Tip penetration : amusing, actually quantitative as well

My work has been reviewed over a thousand times including in Publications such as Blade Magazine, Popular Mechanics and Discover Magazine. I have invited strangers to my shop to test my products for themselves and they have then come here and given there opinions as to my work. My work has been reviewed by real testers in such places as Iraq and the jungles of Peru. My work has been tested in the best physics labs that MIT and CalTech has to offer. You can come to any of the yearly shows I do every year and see and speak to me in person. Or like Mr. Hossom said you can pick up the phone and call me. That is alot of proof that I am the real deal.

All Cliff can provide on the other hand is that he is indeed a grad student in Newfoundland and that he knows how to type on a computor. Thats it! None of his knife related work has ever been accepted for publication. He is not an accepted expert in the field of knives (which in the State of Ca I am accepted by the courts as an expert).

When I introduced LM1 to the knife industry Cliff asked me for a knife for him to review. Knowing Cliff the way I do, I refused. That pissed Cliff off. So he did what he does to makers who refuse to give him knives. He conned one from someone else and destroyed it and wrote a nasty review. A review that I should mention flew in the face of all the other reviews given by all the other real experts in the fields of knife reviewing and physics.

So you have one negative out of hundreds of positives and that negative came from a source that is known for bais.

The math is pretty easy to figure out.

So when I see him doing it to other makers (makers who I really don't even know BTW), yeah it makes me mad.

So once again is the call for Cliff to step up and show proof or go away.
 
if Cliff is a meaningless unscientific fraud wind bag, why are you guys expending so much energy in arguing with him?
 
The personal attacks need to stop. This is the only warning I'll issue in this thread.
 
Ok Spark, I won't hurt Cliffs feelings.

But lets say that he is commiting a fraud by summiting fake testing results.

So Cliff, Lets see some proof.
 
That Cliff Stamp and/or his test are not perfect
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I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt and I try not to get into personal attacks about people I don't know. My contention is that the tests that Cliff does (and, I assume he actually does these things, although with so few pictures, no films, etc etc one never knows) are presented in a scientific fashion. I.e. there are lots of measurements, technical-sounding mumbo-jumbo, etc, but when it boils down to it, these are completely subjective tests that have no scientific credence and in any other industry would never, ever pass the muster of peer-review.

Yet on Bladeforums I would hazard that the things Cliff writes affect people's purchasing habits. I would also extrapolate this to mean that when he trashes a custom knife maker's product that it could affect their liveliehood. This isn't to say that people should be allowed to make wild claims, etc etc, but here's my rundown of the whole thing, in addition to what I've stated above:

1) Cliff's tests, if they are in fact being done at all, are backyard fun. Throwing frozen sheaths into the air, freezing knives in blocks of ice, leaving steel in saltwater for a week, smashing up cinder block, etc sounds like a lot of fun, but in the end it doesn't really say much about a knife, to me at least.
2) The tests he puts forth as scientific are not scientific. He has admitted that they aren't repeatable, he has admitted that skill level plays an important part, and I think everyone except the most diehard, hard-headed among us will agree that unless you control variables in an experiment, it is pure speculation about what is being tested.
3) Many knifemakers have criticized Cliff's methods and conclusions, and I think anyone who has read his reviews, especially over the last couple of years, will see a clear bias favoring factory knives over handmade knives. I have no problem with testing, comparisons, etc, but when I read research about the latest wonder drug, for example, and I see that the people who funded and carried out the tests are the drug's manufacturer, I have to sort of roll my eyes a bit. Therefore, when handmade knives from makers with good reputations fail all these tests, you have to kind of wonder whether the examiner's bias is causing that to happen or if all handmade knifemakers just stink at what they do.

So, that's basically it. I think the Passaround forum is the way to go if you want a knife reviewed. These are people who have purchased the knife and you get a wide variety of users and opinions about the piece. That is much more telling than giving a free knife, let's say, to one person and asking their opinion. So, I say stop hiding behind psuedo-scientific mumbo jumbo and just tell it like it is. This is what I did, here are the pictures, this is what happened.
 
Chiro75 said:
I guess you're not willing to admit that your tests are extremely subjective and that there is no control over the variables being tested.
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It states in the reviews that lots of the conclusions are subjective, some of them are almost completely personal issues like grip preferences, some of them are not subjective at all and fairly easy to quantify like sharpness.

By and large, the conclusions I have seen in your reviews seem to lean heavily toward factory knives, often of specific brands, and handmade knives tend to, by and large, perform poorly in your tests.
Click to expand...
Out of the handmade knives I have reviewed, the vast majority got positive comments from the makers with them being interested in further reviews, only one actually induced a negative responce from the maker.

Lots of handmade knives out performed customs, the highest level of cutting ability and edge retention described in the reviews are with hand made customs.

So from the above it is not clear if Hossom is still stating INFI is modified A8, of course you can "modify" any steel and turn it into anything else but that is just insensible, you can say any steel is modified iron by the same arguement.

The question is still obvious however, if INFI is really just a common cheap steel, how come no one is actually buying it and duplicating the performance Busse has achieved with much cheaper knives?

-Cliff
 
Chipper is a material typically used for wood chipping knives and is not produced typically in thicknesses less than 1/2 inch. This is why it is not commercially available for the general knife maker. Chipper is modified A8 in the sense that A8 was the parent grade and Chipper is the high chromium version of that grade. INFI initially was Chipper purchased by the producers of that material in knife thicknesses. What it is currently, I cannot comment since they do shop around. Mystery solved.
 
Wow what a thread!

Mr. Clark's personal attacks are reason enough for Cliff to ignore him completely. Mr. Clark claims to be a respected, great knifemaker. If that is true, why does he have to proclaim it, we should all know who he is and that he deserves his reputation. By the way Mr. Clark, how many knife performance competetions have you won? Where is your line of liquid metal knives? Pulling any all nighters to get your work done? Is a knife finished by you after 36 hours of straight work as good as one you made with sufficient sleep. See, you too have a history on this forum.

Mr. Chiro, how can a Chiropractor call Cliff unscientific. Your profession has a long history of frauds, poor science and just plain mythology...except for back adjustments. Isn't osteopathy the true scientific discipline? Isn't a scientific chiropractor an oxymoron? Your choice of proffession undermines your comments regarding the scientific method. Cliff has always indicated his tests are subjective, its people like you who assume otherwise.

Look at the knives made by Clark, Chiro and Razorback. Do they appear to be the best in the business, or middle to bottom level? Judge their comments by their work.
 
I have earned three awards thank you very much. See you don't win these things. But I guess you would not know anything about that.

Yah, your right I am only a poor to fair maker. Oh, thanks I needed a good laugh this morning.

None of this address the fact that Cliff's reviews are frauds. And he is doing nothing but hiding behind lies and text.

He claims makers are happy. Not by a long shot. You give Cliff a free knife you get a good review. If you don't give him a free knife, he will get on of yours anyways and do whatever it takes to destroy it. Then he writes the worlds a nasty review. Its all right their on his website to look over. Don't take my word for it. Go and read 40 or 50 reviews.

Cliff should get a camera and meet the stardard of any knife reviewer. But he won't. The question for you to ask yourself is why.
 
You guys are right. "A WOW what a thread" is in order. Lets make it past tense. I think it is time to let the fire die on this one and quit feeding it. We've all made our points now move on to another thread before Sparks locks this one for good.

Don't make it so I have to say I told you so.
 
Brownshoe, ad hominem attacks on my profession, of which you obviously know absolutely nothing, aren't going to bait me. If you'd like to discuss the latest research in chiropractic, feel free to email me. For others interested, I point them toward the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics and Spine, two medical journals that publish a good portion of the peer-reviewed scientific literature in the chiropractic field. Nice try, though! :p
 
R.W.Clark said:
You give Cliff a free knife you get a good review.
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Lots of the knives donated to me I don't think show particularly strong performance, several of the khukuris for example I was asked to review are not of great quality. The knives are not "free" either. I have to pay duty on all of them and the shipping returns because I don't keep any of them.

-Cliff
 
I'm sure that Cliff's knife tests don't stack up to the level of precision required at Fermilab, but then again, he fully admits that in his reviews, so there's nothing wrong with that.

The characteristic I have noticed as a result of this thread, though, is that Cliff appears to have enough class to not respond in kind to vicious, baseless attacks against not only his testing methods, but his personal integrity. My reaction to these attacks is much like my reaction to seeing an interview with a singer who is obviously vacuous, or finding out that an actor is a Scientologist; I might still be able to appreciate their craft to some extent, but the repulsive personality behind the object shows through. Those folks in this thread that have exhibited this lack of class have lost a customer base of at least one here.
 
R.W.Clark said:
When I introduced LM1 to the knife industry Cliff asked me for a knife for him to review.
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Can you show me where I did this, I don't recall it.

The last time I can remember asking for a knife to review was when Cobalt asked me about comparing the TUSK to a bunch of knives so I wrote a letter to Fallkniven, Cold Steel and someone else to see if they wanted the comparison done. That was like 10 years ago.

People ask me to do reviews all the time, like "Hey, can you review XXX knife.", I simply tell them I am willing to review pretty much anything but obviously I buy what I am personally interested in. Most people assume I don't buy anything.

From time to time I make such offers publically, like when Turner wanted Nemo to review the Uluchet and he said he was busy so I offered.

He conned one from someone else ...
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I never asked Gabe. He asked me as an afterthought during a discussion on reviewing a Pronghorn. I could probably find the email in my archives.

-Cliff
 
Yes Cliff you e-mailed me about 4 times shortly after I posted photos of the first proto types. I replyed that I would not be sending you any and deleted your posts.

Don't go asking for knives huh? Just heard from a maker on Tuesday that you were trying to get free knives out of him for a test of the new ........... . I could name about 15 makers that have told me you have tried to get free knives out of them but I don't want to drag their names into this and that would be heresay anyways as I am sure you would point out.
 
brownshoe my knives speak for themselves and I don't need you or anyone else to prove it to me. When I ask for someone to evaulate one of my knives, it's for my own personal satisfaction. People that know me and own my knives know what they can expect from me and my work.
Scott
 
R.W.Clark said:
Just heard from a maker on Tuesday that you were trying to get free knives out of him for a test of the new TOPS Dart.
Click to expand...
Never happened. Produce the emails for you or any of the makers, including of course a *full* header so I can check here with the sysadmin.

This is the entire email I sent to Rinaldi :

"In response to Slaytanics query on Bladeforums and request for a
comparison, so is the Dart meant to take the same kind of rough
prying/hammering, etc. abuse the Battle Rat will take."

Don't recall sending you any emails to that note either.

Of course why would I ask for *free* knives that I don't keep and cost me money to test. If I bought them at least I get to keep them.

You can ask the makers and user to confirm I actually return them.

-Cliff
 
Yeah sure never happened. Maybe the maker will chime in here.

Cliff, we don't bother to keep your e-mails. They get trashed as soon as we recieve them. Never know though maybe he has not cleaned out his trashcan.

The jist of the matter was you wanted to put the .... up against a Busse and wanted the ..... knife.
 
Mr. Chrio, Unfortunately I know a lot about chiropractic care through the experience of my friends. I used to remain silent on chiropracors, since I believe in alternative medicine, but I've seen too many people either hurt through bad care of bilked due to fraud. There are very good reasons why chiropractic care is specifically excluded in many medical plans; those health plans that do allow it, do so only for very specific conditions. The reason is the lack of science behind the "profession". Which is exactly what you accuse cliff of being...a scientific sounding charlatan...i.e. a chiropractor. You may be a legitimate provider, if so that's great, however unfortunately many of your brethren are not.
 
Bored with this for now. Cliff knows he can't provide proper proof of his testing and this is taking too much of my time.

I won't be posting back to this thread but I will be monitoring Cliffs future reviews and tests. If I see BS better believe I will be calling him out again.
 
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