You buying them new in completely unaltered condition is a must have to remove any questions about changes after it leaves the manufacturer’s hands.
One friendly suggestion, change the title “Leader Board” and any talk about “scores” as the word choices create the impression that hardest is “the best” or most desirable trait. Different intended uses of a blade require different designs which need different steels with different hardness for optimum performance for the intended use. It is not a competition. You are reporting scientific test results.
My thin and hard Rex 121 skinning knife is optimized for that task as is a 10V. Another in 20cv at even lower hardness is my most used hunting knife out of thirty or more to choose from. A really big, but soft, Busse is my go for clearing brush and chopping sides of ribs off a pig’s spine. The Rex 121 would break in short order chopping bone. The Busse will not have great edge retention for skinning compared to the others. One is not better than the other. They are different tools for different tasks and best for their intended uses despite hardness being more than +/- 10 - 12 apart in hardness.
Having said that, your testing helps the buyer make better informed decisions about whether certain steels and blades match optimized results advertised by the maker.
So by all means, please keep up the work.
We're aware that different knives have different intended purposes based on hardness range. We're also aware, as I had pointed out previously, that just because a knife is measured at a specific hardness, doesn't necessarily mean it was heat treated optimally for knives to begin with either, as we won't ever know the specific heat treatment process for every company or knife we test. So that's even more variables.
The way SmashedLlama set up the site was more out of creative freedom and an interactive way to compare brands, steels, and hardness ranges across manufacturers. There's obviously a huge difference in a carbide replacement steel that's made to go to 68-70Rc and a higher shock resistant steel like L6 at 58-60Rc or a low carbide volume powder metallurgy steel like 3V at 61Rc.
That said, maybe "leaderboards" and the rankings weren't made to say necessarily that certain steels are better than others, it was more just how the creator thought to list everything out with the time he had to make the site, we didn't ask for his help, he willingly volunteered it one day just out of interest and to help us out. I'm still very grateful for the time he spent and his contributions.
That said, I do understand your point. Maybe there's a middle ground that would make more people happy. I'm not positive. But I've expressed several times that the hardness is just one factor of the knife and heat treatment, it isn't necessarily the entire story.
I do appreciate the contribution, and recommendations. We're open to anything beneficial to the project.
