Things I'd like to see in a knife test

[wildmanh]

I've seen a lot of knife tests over the years and there are somethings that I've come to like and dislike about the tests. In this thread I'm going to focas on the positive and mention things I'd like to see.

I'd like to see more "Field tests" of knives. If the blade was ment to cut brush and small logs, go out cut brush and small logs. Don't try to pry the hood of a car off with it. Now if thats what the knife is for, please lets see it.

Lets see real world tests of knives. Say you have a "Hard use" blade, take it out of town for a campout or day hike, chop, pry and dig with it. Great, but don't take it into your shop, put it in a vise the pound on it with a hammer or mallet. Ummm I've never found a vise and mallet in the woods that needed beating before so that really isn't a good test to me. If I'm chopping or splitting wood in the mountains or even just in the county out of town I'm not going to grab a steel rod to use to pound on the knife, I'm going to use part or the log I just chopped in half or that branch laying over by the fire or the one I just snapped from a dead tree.

Real world testing IE go camping and use whats there and whats practical. I don't care if you can beat a knife with a hammer for hours on end. I want to know how it's going to cut up my food for dinner, how well it will chop the Quakies, Oak and Maple that are in the areas I camp. If it's a pocket knife that supposedly has tons of edge retention, don't pound it into cynder blocks, I've not needed to do that at work when I'm throwing freight and opening boxes all day. But I would like to know how many slices into cardboard it can take before needing a touch up. I've cut up tons of cardboard and paper at work. But never needed to cut open a brick. And at work if I did need to do that, we had the tools to do it.

One test I rather liked is when Noss did the Browning Crowell/Barker
Competition Knife Outdoor Test. That to me was a Real World test. I noticed on his site that he is still going to do the destructive test. I probably won't watch it cause I don't care. What I did like is the fact that he chopped wood with a knife designed for it and found out it's good and bad points based off it's intended purpose. I guess I care more about this: Does the knife do it's intended purpose, and if so, does it do it well. If the answer is yes, great, if not then that blade needs some help.

Recreating the conditions in which you would use the knife then testing it, or going out and actually using the knife in the real conditions is what I personally like to see. Thanks for listening and feel free to comment.

Heber

 

[thombrogan]

How could you have ever been in the woods if you haven't come across a vise that needed to clamp one of your knives while you pounded it into oblivion?

So you're looking for tests similar to Heber's test of the RD-9?

 

[wildmanh]

How could you have ever been in the woods if you haven't come across a vise that needed to clamp one of your knives while you pounded it into oblivion?

So you're looking for tests similar to Heber's test of the RD-9?

Thom, your first line really cracks me up. And no, I've never needed to pound my knives through an anvil or vise in the woods or canyons or desserts that I've camped in. LOL!!

As far as the Ranger RD-9 test.. Um my name is Heber and I go by wildmanh on knifeforums and used to Frequent the Ranger knives forum. Now I spend my time on gun forums and BF.C so I don't get there much. Heber is not a common name so I wonder if you are thinking about my own review of the Becker BK-9 I did a few years ago. I ground a convex edge, sharpened the false edge then ground a choil into it. Works awesome. I even did some Penetration tests with it against a Swamp Rat Camp trap. The BK-9 won. At the time both knives were stock. The CT did not have a penatrator tip from the factory, the tip was really thick and almost blunt. Edge was really thick also. My BK-9 came sharper out of the box, thinner edge and sharper point.... I would test both in chopping and cutting up potatoes, carrots, onions, squash and other things I put into my dutch Ovens. The BK-9 slided veggies better and chopped just the same if not a little better then the Swamp Rat CT so I sold the CT when money was tight. Those tests were real world and the Rat literally didn't cut it so I got rid of it. Now I know for a fact that my CT was an anomily. I could have shipped it back had the flaws fixed but needed the money. If I went off of just that one flawed sample, I'd never tough that brand or knife again. Actually I'm in the market for a CT. But since I payed $129 for it when they were in production I'm not paying the current asking price of over $200 for it now.

I guess this story is for two points and not dirrected souly at anyone but every one. I want to see Real world tests and if you are going to do destructive tests please use multiple samples. You could have gotten a knife with a forging flaw that wasn't caught do to a bad day, you may have gotten a knife that had a bad heat treat or maybe even the company that supplied the steel was off with that bar so the actual stock was bad.

Bark River knife and tool makes some great slicers and choppers. When they test a brush blade they don't pound it into steel pipes till it breaks. They take it camping, clean trails with it, chop wood and maybe even make dinner with it. That is Real World in the field testing and I want to see more of it.

If a company says that their knife will penatrate really well and better then other knives in it's size and weight catagory I want to see someone test it out against other blades. Right now Swamp Rat hasn't impressed me with that because again, my Becket went deaper into phone books, it went deeper into roasts and wood. But mine was a fluke so if I ever get the chance to test again I will and I look forward to that day. Sure the blunt edge and tip on my Swamp Rat could handle things my Becker couldn't but I didn't buy the CT for chopping bricks and concrete I bought it to slice and chop in camp and it wasn't as good at it. One of my Busse knives had a sharp but thick edge. Another one had an edge that was perfect. My Satin Jack would slice all day long but my Badger Attack III wasn't a good slicer when it came to slicing thick stuff. Guess what, I sold the BA III way before I sold the Satin Jack when money was tight because the SJ lived upto it's hype/intended purpose but the BAIII didn't. I rather liked the BAIII also and if I hadn't needed that money I would have either changed the edge to something that actually cut thick stuff or I would have sent it back to Busse for them to work over. For me my $265 knife was out cut, out chopped and out stabbed by $60 to $125 knives so I kept the cheeper ones. Sure my busse would be hard to break but all it was was a prybar with an edge.

Now, if thats what the knife is marketed as, Great show me that. But if it's a chopper show me it chopping. But show me the chopping out in the enviroment it was intended for. When Noss Tested a dive knife in his remake of real world enviroments I liked it because he tested it for what it was made for. I've smashed edges together before, knife 1 was an SK-5 Carbon steel SOG Bowie, the other was a Busse Satin Jack with INFI steel. Guess what both blades ended up with the same sized ding and both sharpened out so you couldn't tell it happened. Both edges looked the same. Hmmm but it didn't tell he how well they both chopped wood, how well they penatrated flash or wood, or how well they cut rope. Only that I could chop each other and they looked the same. And I have never chopped a tree with a knife stick in it. Sure I've chopped a tree with nails, wire, rocks and screws in it but never a knife. If the tree or log had steel I'd try to remove said steel before chopping it or work around it.

So if we are going to test a brush blade, lets test it against brush. Show before and after picks. I want to see someone test a skinning/food knife on a deer and I want to see it used to cut up veggies to go with the deer you just skinned with the knife. I don't care that my 4" bladed skinning knike can open a tank or car. I'm not going to do that. I'm going to skin a deer with my skinning knife or a rabit. Show me that. Also if you want to test a knife for use in the woods, why not either recreate those tests at home on trees, bushes and brush in the yard or a neighbors (with his permission) or go into the woods to test your woods knife. Thats pretty much the kinds of tests I want to see. I don't care that my old Swamp Rat CT was stonger then my Becker BK-9. Doesn't matter because the CT didn't live up to it's first priority of great penatration, great chopping and slicing. But, the BK-9 did. So I use it a lot. I cut wood with it, Shoot, it's even used as chefs knife in the kitchen when not in the woods cause it slices and chops sooo well.

I'm not mad or up set at people for their tests I'd just like to see more real world test and I just want to see whats I want to see. Thanks to all those that read this and post. And thanks to those that do the tests. And please if you could please do more real world tests. Thanks!!

Heber

 

[sodak]

Sarcasm on
Sounds great. Let us know when you are done with your tests, and post them, so we can critique them.
Sarcasm off

Testing is very difficult and time consuming. I don't like "real world" tests, I've found that they are too subjective for my liking. I've also had Busses with thick edges, I've thinned them out, and they continue to out-cut all the $30 wonders I've ever bought.

We can go round and round on this, but until you actually start measuring what it is that you are interested in, it's just campfire talk... I prefer more objective measures, but if you're happy with what you've got, that's fine too.

 

[thombrogan]

BK9! D'oh!

Oddly, I remembered you having a knife with a "nine" in its name and remembered a test made by Dwayne Puckett ("Dwayne" sounds an awful lot like "Heber" when you're overtired or haven't read something in four years) and maybe those plus your both being leatherbenders helped me with my faux pas.

Totally understand your criteria and can even rationalize its anti-intellectual tact. The measurements are always important, but they might not be measurements of what matter and it is not until the knife or tool is used until the measurements are seen to be plausible or noise.

 

[sodak]

I'm not mad or up set at people for their tests I'd just like to see more real world test and I just want to see whats I want to see. Thanks to all those that read this and post. And thanks to those that do the tests. And please if you could please do more real world tests. Thanks!!

Heber

Sorry Heber,

I was in a pretty bad mood when replying to your post, I'll try to be more kind and somewhat more objective here. What would you consider a good real world test? I think that's the problem that I have, what someone considers a good real-world test, another might think is not.

I note that a lot of people talk about how well their knives prepare their dinner. I'm lucky if I even heat my hot dogs or spagetti out of a can before I eat it. So slicing tomatoes is just something I'm never going to do. But woodworking tasks are a definite possibility...

 

[Confederate]

Well, there is some correlation between the tests and what the knives are ultimately used for. Cold Steel's "tests" of cutting up cut resistant gloves is sheer idiocy. You can bet that anything their knives will cut through (pinned to the table like that) any blade would be able to cut just as well, even a no-name Chinese blade. Their tests on locks and blade stress, however, are more valid. The one thing I don't want a blade to do is come folding back on my fingers. That's why I don't buy linerlock knives unless they have some sort of a guard, like the CRKTs.

Edge retention is tough to guage in brief tests, but Cold Steel's cutting of cardboard also, I think, are fairly valid. You're not going to get a super premium knife blade from Cold Steel, but the blade you do get is probably going to be pretty well done for the steel, and that's based on my own experience. CRKTs are less likely to be good steel for what one gets.

Smashing tanto blades through car tops? Well, they're more like chase scenes in movies. Empty minutes where you don't have to think. Still, one never knows when one will come across a car top in the woods. It's just possible.... (I personally wouldn't stick my knife blade into a car top because it would mar my nice teflon finish, which I keep oiled and polished so I can take photos of it.)

I don't put much stock in knife magazines or any medium that can be influenced by advertising dollars. I do put a lot of stock in the opinions found here. Some knives you don't have to test. If you have a Gerber that says "400-series" "surgical stainless," you can pretty much assume it's junk. It'll still rip open a bag of potato chips, but then, so will a five-dollar Chinese special.

 

[wildmanh]

Well, there is some correlation between the tests and what the knives are ultimately used for. Cold Steel's "tests" of cutting up cut resistant gloves is sheer idiocy. You can bet that anything their knives will cut through (pinned to the table like that) any blade would be able to cut just as well, even a no-name Chinese blade. Their tests on locks and blade stress, however, are more valid. The one thing I don't want a blade to do is come folding back on my fingers. That's why I don't buy linerlock knives unless they have some sort of a guard, like the CRKTs.

Edge retention is tough to guage in brief tests, but Cold Steel's cutting of cardboard also, I think, are fairly valid. You're not going to get a super premium knife blade from Cold Steel, but the blade you do get is probably going to be pretty well done for the steel, and that's based on my own experience. CRKTs are less likely to be good steel for what one gets.

Smashing tanto blades through car tops? Well, they're more like chase scenes in movies. Empty minutes where you don't have to think. Still, one never knows when one will come across a car top in the woods. It's just possible.... (I personally wouldn't stick my knife blade into a car top because it would mar my nice teflon finish, which I keep oiled and polished so I can take photos of it.)

I don't put much stock in knife magazines or any medium that can be influenced by advertising dollars. I do put a lot of stock in the opinions found here. Some knives you don't have to test. If you have a Gerber that says "400-series" "surgical stainless," you can pretty much assume it's junk. It'll still rip open a bag of potato chips, but then, so will a five-dollar Chinese special.

You've pretty much got what I was meaning. Thanks for the reply.

Sorry Heber,

I was in a pretty bad mood when replying to your post, I'll try to be more kind and somewhat more objective here. What would you consider a good real world test? I think that's the problem that I have, what someone considers a good real-world test, another might think is not.

I note that a lot of people talk about how well their knives prepare their dinner. I'm lucky if I even heat my hot dogs or spagetti out of a can before I eat it. So slicing tomatoes is just something I'm never going to do. But woodworking tasks are a definite possibility...

Sodak, no worries. You are so right, my "Real world" test and someone elses may not be the same for the same exact knife. I'm pretty much looking for tests that show standard and heavy usage of the knife. Maybe the person who does the review has a different use for the knife and thats okay. Thanks for posting. I do apreciate hearing other peoples points of view even if I don't always understand them or agree with them. Help us learn.

Noss and I have been talking about the types of tests I'd like to see and he's going to do some more of them in the fall when he can get out long enough to do them. I should be doing some more camping this summer and plan to do some of my own tests or Field reports. Pretty much if you take a knife or tool out into the field and use it then come back here and report back, thats a report from the field. Use the blade and report back on it with some detail. Don't just say "I went camping with x knife and it worked good". Thats all fine and dandy, but that doesn't tell me what you cut with it and how it lived up to your expectations. Details, we want Details, tell use what you cut, how you cut it and if you can show pictures thats even better. And I'm going to try to do that in the next few weeks.

Heber

 

[sodak]

You make a good point. The thing that I like also, is whenever someone publishes a test, I usually read it 2 or 3 times, they are always interesting!

 

[J33psru1e]

....

 

[Vivi]

After reading many tests and reviews from various folks, I am not too concerned with the molecular structure of various types of steel at 57Rc vs, 59Rc or how much concrete I can chop up. These types of tests are entertaining to some degree but the information is just not that useful to me. Clearly there are many folks who are interested in this type of testing.

I find steel information interesting for a variety of reasons. Certain steels are often promoted or used in strange ways, and knowing about steel properties lets one more accurately judge whether those steel choices are well suited or not. It helps me decide which steel to use for certain applications. I also enjoy developing tests to get an idea of where each steel stands in relation to others where it concerns corrosion resistance, edge holding, toughness etc.

I don't like a review to be solely about the blade steel, but I do see a lot of so-so reviews that don't even cover it. A review where someone says "The knife appears to be put together well and it feels good in the hand" doesn't tell me very much. How does the geometry cut? Did you try taking it thinner? If not, why? Did you have edge failure at the current edge angle? What were you cutting? Did you do anything to test corrosion resistance or toughness? Did you take the knife apart? Did you use the knife every day for months to see how the ergonomics are, check carry and draw, observe frequency of sharpenings, test lock security? A lot of reviews do not include information like this. These are some of the things I look for in a review (And try to provide in my own).

OP: Here's a review where I cut cardboard boxes and food. Not the most exciting thing but it's what I use knives for.

http://raum.10gbfreehost.com/Articles/UKPK.html

 

[mrkabar0809]

The much sought after "senbenza". I would love to see what they can do if anything. Beside riding in a pocket or sitting in a drawer.