So, Just How Good Does a Knife Have to Be and What Is Attainable?

VorpelSword said:
Lots of good kn ves out there today. A lot of really great ones too.

It is my opinion that one can find a knife made today that is the equal of or better than the best knives ever made in the past, recent past or distant. . . .by anybody.

And with my neck stuck way out there I now digress to the heart of the matter and the thread topic:

(1) How "good" does a knife have to be? Disregarding fit, finish and cost for the moment, just how tough, just how sharp, just how much f any performance characteristic do we need in a working belt knife or pocket EDC? Sure, a meat cutter's knife dedicated to portioning a $100,000 Tuna carcass might be optimized for sharpness and edge retention (I don't know this), but what do we, the work-a-day knife guy or gal really need in a good to great knife . . .and what makes that difference, good or great?

(2) What is attainable? I know the typical performance parameters of corrosion resistance, edge detention and toughness. I understand that in terms of materials science, optimizing one characteristic often degrades one or both of the others. The Magnicut fformulation of steel is said to have a balanced performance. But what would it take to move the whole triangle of performance characteristics up and to the right on the chart? Can it be done?

Would that be a blade as corrosion resistant as gold pr platinum, with the sharpness of monomolecular obsidian edge, the edge retention of Tungsten Carbide and the flexibility and toughness of the leaf springs on my 1950s (you pick a year) era pick up?
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Well.. I think Sandrin has made a very real step towards "Would that be a blade as corrosion resistant as gold pr platinum, with the sharpness of monomolecular obsidian edge, the edge retention of Tungsten Carbide and the flexibility and toughness of the leaf springs on my 1950s (you pick a year) era pick up?" with their folding options- especially the Monza.
It even looks good (imo)!

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It was only a couple years ago that all I carried were traditional style pocketknives or lock backs which both required two hands to open.

Nowadays, I don’t even consider a folder if it can’t be opened with one hand.
 
My brother has opted to go for a luxury item and bought his Opinel #8 with a non standard wood option.

He sharpens it on the bottom of his coffee mug.
It's not hair popping sharp, but it's not far off. It's a sharp knife.

This works well for him - he cannot not even tell the name of the blade steel or how it ranks on the HRC scale.
He knows that when something needs cutting, he's got a knife in his pocket.

I'm looking at the nerdy titanium-and-space-age-steel contraption in my pocket that costs more than 20 Opinel #8 knifes and feel a bit weird.
Luckily, he lives in another city and we don't see each other that often.
 
chevyrulez1 said:
I don't even own anything in magnacut currently (forgive me Lord)
I guess I am going to have to do some shopping soon :D
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I don't either.....Ha. but I do love Other "Super Steels"
 
chevyrulez1 said:
I don't even own anything in magnacut currently
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I'm not saying anyone should (or shouldn't) own MagnaCut. I'm only saying it's spelled "MagnaCut".
 
VorpelSword said:
And my question is: Is there any induction that a better performing, balanced steel is possible using any proportion of the known elements in the periodic table . . .at any price?
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Not any time soon. Magnacut is sitting near the performance curve of the industry's most advanced non-stainless high alloy steels.

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not2sharp said:
I suspect that if we ran a “blind taste test” on pile of knives, no one would be able to guess the correct steel on more than 20% of them.

N2s
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I had an ex that could actually taste the difference in forks. She drove me nuts about it. I ended up looking up grades of stainless used 18/0, 18/8, 18/10, 13/0 and I think it was 18/10 she said had no taste.
 
not2sharp said:
I suspect that if we ran a “blind taste test” on pile of knives, no one would be able to guess the correct steel on more than 20% of them.

N2s
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I agree.
From cutting, staining,& breaking, for me..... sharpening might be the way I'd try to guess, most likely.
 
Crag the Brewer said:
Honest question for "Most hunters"........? (Asked today)
1940's steel or CPM Cruwear?
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I've been wondering what this question is all about. Hunters obviously have access to whatever steel they want. What sort of response were you looking for by limiting it to one steel and "1940's steel", whatever that is?
 
Maximumbob54 said:
Until maybe five years ago I thought of most knives I'd use as mostly disposable since I'd never had anything that after minimal use went dull and ended up being sharpened to death. This made me not want to use favored knives as much knowing they were destined for the trash can. I still have a barely used Spyderco Endura in VG10 from my younger days back when VG10 was what I thought was top shelf stuff. Now that's one of Spyderco's basic steels. But a lot of the more basic models of Gerber and Buck have been sent over the rainbow bridge. So I'd say they "worked" but didn't work for all that long if they were really users. Now one of my most carried and used to cut anything within reason is a little Delica in K390 and that thing is undying. The K390 blade just stays sharp. The most I've done is a few swipes on a ceramic rod. At this rate I may have this knife the rest of my life. So it's only in this last few years now that what I think of as just how good a knife has to be vs. what is attainable has very much changed. I get that many guys feel Buck's 420HC is "good enough" and high fives all around from them. But knowing that for not terribly much more I can potentially have some Conan level steel, I don't know if I ever want to buy production basic steel knives ever again.
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In this we need to factor in the rise of quality sharpening systems. And youtube tutorials on sharpening.

We can bring knives up more easily, quickly and do a better result.
 
This thread is so subjective. Good, better, best, is in the eye of the beholder. I listed cutting longevity as one of the desirable characteristics, but I also listed sharpenability. These two are on a teeter-totter together, and as long as they don't skew too far from each other on the line, I am at the point where I don't really care what steel any given knife is that I will carry, because I can make them all do my will. MagnaCut is great, for me. But so is AEB-L. And so is 15N20. So is S30V. Though I do tend to favor shorter, more frequent touch ups, so I lean a bit more toward the finer grained steels.
 
David Mary said:
I've been wondering what this question is all about. Hunters obviously have access to whatever steel they want. What sort of response were you looking for by limiting it to one steel and "1940's steel", whatever that is?
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I just picked an old sounding date. Doesn't matter. I wasn't going to say 1960's-70's because great steel was already available then

It was in reference to the individual who used the idea of "back in the good ole days" (my wording) I understood it as that modern steels aren't necessary. -maybe I misinterpreted that?

not2sharp said:
Back when the most popular hunting knives were inexpensive Soligen imports, the knives were already sharpened and restoring a functional edge on a typical hunting knife required little more than a few swipes over a small pocket stone. Most hunters did it faster than the time it takes to read this sentence.

I can enjoy modern technology and blade steels, but the impact on hunting likely ranges from negligible to counter productive.

N2s
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(I asked) Honest question for "Most hunters"........? (Asked today)
1940's steel or CPM Cruwear?


*edit to add.
Today, a hunter I work with told me recently he dressed a bear with my high alloy knife I made. He said it was over 5 hours of use. He also said bear meat is harder on the edge compared to deer meat, and other critters. He said it's possibly more abrasive. I never heard that before, so idk?
he said the whole time using my knife he didn't need to resharpen, and after words the knife was still crazy sharp. He couldn't believe how great modern steels can be.
 
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