You were clearly excited about having it sent to Vaughn in our phone conversation, as you hoped he would re-hollow grind it.
Well, all I remember clearly is that you mentioned
your paper-wheel (I had never heard the term paper wheel before, and you explained it). I do remember you asked me what I wanted
you to do to it, and we discussed keeping the same angle on it. But you could be right that we changed plans during the discussion: For some reason all I remembered was only the initial plan we made, but maybe there was a change of plans along the way... It doesn't matter anyway, as the knife is useless for any purpose the way it is made.
Again, I am simply letting you know that I am not in possession of your knife, and it was sent to Vaughn as agreed upon. You should also leave off the mention of the heat treat, as over the phone you even admitted that you thought the edge was just too thin to support the heavy chopping you were doing, and that the heat treat was fine.
No, I said the edge held up (sort of) when I put a more open micro-bevel on it, like 25 per side. And then I said it is hard to say what this meant regarding the heat-treat, because there could be any number of
other reasons for the steel's pathetic performance at thinner angles... For instance, low-cleanness billets.
If I said anything positive about this piece of crap knife, it was along the lines of "edge holding is hard to judge reliably, and to draw conclusions from".
I do remember saying near the end of our conversation "
It will never be a good slicer", which pretty much says it all...
Below is a picture of the ridiculously oversized bevel you put on the knife. I explained to you very clearly that it was far in excess of "ideal," especially for a heavy knife like that made out of 440C and being used for heavy chopping.
You keep coming back over and over about that tall bevel, yet you always fail to mention the edge shoulder was
0.060" thick. Now why would that be?
When I examined the knife, the cause of the edge damage was very clearly the fact that it had a paper thin edge and the secondary edge bevel was nearly 3/16" wide, as is clearly shown in the photo below. I'm sure you're going to explain how this is ideal for some bizarre purpose, but in short, the answer is No, it's not. It looks hideous, it performs poorly for the heavy work you're subjecting it to (as evidenced by the repeated failures you have experienced), and in general is a real waste of a fine knife.
This fails to explain why
all four of my Randalls, and both my Liles, and even one Al Mar and the Colin Cox, survived
way more chopping work with edges
one third as thick... The damage on the Neeley knife was done nearly
instantly, in 30 hits or less. My Model 12 has probably over a thousand hits in it, and shows no damage from a much thinner edge...
Neeley: 0.060" edge base, 15-17 per side edge angle, and severe damage in 30 hits.
Model 12: 0.020" edge, 10-12 per side edge angle, and no damage in 800+ hits on the
same wood...
I doubt that the "paper thin" 0.060" edge on the Neeley was even below 17 per side... By the way, just how thick are the edges on
your knives?...
This does not completely rule out the possibility of an issue with the heat treat of the knife, but at this point the weight of available evidence points to the edge being very coarsely ground away to an insanely over-sized bevel that is clearly setup for failure for the task of heavy chopping. If you have any actual evidence or facts (other than your ego insisting the failure came from a very experienced knifemaker as opposed to your rudimentary sharpening hackjob), I would love to consider it and weigh it in the balance, since no one is infallible and I am not blindly defending Vaughn Neeley here.
Did you test the Neeley knife I sent you? If not,
how are you not blindly defending him when most of my other knives do very well under similar circumstances?
You're embarrassing yourself just as much now as when you reversed course and "realized" that flat ground knives make great choppers after arguing with everyone in this thread that hollow ground was the ultimate answer.
I discovered hollow grinds combine poorly with round Hollow Handles because I realized
that this blade geometry is more prone to rolling.
That is why I said flat grinds are better... For Hollow Handles... Which Hollow Handles I also argue hit harder, being broader...
My hollow ground Randall Model 12 still outperforms any similar size flat ground knife, because its handle is angled and not round, so it doesn't roll...
So not only have you just demonstrated that
you did not understand the nature of my change of mind, but you also clearly imply that never changing your mind increases your credibility...
And that, I'm afraid, is the crux of the problem here...
Gaston
