The Knife Life (Minor Topics and Random Stuff Thread)

Meast58 said:
I have a question that has been on my mind. Can you hurt the heat treatment on a knife, by doing a lot of cutting through "high friction" materials? Is it possible generate enough heat?
Click to expand...

To answer your question definitively, NO. No way in hell. You will never, ever (as a human being) be able to cut anything fast enough to damage the heat treatment of any knife EVER.

You could take the sharpest knife you own and cut through stacks of sandpaper repeatedly, as fast as you can, and never generate enough heat to damage the knife. The knife will take damage, for sure. But from the abrasions, not from the heat of the friction.

A wise man once told me "if you have a knife in your hand, and you are doing anything that will damage the heat treatment of the knife, you should be more worried about your hand than the knife."
 
^That quote lol

I have a question, I'm looking into getting a Spyderco Domino. I love my PM2 but it is a bit big and I also love my Delica 4 which is fantastic. I'm just looking for a nicer looking knife. Now I know that the Domino is a flipper, but is it assisted or manual? If it is assisted, is it easy to remove the spring?
 
Just dropped $500 on a knife and got sick immediately after; coincidence? I think not. But seriously, I won't be able to enjoy the new blade when I get it because I'll either be sick as hell (still) or catching up on work...
 
Recently got did a 180 on all I've come to hold dear. Over the years, I've learned:
-I'm happy with the few great knives I have and feel no need to buy the newest thing.
-I hate tantos
-I have no desire to get a higher end version of a model that I can get at a lower price. For example, a standard S30V Spyderco Para 2 is just fine for me. No need to seek out Paras with "premium" steels.

Then I saw the Zero Tolerance 0620CF. I had to have it. A week later it was in my pocket. Blah.
 
Krissig12 said:
Haha whoops, I went back to read your post and now I feel kinda dumb :o

I quoted "abrasive material" when you actually said "high friction material"..... I have no idea where I got that from, but hey, here we are! Lol
Click to expand...

I feel kind of stupid as well, I was thinking of "abrasive material", as something that would cause heat due to the friction from the "abrasiveness". I wasn't being sarcastic, i thought you dropped me a "pearl of wisdom".

I don't know, now my entire life has turned into a shit show.
 
Last edited:
AntDog said:
To answer your question definitively, NO. No way in hell. You will never, ever (as a human being) be able to cut anything fast enough to damage the heat treatment of any knife EVER.

You could take the sharpest knife you own and cut through stacks of sandpaper repeatedly, as fast as you can, and never generate enough heat to damage the knife. The knife will take damage, for sure. But from the abrasions, not from the heat of the friction.

A wise man once told me "if you have a knife in your hand, and you are doing anything that will damage the heat treatment of the knife, you should be more worried about your hand than the knife."
Click to expand...

Thank you. So what is the fuss over "work hardening" a knife? I knew it was a giant plate of BS, but I needed to be sure.

I have heard people say they sliced through so much thick cardboard, that it changed the heat treatment of the knife.
 
Meast58 said:
I feel kind of stupid as well, I was thinking of "abrasive material", as something that would cause heat due to the friction from the "abrasiveness". I wasn't being sarcastic, i thought you dropped me a "pearl of wisdom".

I don't know, now my entire life has turned into a shit show.
Click to expand...

Oh man, I'm so confused.....

Do you mean that I supplied you with the word you were looking for? Like "abrasive material" was more accurate than "high friction material", and you were grateful for the suggestion? If that's the case, I must be honest and say that I actually just made a mistake in my quoting, and it had nothing to do with any wisdom pearls :D I didn't take you're post as sarcastic, though. It just drew my attention to the mistake.


Haha whatever, I think this one just needs to drop;)

Antdog nailed it on the head though. You'll never be able to damage the Heat treat unless you're doing something so REDICULOUSLY extreme that you risk damaging your hand as well.
 
Meast58 said:
Thank you. So what is the fuss over "work hardening" a knife? I knew it was a giant plate of BS, but I needed to be sure.

I have heard people say they sliced through so much thick cardboard, that it changed the heat treatment of the knife.
Click to expand...

Who said that? My advice would be to never, ever listen to them about anything.

There is absolutely zero chance you will ever change or damage the heat treatment of a knife by cutting cardboard. Or anything else for that matter.

If I cut a lot of cardboard very quickly, yes, the blade feels a little warm to the touch. 500 degrees warm? Nope. Nowhere near. Glowing red hot? Nope.

Cut as much stuff as you want, as fast as you want to cut it. No worries.
 
So like what is the concept behind "work hardening" anyway? Some people say it happens for some steels (like H1 for example).

Is it just BS or does it actually refer to a real thing? Like you said, cutting through things doesn't change the heat treat. So then what would "work harden" the edge? I've never understood this.
 
There is no work hardening. Period.

They probably suck at sharpening and have a wire edge or something that they essentially strop off while cutting cardboard...making their edge seem "harder." But you aren't going to change the heat treat by cutting stuff unless you are cutting stuff inside of a 500 deg furnace for longer than you can live in there.
 
^^^exactly.

Just to illustrate the point:

I work at a press plant. One of our presses runs at 50,000 impressions an hour. That's fast. A lot faster than a human being could cut anything, correct? When the press is going full bore, the paper is moving so fast you can hardly see it. There is a blade at the end of the press called a "slitter". It is a stationary blade that cuts the paper cleanly as it comes out the end of the press. It does this all day long, every day, for months before it needs to be sharpened or changed. If the temper was being burned out of it, it wouldn't last a day. Same thing with so called "work hardening". It does eventually go dull, but it's from abrasion. Not from friction generated heat.

It would be like you getting into a car and going 50mph, sticking your knife out the window, and cleanly slicing miles and miles of newsprint all day long.
 
Krissig12 said:
Oh man, I'm so confused.....

Do you mean that I supplied you with the word you were looking for? Like "abrasive material" was more accurate than "high friction material", and you were grateful for the suggestion? If that's the case, I must be honest and say that I actually just made a mistake in my quoting, and it had nothing to do with any wisdom pearls :D I didn't take you're post as sarcastic, though. It just drew my attention to the mistake.


Haha whatever, I think this one just needs to drop;)

Antdog nailed it on the head though. You'll never be able to damage the Heat treat unless you're doing something so REDICULOUSLY extreme that you risk damaging your hand as well.
Click to expand...

I agree!
 
AntDog said:
Who said that? My advice would be to never, ever listen to them about anything.

There is absolutely zero chance you will ever change or damage the heat treatment of a knife by cutting cardboard. Or anything else for that matter.

If I cut a lot of cardboard very quickly, yes, the blade feels a little warm to the touch. 500 degrees warm? Nope. Nowhere near. Glowing red hot? Nope.

Cut as much stuff as you want, as fast as you want to cut it. No worries.
Click to expand...

I was reading a thread on H1, before I got my H1 Dragonfly. In the thread, they said H1 held a crappy edge so they would sharpen it and then slice "thick cardboard" and lastly resharpen it again. They acted like somehow that gave H1 better edge retention through a magical process called "Work Hardening".
I think I want a sample of what ever they were smoking!

I knew it was garbage, but I needed to have that theory verified. Which you guys did. If I can find the tread, I will copy/paste a link.
 
I appreciate the fact that everyone politely pointed out that you can't ruin the heat treat of a knife by cutting things fast but in all honesty, I was making the "HONKA HONKA" clown sound when I saw how far the discussion on the topic went! It boggles my mind that someone would make a claim THAT stupid.

Meast85, nothing personal against you at all man! You obviously knew what that nar nar was saying is ridiculous. My point is that, it's brain melting that someone out there believed their own nonsense. If I were you, I'd tell homeboy he's had his head "work hardened".
 
KaBAKZ said:
^That quote lol

I have a question, I'm looking into getting a Spyderco Domino. I love my PM2 but it is a bit big and I also love my Delica 4 which is fantastic. I'm just looking for a nicer looking knife. Now I know that the Domino is a flipper, but is it assisted or manual? If it is assisted, is it easy to remove the spring?
Click to expand...

It is not assisted. I don't know of a single Spyderco that is assisted.
 
Holy moly I made some unexpected purchases, so watch out for some fire sale threads from me soon.

Also, super excited about some great news in the traditional/GEC world!

On the other side of things, I just dropped my Chokwe with custom maple burl scale onto the pavement and chipped it in a couple places (thankfully small though)
 
AntDog said:
To answer your question definitively, NO. No way in hell. You will never, ever (as a human being) be able to cut anything fast enough to damage the heat treatment of any knife EVER.

You could take the sharpest knife you own and cut through stacks of sandpaper repeatedly, as fast as you can, and never generate enough heat to damage the knife. The knife will take damage, for sure. But from the abrasions, not from the heat of the friction.

A wise man once told me "if you have a knife in your hand, and you are doing anything that will damage the heat treatment of the knife, you should be more worried about your hand than the knife."
Click to expand...
THANK YOU!!! There was recently a thread where someone asked how to sterilize a knife in the field, and when someone suggested a quick wave through the fire a bunch of people said that might hurt the ht. My response was your quote about exactly.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top