Ways to attack Cliff Stamp's reviews - A guide for the thin-skinned

[MC Chan]

OK I can't reisit anymore.

85% of the reviews here are crap. Mine included. There are wayy too many opinions portrayed as fact. But what else do we have more appealing than our emotional attachment to our knives?

Cliff has an inkling of cut, but has odd, unscientific, statistically insignificant methods. It is true that a destructive testing of one knife reported without many repetitions is merely the case of one knife dying.
However, his reviews are informative, available, and entertaining.
Ive learned a lot from the folks here, Cliff included. Sometimes folks piss me off or I don't agree but more often Im impressed with the quality of information to be found here.

Mainstream Canadian, American and Korean Beers are crap.
The irish do know cut as it pertains to beer.
Guiness is great as a widely available tap beer.
Newcastle Nut Brown Ale is also a winner as a widely available tap beer.

Samuel Smiths Oatmeal Stout may be one of the best beers in a bottle.

New Belgium Brewery in Colorado is definitely one of the premier breweries making significant quantities for market.
The Belgian style ales are one of my favorite types of beer and these guys do the best readily available kind. Triple ale!!!
And thats saying a lot, cause I live in Oregon and I can saunter down to a pantload of microbreweries at will.
Portland Brewery, Bridgeport Brewery, Tugboat Brewery, and like I said a veritable pantload of others.
Best in show for me around here is Rogue Brewery. Favorites are the Mocha Porter and Espresso Stout.

Absolutley the best beer Ive ever had is made by a friend, heh heh, a very good friend. Makes sub distribution quantities. It was a triple Belgian style ale with a picture of his dog on the label.
Unfortunately I'm afraid the experience was nearly indescribable.

(The preceding is a thoroughly unscientific, statistically insignificant, emotional rant by a passionate believer who cannot be swayed by your views. )

(But feel free to try)

 

[Steelhed]

Has anyone noticed that Cliff hasn't entered this discussion? This demonstrates either a great deal of restraint on his part, or that he is too busy testing knives. In either case, it would seem he has better beer to drink than the rest of us poor slobs wasting our time talking about him.

As Kliff Stump would say: "I never met a beer I didn't like, or a knife with which I couldn't cut myself."

 

[rdangerer]

Originally posted by thombrogan
Do you think you could glue a miniature toy pistol so that your new avatar can be armless, but not unarmed?

Allright, Trombone... er... Thomthumb... holdit, I know this...

Allright, Thom Brogan... howzzat for artwork on the cheap?


Keepin' it real when I be jammin' wit muh toe...

I remain,

 

[thombrogan]

Rob,

Way too cool! The tactical toe-puppet avatar!

I can see the sequel to The Fugitive now:

"It wasn't me - a no-armed man did it!"

 

[Roadrunner]

Steelhed, I've noticed Cliff tends to stay out of contentious threads like this one. He's a lot more level-headed than I.

 

[R.W.Clark]

I don't like beer so I guess I will comment on Cliff's reviews. Well, not so much on Cliff's reviews but on how they are recieved by members of BF.

It has been stated that Cliff's reviews are taken as fact by many members here. That is true. But, it is only true of folks here at Bladeforums. I have not found any other forum where Cliff's reviews (or even his presence) are accepted. Cliff is banned by many other forums for basically being a troll. But enough on that.

One case in point.

Cliff's latest review of LM1 is a stellar example of his typical nonsence. Now remember that LM1 has been tested by Rob Simonich, Jeff Randall, myself, the California Institute of Technology, the United States Department of Defense, NASA, Mike Sanchez, Trace Rinaldi, Sal Glessar (and the Spyderco techs), WTFOver (formite) and countless others. It is also currently undergoing reivews by several other knife manufacturers, EOD techs, many US servicemen in Iraq and around the world, and about 50 other users. All of the feedback I have gotten stated that the material was Satifactory-Excellent. Not a negative opinion among them. Now comes Cliff's review.

Cliff takes the knife WAY outside of its intended purpose. Then he compares it to a knife that is so differant it is laughable. And of course this knife was a Busse product. (BTW: for those who may not know, SWK IS A BUSSE PRODUCT!).

Cliff made wide sweeping statements such as "I can tell this knife would be easily broken with my bare hands". He also claimed he would send me video proof of his "testing". Proof I have yet to have show up at my door by the way! Cliff was unable to break the the knife with his hands (he had to put it in a vice). In doing so Cliff went back on his word. He said that if he could not break it with his hands he would renounce his earlier statement. He DID NOT renounce the statement. In the end all Cliff had was some very long winded posts and a photo showing the knife broken in several pieces. Now I ask you, what type of proof is that. The answer is NONE WHAT SO EVER. He broke the knife in a vice, big deal (that was after he "dulled" the edge by chopping into his trademark concrete block). I myself stated that I have broken many blades by snapping them in a vice.

So you have two differant groups you can listen to. The first group is made up of over 100 people who have put several years into testing just this one material. They have put millions of dollars into this testing in some of the most advanced labs in the world. This group has also done REAL field testing in every enviroment from the back yard to the rain forests of Peru to the Iraqi battlefields and even the International Space Station. Most of this testing can be proven in CERTIFIED tests, video footage and photos. LMT has countless technology awards and it even has many awards from the knife industry itself.

Then you have the other camp. One man (who nobody REALLY knows) makes up the entire other opinion. This is a man who has never shown any real proof of his testing other than words and the occasional photo of a broken knife. No certified lab results and no real backing that this testing even took place. He has even been unable to produce the video footage that he promised he would produce.

This one man, who gives an opinion which is the exact opposite of the first group, is who so many of you listen to and take as fact?

Sad, truely truely sad. I am just glad that those who take Cliff to heart make up about 0.00000001% of the knifeworld.

 

[rdangerer]

Originally posted by R.W.Clark
Now remember that LM1 has been tested by Rob Simonich, Jeff Randall, myself, the California Institute of Technology, the United States Department of Defense, NASA, Mike Sanchez, Trace Rinaldi, Sal Glessar (and the Spyderco techs), WTFOver (formite) and countless others. It is also currently undergoing reivews by several other knife manufacturers, EOD techs, many US servicemen in Iraq and around the world, and about 50 other users. All of the feedback I have gotten stated that the material was Satifactory-Excellent. Not a negative opinion among them. Now comes Cliff's review.

So you didn't like Cliff's review(s)?

Could you post a link to where Spyderco came forth with their reviews on Liquid Metal blades? I'm assuming you mean they tested mules in the CATRA, so if that is a bad assumption, please advise. The CATRA always strikes me as an interesting, inbiased set of test results.

RW, threads or other sites, etc, where Simonich and Randall have written up their reviews would also be helpful for the reader in fleshing out their "take" on LM.

You neglected to mention that Kit Carson has tested LM1 also. I don't think I'd call his results "Satifactory-Excellent" [sic]. I'll summarize: LM, in current formulations, doesn't appear to be either hard and/or abrasion resistant enough to sustain the wear induced by the (typically quite hard) ball detent that is a common and pretty necessary feature of today's typical linerlock and frame lock folder.

Somehow, I kinda doubt the CIT, USDoD, and NASA had knife blades of LM in their testing protocol. But I could be wrong. No doubt, they may have other applications where LM could be of significant interest. Maybe RW could summarize their testing, for what properties, and their results, and how that is germane to use as a knife blade material. Or post links for the reader.

Here is one thread for the BF reader's edification:
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=267196

As a side note, I'd say RW is making use of strategy numbers 2, 2a indirectly, 3a, elements of 6b, and 6e is implied. Not bad for one post!

2. Harsh, yet vague, criticism when anything negative, neutral, or not positive enough is said.

2a. Accuse Mr. Stamp of having unconditional love for Busse Combat Knives, an unscientific infatuation with Swamp Rat Knives, and a secret penchant for drinking Budweiser.

3a. Call Cliff "biased and unscientific", but forget to explain how and why and hope that your strong assertion is proof enough.

6. "Cliff isn't qualified to test knives."
6b. Cliff is too scientific. He uses too many non-real-world tests. He oughta use these knives in "real world" ways... that's all that counts.
6e. Cliff isn't a knife maker, and is therefore unqualified to test the performance of any knife.

 

[Roadrunner]

Ron, would you mind giving specifics, like which forums he's banned from?

 

[rdangerer]

Sorry Thom, can't resist diverting your thread in a specific direction...

RW Clark
It has been stated that Cliff's reviews are taken as fact by many members here. That is true. But, it is only true of folks here at Bladeforums.

It may have been stated that his reviews are taken as "fact" on BF... I can't dispute that, don't know... doesn't matter to me. And I sure wouldn't be concerned about that if I were you, RW. The thinking knife user will weigh Cliff's results along with any other data or testing results they believe to be germane, including their own perhaps.

I'll give you an example of some data that I find of particularly incisive (no pun intended), from nhamilto40 (a metallurgist) and from this thread: http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=236043

• 
  * Hrc is Rockwell C scale Hardness)
  * Charpy is impact toughness (inverse of brittleness), probably C-notch, but in any case given with relative comparison numbers for other materials

The corrected data follows.

                   lm2   lm1  440C  D2  A2  O1  S5
Hardness (Hrc)     ~34   ~50   56   59  60  62  59
Charpy (ft-lb)      18    6    26   21  41  30  138

So lm1 hardness is ~50 Hrc and charpy shows 6 ft-lb.

Sorry for misstating lm1's brittleness and hardness numbers.

For comparison I have included some typical blade steels at typical tempers and S5 just to show what is possible with plain old steel (data from Crucible Steel).

So these metglass alloys can be expected to be softer and more brittle than (production) steel blades.

I have not found any abrasion testing result for either of the metglass alloys; if anyone knows of any I would like to see them.

If there is a requirement to sacrifice blade proporties to get a non-magnetic blade it may be a good choice. In that case Cu-Be, beta Ti alloys etc. should also be considered.

An interesting proporty of these alloys (seen in charpy tests) is their tendency to throw showers of sparks and melt parts of the fracture surface when broken.

Materials properties are hard to argue with. But it can be done, and I'll throw up :barf: a prominent example... one possible mostly because the adhesive or abrasive wear data for various materials are harder to come by. Stellite 6K and Talonite seem to perform, by user account, above what their Rc numbers would suggest, since they both test out (depending on source) somewhere between Rc42-46 all the way up to Rc49. What is well known about these materials is that they contain a large number of hard carbides and so are very wear/abrasion resistant (wear resistant enough to resist channeling of the tang via ball detent in a liner lock folder). The Rockwell test tends to "indent" the mid-hard Cobalt-Chrome matrix, somewhat ignoring the hard carbides (envision thrusting a pointed stick into some soft dirt, and the stick glanced off of, and pushes aside any hard rocks). But, they are also somewhat prone to impaction/edge flattening/edge rolling due to this lower hardness. My own testing with Stellite 6K confirms the edge rolling thing (folders, kitchen knives). My own testing also indicates that Stellite is extremely easy to strop or steel back to sharpness. Stellite 6B impact resistance is also low... I only dug up one source, but here is 6B added to nhamilto40's chart, along with L6 since I dug that up this morning also (to be clear, Talonite is more similar to Stellite 6BH):

http://www.hightempmetals.com/techdata/hitemp6Bdata.php4

6B data is Charpy longitudinal, 1/2" plate, notched (didn't indicate whether C or V notch)

                   lm2   lm1  440C  D2  A2  O1  L6  S5   Stellite 6B
Hardness (Hrc)     ~34   ~50   56   59  60  62  57  59   42-49
Charpy (ft-lb)      18    6    26   21  41  30  68 138   6

For these properties, with the Co-Cr's you get near imperviousness to corrosion for anything you'd encounter, short of perhaps some very strong acids (nitric, hydrofluoric, etc), or amines (but that's another story). You also get lubricity, resistance to galling, weldability to CS and SS, etc, stuff industry cares about.

LM appears to be relatively soft and relatively brittle (charpy), but super flexible, exhibiting little deformation (plastic region) before it ruptures (snaps). And apparently it has high corrosion resistance? I haven't seen any comments indicating it contains, by design, any hard carbide content. So abrasion resistance is an open question, one that you've attempted to measure with cardboard testing. I'll admit I'd put more weight on CATRA evidence (cutting silica (sand) impregnated paper) before I would weight someone's cardboard testing, especially where said cardboard testing used some special technique (special angles of incidence). Hence, my interest in Sal's CATRA results.

Of course, I haven't tested the stuff. And personally, I wouldn't be interested in trying any, unless something else popped up, e.g. interesting test results from say CATRA or a new LM variety that solved the softness, impact resistance, and ball detent problems.

Is that "fair and balanced" (to co-opt a Fox trademark)? I dunno. It's just my opinion, as a potential customer. And, as always, YOMV.

 

[thombrogan]

Mr. Clark,

I thought Mr. Stamp's review of your Model 10 was favorable. According to the man whom you warn us not to trust, the Model 10 had a perfect flat grind, which is quite a feat of skill. There are veteran knifemakers who can't do that. For difficult, precision cutting, the LM1 Model 10 beat the pants off of the Howling Rat and Camp Tramp (both are knives made by the Busse family, as you mentioned). In most all of the comparisons, the LM1 Model 10 had advantages over the other knives in terms of performance, ergonomics, or both.

I would like to know which of Mr. Stamp's tests are unreal and which of others' tests are real, since you did bring that up. Since LM1 hasn't been around as a blade material for too long, it'd also be nice to know which uses are and aren't within the scope of intended uses. Some folks, including yourself, have used such knives to slice through tires.

The part about him saying he'll send you the tape and not having done so is a bit suspect. It has, however, only been a month and two days, which, in the knifeworld, is akin to 12 minutes in the business world: it just seems like never. Though, if you could let me know what parts of his tests aren't real and what parts of others' tests are real, it would be greatly appreciated.