Cougar :
Talonite knives get dull to a certain point but then go on cutting without seeming to get any duller for a long time. Cliff tested a Talonite knife until it got dull and then stopped testing.
I thought I had clarified this in the review but I guess not. There are two stages of blunting. The first is very rapid and the main cause of it is that the edge deforms slightly. There is a little wear here in the matrix but not very much, it is nearly 100% alignment and can be fixed with a smooth steel. The next stage of blunting is very slow. As a rough estimate, you can go up to 10x as much as material that caused the initial edge loss and not see as much of a difference. During the second stage the deformation grows larger and wear sets in. A smooth steel will not restore the blade to 100% anymore.
Here is the important part, steel does this as well. It is not something exclusive to Talonite. The reason that you don't see much written about it regarding steel is that people seem to have much higher performance expections of steel than from Talonite. After a steels performance drops between %25 - 50% during the first state blunting people touch it up on a strop, steel or ceramic rod to get it back to 100%.
I stopped the cutting when the Talonite blade would not cut the material, but would rip the cardboard and just skate along the rope / denim with no bite. I don't see any point to what happens with the blade after this as I would call it unusable at this point.
a dull Talonite knife has microserrations that can more or less cut or saw through things, better than a dull steel knife.
It is the exact opposite. Talonite goes smooth really quickly and loses all bite. This is the "doesn't cut rope well" effect. Even Carbide Processors notes this on thier main page. There are some exceptions, 1095 is a very soft carbide steel. I don't think it would outbite Talonite in the long run, however D2 does it easily and CPM-10V outcuts D2 by an even wider margin.
As for meat and other foods, I bought a Henckels kitchen knife a few months ago to do a careful look at this. After three weeks I gave up trying to blunt it on food. I saw no degredation at all in the edge. However I was very careful not to give it any impacts all all and the only wear came from the food. After that I used it as a normal knife and it goes about 3-4 days and is very dull from impacting and rollings as the steel is soft and weak.
Marion, you seem to be asking a lot of difficult questions as of late, which is good for the forums, probably not doing a lot for you though, as for the answer, here is the long and short of it. If there is disagreement between two sources you need to quite simply evaluate who you wish to believe. That is not a trival decision as it is based on complicated factors.
-Cliff
[This message has been edited by Cliff Stamp (edited 03-12-2000).]
