knife modder, this is it.
He got opinion based on something and nobodi is taking this away but he should not go further than stating it.

 

[Quiet]

Besides: Nobody has sued anybody yet...
RHK just had a letter sent to the guy that essentially said: "knock off the crap; or things'll start getting serio8us"

This is my own view of it at the moment. It's clear that TK knows what he's been asked to do. He stated so in his latest post where he's like "Awwwww man, I really don't want to have to apologize, but I just totally can't afford to fight this guy in court!"* This is why all his followers are pledging funds to "fight" RHK.



* Paraphrasing, but barely.

 

[Murdamook]

This is mostly unrelated to this incident generally, but I actually find his entire business model mildly annoying. The AD20.5 is his biggest seller from what I’ve seen. He does a complete reblade then collaborates with a scale maker. It’s not even a Demko at that point. I guess it’s not really IP theft since the knife is being “modded”, but it’s almost a replica. Can it even be rightly referred to as a Demko at that point? Off topic, sorry.

 

[Quiet]

This is mostly unrelated to this incident generally, but I actually find his entire business model mildly annoying. The AD20.5 is his biggest seller from what I’ve seen. He does a complete reblade then collaborates with a scale maker. It’s not even a Demko at that point. I guess it’s not really IP theft since the knife is being “modded”, but it’s almost a replica. Can it even be rightly referred to as a Demko at that point? Off topic, sorry.

There was some Russian guy who mods Emerson knives whose name I'm forgetting who got banned from the Emerson FB pages because this is essentially what he was doing. He'd do complete reblades and scales, switch them to framelocks, etc. on Emersons, and then try to sell them on those pages as Emersons when really, nothing from Emerson was actually left, it was basically a clone at that point.

 

[Murdamook]

This is my own view of it at the moment. It's clear that TK knows what he's been asked to do. He stated so in his latest post where he's like "Awwwww man, I really don't want to have to apologize, but I just totally can't afford to fight this guy in court!"* This is why all his followers are pledging funds to "fight" RHK.



* Paraphrasing, but barely.

He has more than enough money to get a FREE consultation at an attorney and can probably afford a small retainer fee. I’ll be more annoyed if he continues his crowd funding attempts. Hell, raffle a knife or something.

 

[Murdamook]

There was some Russian guy who mods Emerson knives whose name I'm forgetting who got banned from the Emerson FB pages because this is essentially what he was doing. He'd do complete reblades and scales, switch them to framelocks, etc. on Emersons, and then try to sell them on those pages as Emersons when really, nothing from Emerson was actually left, it was basically a clone at that point.

Was it Nathawut(sp)? I know a lot of Poboy Emersons made their rounds until Ernie decided to come out and condemn it. It’s just so weird to me. I have an AD20s and I really enjoy it, but spending another $500 reblading it and putting new scales on it just seems weird. I’d prefer to just get the real thing from Demko.

 

[King of the Cheese]

Was it Nathawut(sp)? I know a lot of Poboy Emersons made their rounds until Ernie decided to come out and condemn it. It’s just so weird to me. I have an AD20s and I really enjoy it, but spending another $500 reblading it and putting new scales on it just seems weird. I’d prefer to just get the real thing from Demko.

Poboys aren’t clones. They’re just a mix of titanium or ti/micarta custom scales. Makers can condemn all they want but if I want to pay someone $200 to put titanium bolsters and micarta on my CQC-7, no screeching about it by a maker is going to stop me. Now buying and re-selling modified knives is a different matter.