I learned that there's a guy in his garage who scientifically tests knives. I say and stress "scientific" because:
- All knives are submitted to the same tests
- The tests are documented and repeatable by anyone. Noss uses common equipment that is cheap and readily available.
- The tests are run in a specific order every time, the same order for each knife. Start with easy like cutting cardboard, which every knife can do, but do it anyway. Then webbing. Then wood. Then bend at same angle for each knife, measured.
- Each time, Noss voices observations. Don't let the cussing or emotional tone fool you, there's valuable information. It sounds like a surgery, followed by an autopsy (plus slang).
- Noss is not rushed by time. There is no 5 minute format to match the viewer's attention span like other Youtube videos. If the video gets too long, he breaks it down into several videos but does the job right no matter what.
- The intent is find out what breaks the knife. Once the breakage point is characterized (like hitting concrete for 1 hour), then we have proof that the knife is good for everything in between cutting paper and whatever broke it.
- That's where science meets engineering. Of course no-one will cut concrete with a knife in the real world. In the dream world of science why not? But applied to reality it tells us where breakage is likely to occur and gives us a domain within which the knife can operate without breakage, regardless of what the manufacturer claims or the knife's datasheet/pedigree would have us believe.
This is called "load testing", as in load testing a bridge. In the old days, before computer-aided finite-element-analysis, a bridge would be load tested before opening it for traffic. Engineers would line up 50 full cement trucks on top of the bridge and see if it would hold, knowing that in reality it would never happen. If it held, then the bridge was deemed good enough for carrying day-to-day traffic, which would never even get close to 50 cement trucks at once.
Noss' destruction tests are just like that. Incidentally the tests are identical for each knife and give us a way to then compare knives' relative toughness since they were all subjected to the same tests. It was not the point of the videos really IMHO - in real life do we go around claiming that this bridge is better than that bridge because it took 60 cement trucks? There's other things to consider when comparing. But we can't help it, we like to simplify. As a result it upsets some people who have a strong allegiance to a brand, model, or country of origin when some other knife scores better.
Just like a bridge is easier to cross or handier or more functional or cheaper, these load tests aren't meant to account for this sort of things, they are just load tests to characterize the maximum load of the device.
