THE Hollow Handle Knife Thread

[Sam Wilson]

Thanks for the classy outburst... If you'd read anything I wrote, even with a cursory glance, you would know the Neeley was by far the dullest most open-angled knife in the line up, from beginning to end, and all the other knives were all sharpened the exact same way to a much sharper angle than the Neeley.

If you read everything I've said about the Neeley, you will see it was always the dullest and remained the dullest knife I ever owned outside the Boker Apparo (before the Apparo got major re-profiling). From photos, you can also tell you the edges are much thicker on the Neeley Liles than they are on the original Liles: Neeley appears to like 30-35° per side...

All the knives were sharpened the same way, inlcuding the Cold Steel Trailmaster, and the SA9 had by far the stoutest edge, even compared to the TOPS Hellion.

You can criticise my sharpening methods all you want, knowing nothing about them, or how long I have been doing it, but you can't change the fact that I praised the design of the SA9 all the way through the misery I had sharpening it (to my great embarrassement now)... You can't change the fact it had the bluntest edge of all the knives tested that were sharpened the exact same way, and you can't change the fact this edge crumbled under very light use, solely on wood, while the others did not.

If you are that serious about countering what I said, here is my offer: Tell me what address you want it sent to, and I will send you this piece of junk free of charge for you to keep forever, at my postage expense...

Then you can evaluate the knife and tell us how unfair I was to it. Don't send it back, I don't want it... Is that fair enough?

Gaston

P.S I have already sent you a PM so you can email me back the address you want this sent to.: Here is a picture of the knife's condition as sent:

Obviously it took a terrible beating to get the edge to crumble...

Gaston,

I can see that you're understandably upset by this whole thing. Obviously, we see things a little differently, but I have no desire to just make fun of you or do anything else in a mean-spirited way. I don't know how else to say this so I'll just be frank: sometimes your posts and the way you write them can be a little irritating to me, and you come off a little condescending. You just come on a little too strong sometimes, man.

That being said, I appreciate your zeal and enthusiasm for knives and particularly hollow handle knives. I also appreciate that you're willing to use knives that most people wouldn't even cut paper with. But a lot of us saw this very situation coming. You can't make every knife do everything. They're all going to have their strengths and weaknesses. This is what I meant about knowing the limitations and parameters of knives. You can't make all of them do everything you want.

Now all that being said, it's very clear that you love that Neeley SA9, and with good reason. Vaughn Neeley certainly knows what he's doing, and his leatherwork is as impressive as his grinding. I don't want to just take your knife. Why don't we do something a little different? Take a day or two and cool down and think about the whole thing. Then, if you still want to, send me the knife. I will evaluate it, and take some measurements of the edge thickness and so forth, and we can probably figure this out pretty easily.

I really don't think the heat treat is at fault. It is certainly possible, but to be honest, based on how thin that edge looks the heat treat is probably spot on or else there would be half moon chunks blown out all over that edge or likely other catastrophic damage. I think it is highly likely that you just took it down too thin. Keep in mind that 440C doesn't exactly excel at structural integrity of an edge at extreme thinness. But why don't we find out.

Additionally, if you'd like, since you've already said the knife is ruined, I can go ahead and grind the edge back to whatever thickness you like, sharpen it, and then test it for integrity. At that point, if you'd like it back, it's yours. The knife and sheath are a beautiful combo, and even though it will lose a little width grinding back to thicker metal, I don't think it will be ruined at all, and can still be salvaged.

It's up to you. Think about it, and let me know.

Sam Wilson :thumbup:

 

[cricketdave]

Thats a very nice offer.

 

[TAH]

Gaston,

I can see that you're understandably upset by this whole thing. Obviously, we see things a little differently, but I have no desire to just make fun of you or do anything else in a mean-spirited way. I don't know how else to say this so I'll just be frank: sometimes your posts and the way you write them can be a little irritating to me, and you come off a little condescending. You just come on a little too strong sometimes, man.

That being said, I appreciate your zeal and enthusiasm for knives and particularly hollow handle knives. I also appreciate that you're willing to use knives that most people wouldn't even cut paper with. But a lot of us saw this very situation coming. You can't make every knife do everything. They're all going to have their strengths and weaknesses. This is what I meant about knowing the limitations and parameters of knives. You can't make all of them do everything you want.

Now all that being said, it's very clear that you love that Neeley SA9, and with good reason. Vaughn Neeley certainly knows what he's doing, and his leatherwork is as impressive as his grinding. I don't want to just take your knife. Why don't we do something a little different? Take a day or two and cool down and think about the whole thing. Then, if you still want to, send me the knife. I will evaluate it, and take some measurements of the edge thickness and so forth, and we can probably figure this out pretty easily.

I really don't think the heat treat is at fault. It is certainly possible, but to be honest, based on how thin that edge looks the heat treat is probably spot on or else there would be half moon chunks blown out all over that edge or likely other catastrophic damage. I think it is highly likely that you just took it down too thin. Keep in mind that 440C doesn't exactly excel at structural integrity of an edge at extreme thinness. But why don't we find out.

Additionally, if you'd like, since you've already said the knife is ruined, I can go ahead and grind the edge back to whatever thickness you like, sharpen it, and then test it for integrity. At that point, if you'd like it back, it's yours. The knife and sheath are a beautiful combo, and even though it will lose a little width grinding back to thicker metal, I don't think it will be ruined at all, and can still be salvaged.

It's up to you. Think about it, and let me know.

Sam Wilson :thumbup:

Sam, you're a class act. :thumbup:

 

[Sam Wilson]

Thanks, Tom. I gotta give it to Gaston, he's used a Neeley, Farid, Randall, and an R.J. Martin to actually chop wood. I think plenty of people would rather have a heart attack first, lol.

 

[Gaston444]

I'll take you up on your offer to test the knives Sam, but cosmetically, the basic problem of the Neeley is it's edge bevel base is ground much too thick, varying from 0,060" to an incredible 0.074" near the tip (on my electronic calipers), and so there is no way to grind it thinner without essentially re-grinding an entirely new knife blade... The sheath woud also need a shorter snap too, as I cut off a small leather flap portion to stabilize other blades in their sheath... You are right this is a design that I dreamed about since I was a kid, but I'd rather see the testing you do, than think about getting it back. (I had to fish it out of the trash as it is, because of this thread, which is why the cord wrapping was stripped off...) For me $450 is cheap, it is not a thousand dollard knife...

To answer Dave, the angle of 30° still does not explain why all the Randalls survived the same use with absolutely no chipping, as did the TOPS Hellion, with barely any more angle, and that also includes the Randall Model 18 which Josh of Razoredgeknives will confirm was thinned by him to or even below 10° on at least one side. The Randall Model 12 and 18 have no damage from hundreds of chops, and on the 12 I brought it well below the 15° per side that Josh will also confirm he did on it (and my work was the same longitunal dia-sharp coarse diamond work that was on the Neeley, just much thinner in angle).

Not to mention the Al Mar "Special Warfare", which is made of low-carbon Aus-6 (equivalent to 440A), and which was sharpened by basically laying down flat on the coarse Dia-Sharp hone...: No damage at all in hundreds of chops there either...

This has led me to a theory that may be wrong, but could explain why sharper knives with more closed angles (closer to 10° per side), and thinner edge bases, routinely crumble less than knives with more open angles (15° per side) with thicker edge bases.

Let me first confirm that I just tested the Neeley with a 20° per side micro-bevel, and this did stop the edge crumbling, but the cost in chopping performance was large: It went from around 15° per side and slightly besting the Model 12 to being 30% behind with a 20° micro-bevel... I'll post photos of that later...

My theory occurred to me when I tested yesterday my Chris Reeves Jereboam Mk II against the Model 12 and the Neeley: This edge was fresh back from Josh at RazorEdgeKnives (I tested it the very same day it came back), and he will confirm it was professionally done at 15° per side on a guided shapener. The geometry of the knife did not allow smaller angles, much like the Neeley, but still it has a thinner edge base: 0.040"...

Now it is well-known by now that the Chris Reeves one-piece range is heat-treated to RC 55, and this has resuted in noticeably lower edge holding, as confirmed by many others. In my case the knife was originally around 18-19° per side, and I lowered that to what Josh did at 15°, except the tip which had to be opened up from that, I don't know by how much (Josh would know but it is not much)

The result was about as bad as the Neeley, but different: The edge rolled over in several places, or did huge wire edges, just from hitting Maple less than fifty times (The Randall Model 12 has some slight edge loss but no visible edge damage in hundreds of strokes). The Chris Reeves also chipped very slightly, but mostly rolled and did wire edges as it folded, sometimes rolling so severely it almost looked like chips... I knew it was going to be bad but not this bad...

[My assumptions from Youtube videos that the BK-9 and the Chris Reeves (which match one another), would chop better than the Trailmaster and Model 12 (which are also somewhat close, once a V-Edge has been put into the Trailmaster's convex), was wrong: The Chris Reeves and BK-9 are well below the San mai III Trailmaster and Model 12 in chopping performance... Oh well...]

The edge failure of the Chris Reeves Jereboam, combined with the Neeley, lead me to the following theory, that edge damage under impact (because I am only testing impact on wood here) could be non-linear: All my thinner edge knives, closer to 10° per side (or even less in the case of the model 18), survive without major damage, regardless of steel, while all those I cannot thin below 15° per side have major damage in very few strokes: On the Neeley the major damage goes away with a 20° micro-bevel.

So it seems that the assumption that thinner angles will always lead to greater damage could be true from 20° per side down to 15°, but not from 15° on down, depending on edge thinness... The reason is fairly obvious: 30° inclusive is still a fairly blunt wedge, but with not enough strength at the edge "tip" to take the deceleration. You combine that with a thick edge base, and what you get is larger energy transfer.

Note the cheap low-carbon Aus-6 of the Al Mar, whose geometry is so thin you can litterally feel the blade decelerates "softly" into the wood: Less deceleration could mean less damage to the edge, up to a point... That being said, the edge bease on the Chris Reeves at 0.040" is not particularly thick, so it does seem like around 15° per side is a bad range of angles, and edge durability gets better both below and above that...

Note that Cliff Stamp reported that 10° per side was often absolutely no problem while chopping wood, and that his preferred angle is 12° per side... And he has more experience chopping wood with knives than just about anybody on earth...

Gaston

 

[cricketdave]

I was always underwhelmed with cliff Stamp's posts and videos on here he was completely full of crap a lot of the time and eventually was banned for good reason.

As for the angle's and measurements your listing its really hard to tell exactly where your measuring so its difficult to actually respond, in the photo's of the Neely knife at least it looks thinned too much to me. I'd really love to see Sam look at it and whack a few things and see what he thinks.

Just for giggles I took one of my knives out and whacked a tree with it, its a 7.5inch regulator from Scrapyard knives, just plain carbon steel and the edge is unchanged from new, I did sharpen it a bit when I got it just enough to shave with it holds an edge very well.

Ok first pic is one swing into a 3 inch cottonwood, because that tree was one I didn't mind loosing.

took 4 or 5 swings to completely sever the tree

no edge change at all

still shaves curls

Now thats totally unscientific but shows how it chops, and its a absurdly thick blade .33 or so at the spine. Looking at the pics i hope will show how difficult it really is to tell both from mine and from your pics Gaston anything of real substance about both the steel and the edge angle.

 

[Gaston444]

Knowing the edge angle and thickness behind the bevel would be informative, as the 0.33 spine thickness should boost chopping performance hugely...

Thick spines do help chopping performance, so a 20° edge will look good with those. I have repeatedly complained about the Randalls not being their advertised thickness by a long shot, which robs them of chopping performance, even with their thin edges...

Concerning steel performance, the Chris Reeve Jereboam's edge folded and made long wire edges (from mere chopping on maple) with a measured 15° on the Wicked Edge sharpener of a professional sharpener, so at least that's a known value... The Randalls and Aus-6 Al Mar seems very untemperamental in comparison, and even when sharpened at thinner angles from the same guy they seem bulletproof...

To be fair to the Chris reeves, once I re-sharpened the original edge my way the edge folding during chopping stopped, just like the Neeley stopped chipping from having a more open micro-bevel... Neither of them seem to match the Model 12 in edge holding, but they are not necessarily defective in heat treat...

Even if it turns out there's nothing wrong with the Neeley's steel, 0.060" to 0.074" behind the edge bevel means the knife will rapidly lose all cutting agility in the field, and will be little more than a strong bar of steel after some hard use... Furthermore, in my experience, when you increase effort when cutting, you increase the risk of self-injury... Thinner edges do save on effort...

To my surprise, I have found that even whittling points on small sticks is quite an energetic task with long blades, because the leverage of long blades, as you slide down the stick when slicing, tends to work against you, and this asks for much more effort to finish the slice if you try to do it quickly... This is one area where I think a long flat ground blade like the Farid would score...

I loved the Neeley's design and its efficiency (it is very slim and yet did out-chop and out-saw most others...) but the thick 0.060" edge was just too much, and essentially overwhelmed the design's other strong points... The TOPS Hellion was also compromised in the same way by its edge thickness, but the straight edges were easier to thin evenly, and the steel tolerated thinner angles. It's not great but it is good enough.

Gaston

P.S. Another unrelated issue I have found with the Neeley is that the handle tube is screwed on but not pinned in its position (maybe he just used Locktite?)... After about 200 chops it rotated, and you can now disassemble it with ease: Given the threaded soft brass cylinder that serves as a connector, this will loosen more and more, and the knife will soon need tightening every ten chops at best... Chopping does induce rotating efforts on the blade...

Also, concerning Cliff Stamp, not to derail the thread, as I have no strong opinion about this, but could you mention an issue you felt turned you against him? G.

 

[TAH]

P.S. Another unrelated issue I have found with the Neeley is that the handle tube is screwed on but not pinned in its position (maybe he just used Locktite?)... After about 200 chops it rotated, and you can now disassemble it with ease: Given the threaded soft brass cylinder that serves as a connector, this will loosen more and more, and the knife will soon need tightening every ten chops at best...

Instead of sending your knife to Sam, perhaps you should send it to Vaughn for inspection and evaluation. It would be interesting to hear his thoughts on all of this.

 

[guns_and_labs]

I would take him up on the offer, Sam.

I vote, "take the offer", too.

 

[guns_and_labs]

Thanks, Tom. I gotta give it to Gaston, he's used a Neeley, Farid, Randall, and an R.J. Martin to actually chop wood. I think plenty of people would rather have a heart attack first, lol.

I've never used a Farid, but I've used the other three FAR more destructively than just chopping wood, and add to that a few others as well (including a couple of yours, Sam). But I don't handicap them by changing their geometry and metallurgy and then blaming the design or construction. I use them AS DESIGNED, and then if I want to modify them, it's on me.

 

[cricketdave]

Other than he was full of crap Gaston not much, it was his whole lets grind the crap out of someones knife, bust it in half, then blame the maker for a bad design. Thats what annoyed me about him, he was really full of it.

 

[guns_and_labs]

P.S. Another unrelated issue I have found with the Neeley is that the handle tube is screwed on but not pinned in its position (maybe he just used Locktite?)... After about 200 chops it rotated, and you can now disassemble it with ease: Given the threaded soft brass cylinder that serves as a connector, this will loosen more and more, and the knife will soon need tightening every ten chops at best... Chopping does induce rotating efforts on the blade...

That might be a clue that chopping was not in the design specification.

 

[Gaston444]

Sam is going to take a look at it and see what he can do with the edge, and what he can do to solve the unscrewing issue. I think both could be fixable (the edge will be hard though), and he will be as objective as anyone... He agrees the knife is thick edged at 0.060", havind seen an SA in person, and he recommends 0.025", which I agree with. Randalls are 0.020" at the bevel shoulder, and are actually on the thin side of good, and yet the edges are seemingly bulletproof against chopping damage, including those in O-1 (those seem routinely a little thicker than the stainless ones, at around 0.025").

I think the reason thin edges can act "tougher" could be that the smaller bevel of thin edges gets buried deeper into the wood, so the wood actually "protects" the edge from assymetrical bending forces... So thinner edges are not necessarily more fragile while chopping... If you go thicker and more open in angle, then you have to go fairly thick, which is why a "thinned thick edge" might have micro-failures, because it falls "in-between", and the bending is concentrated on narrower, less deeply penetrating "wood captive" edges surfaces...

The design, edge aside, does perform and out-chops all other knives I have except maybe my RJ Martin "Blackbird", which I did not test beyond the sawback... The outstanding chopping performance of the SA9 is a big mystery to me, as the thick edge and narrow blade should handicap it... It sometimes blows away the San Mai III Trailmaster by almost two to one, and that is in the same class as the BK-9 and the Chris Reeves Jereboam... Only the Randall Model 12 is anywhere close... Sometimes the Trailmaster is closer to the 12, as it is kind of erratic: I have good cuts and bad cuts with that one, maybe because the handle feels strange...

To say chopping was not part of the design is a bit strange for such a large knife. It has many uniquely strong points, including by far the largest handle compartment of any hollow handle, and in my opinion one of the best designed guards and the best pommel.

As an aside, the handle compartment is so large that it can take a 4" 6 hour lightstick, but, as I found out to my dismay, if you chop a lot with it, the light stick will turn on, even if it was fully wrapped with thin cord and twenty matches... Oh well, it was worth a try...

Gaston

 

[TAH]

Other than he was full of crap Gaston not much, it was his whole lets grind the crap out of someones knife, bust it in half, then blame the maker for a bad design. Thats what annoyed me about him, he was really full of it.

That's how I remember Cliff as well.

 

[bearcut]

After bashing his knives for the umpteenth time, Bill Harsey said it best;

"Cliff, if you know so much about the right way to make a knife, why don't you start making your own and show the rest of us how it should be done. Until then, shut up."

Cliffy never did. The crickets are still chirping........

Then their was the guy with the hockey mask........

 

[TAH]

Sam is going to take a look at it and see what he can do with the edge, and what he can do to solve the unscrewing issue.

Gaston or Sam,

Any update on the Neeley?

 

[Ryo Saeba]

I'm loving my cold steel bushman. It's become my favorite knife for when I take my dog on a walk. Been super handy cutting small limbs and I keep a plastic grocery bag in the handle to pick up litter or any edible plants I happen to come across.

 

[Gaston444]

Gaston or Sam,

Any update on the Neeley?

Yes, Sam has received the Neeey and thinks it is easily fixable. Meanwhile I have got a new Sanders sheath for it as the old one was very good but scuffed up real easy: I even varnished the original sheath with Future to try to make it less scuff-prone, but that seemed to make things worse...

If the Neeley blade gets vapor blasted it will get only light chopping testing, if any... I don't think the edge angle had anything to do with the chipping: It was more likely the unpolished rough edge finish due the Extra-Coarse Dia-Sharp hone... I don't want the angle changed, as it is really OK as it is...

In the meantime I found and lowered the price on a Pre-dot Lile Mission(!): $1770 I felt was a very good deal for a near-mint pre-dot Lile of around 30 year of age...: The black paint was of poor quality but protected the blade. Also the point was ground a little thicker than what I have seen on others, so I took a gamble on my biggest worry about it and it turned out OK!:

First impressions: Condition is better than even the pic suggests... I've seen much worse Liles go for much higher... Black paint is cheap and was stripped off easily (I did not strip the guard), revealing a rather rough underlying sand-blasted finish, which now looks like stonewashed with polishing paste... I will have it Cerakoated after testing, so it will still look new even after I put it through its paces...

The blade finish is rather industrial-grade, apparently the blade was mass-produced on a dual grinder, which shows near the plunge line, but not bothersome to me: The clip bevel symmetry is excellent, and that really counts for me, so I don't complain... The Farid felt much more refined in most if not all respects, but the clip grind symmetry was off in the bevel lines (perfect in plan view though): Hard to say which I like best, I'll give the Lile a pass for its age but not its price... The better feeling of quality of the Farid can be gauged by the compass: Very refined top-quality dry compass in the Farid, liquid compass with a huge bubble (making it useless) rattling loose in the handle for the Lile... Hohum...

The old Lile leather was pristine and is exquisite, and much better than some of the more recent sheaths for this knife. To give an idea of the knife's age, the brass rod sharpener was completely greened over from age...

Comparing the balance to the Farid is pointless, because the Farid's all-steel pommel is so heavy it skewers any comparison: The Lile Mission balances 3/4" into the blade, which is good, but it still feels very blade light because of the oversized clip: The oversized clip takes some getting used to: It looks nice in pictures, but at around 5" it feels lightweight and a bit like a movie prop in person...: If you look at it in the movie, it is often framed in close-up and cut-off at the clip, making the knife look much bigger than it is, because the eye assumes this is 1/3rd of the knife not 1/2...

The edge was a mere non-existent grind line, around 40° per side, but much more important the edge base thickness is an excellent 0.028", so it is close to ideal once the edge bevel is entirely re-done... Again rather dubious edge work for the price, but the basic geometry is good, and I've seen some close-ups of more recent production which make me suspect the post-dots are much thicker at the edge base... That was one of the reasons I wanted an original Lile, as I had heard they were thinner at the edge...

Overall I am reasonably happy with it, the symmetry being a big deal to me. It is much rougher in finish than a two-tone finish version I suppose, but with a Cerakoat it will look fine. An amusing tidbit is the pommel is interchangeable with the RJ Martin, and the Lile's was even by some margin less rough-looking(!): I swapped them...: Must be a unique case among hollow handles from different makers! I heard the handle cord was from the Lile shop, even the handles, but I can only confirm the buttcap, as the handle diameter seems a bit different, despite the near-identical buttcaps...

Gaston

 

[TAH]

Gaston,

Thanks for the update on the Neeley. Hopefully, Sam will chime in and give us his thoughts.

Also, congrats on the Lile and thanks for your detailed first impressions. That's just a good looking knife. It is interesting to hear from someone who owns other HH knives for comparison. Any small shortcoming it has really doesn't matter at this point. It is an iconic knife and will always have a special place in the hearts of HH enthusiasts. :thumbup:

 

[Delaine]

Hi Gaston444, I've only just joined but have been a viewer of Blade Forums for some time. This thread has been a particular favourite of mine. I seem to be unable to send you a private message so I'll have to say this here.....please, I beg you, do not have that Jimmy Lile altered! Let me buy it off of you, it is a small piece of history and I think it would be dreadful to see it tampered with in any way. I am more than happy to negotiate a deal with you to save this iconic knife. Please consider my offer, kind regards, Delaine.