Ben E. Hana:
<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Did you ever consider the possibilty that you hit a rock or other inclusion in the junipers you were chopping?</font>
Yes I considered it, it was probably the first thing I thought of. However after examining the edge close up (10X mag) I concluded that it was not likely. If I had struck something much harder than the wood the very edge itself should have taken significant damage and at least the coating should have been scratched.
I have damaged blades in this way before. The Machax takes similar damage of a much reduced scale (sub mm). I had a forward curving khukuri from HI that had damage similar to the RCM but I kept using it until the wood split to give Bill Martino an extreme failure case. The damage is caused by the blade impacting with the edge above the wood and the blade not being strong enough to resist the load without breaking or bending.
There are a couple of ways it can happen, depending on the ways the branches interlace you can chop through one and then slam into another at a bad angle. Or depending on grip security and or fatigue, after you shear through one branch the blade can twist enough so as to allow a bad angle impact on another stick. Fatigue really brings up the probability of such hits, but I have done them on occasion when fresh because of twists or just a poorly aimed swing.
Here is the thread about precision and such that I think Ben may be referring to for those curious :
http://www.bladeforums.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/001471.html
In short the argument is that more precision should be used. In general this is of course a good thing. However there are several problems to consider, extrapolation of very precise measurements on a very small sample, difficulty and or abstraction of the overly controlled work, gain in information as compared to time (and $cost$) involved etc., as well as the huge misunderstanding about how errors propogate through the different effects and how they are effected by the volume of the work being done.
And as well, it is critical to think about what you are doing and what you are trying to be able to deduce from it. In general you need to determine the functional level of precision needed to draw a conclusion. This is never infinite, there will always be uncertainty and you should be able to determine what size can be tolerated. For example :
http://www.bladeforums.com/ubb/Forum65/HTML/000205.html
The variance in the results I was getting was probably larger than the difference I was seeing. However this was not critical to me as the question being posed contains a large variance test (angle of swing, force etc.). Because of this I was just doing some rough work to see if the difference was significant or not. In my opinion it wasn't as the damage only increased by .1 mm or so if it increased at all. To me it wasn't necessary to know it to any greater precision than that because it would have gone to a limit higher than necessary. Similar if someone asked me how much two blades weighed I would give them the answer to the nearest gram. The fractional weight difference is hardly a functional difference in regards to blade performance. However, you (speaking generally) are of course free to do a much more precise piece of work. If it is done, in general, I will link to it from what I have done.
<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">How do you feel about peoples responses to you and the change of attitude over the last year and a half?</font>
Personally I view them as positive as I was starting to note that what I said was sometimes accepted because of me saying it. This is very, very, very, very bad and something that I have tried very hard to avoid. All it leads to is me being able hype products which I don't want. If people don't question what I say then the amount of information that can be gained from what I do is drastically reduced. It also induces the possibility that I will make a large mistake in method or interpretation which would go unchecked and thus vastly misrepresent the performance of a blade which I don't want.
However in general there are negative consequences as similar attacks bother some people. There is a lot of information that Bladeforums never sees because people will not post it because they don't want reactions similar to mine. I have recieved a lot of email mainly with negative commentary about blades which I have learned a lot from but which obviously is limited to me and the individual who did the work. While I am very grateful for this, often times it makes discussions very difficult as my conclusions incude data that I can't release publically.
<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Do you feel responsible at all or do you think you have been treated unfairly?</font>
Obviously I am responsible to what I say and this is what people are responding to. As for the reactions, they are to be expected and I understand completely where it comes from. Concerning the "right and wrong" of it, this is a personal and highly subjective issue about character and not about blades. The consequence to me is mainly that I have no desire to work with certain makers. However I on occasion do get offered to review their blades from individuals and I might accept one of the next ones not because of the performance of the blade but more so as I am rather curious to know if my feelings for them would bias what I do.
-Cliff
[This message has been edited by Cliff Stamp (edited 12-22-2000).]
