Whats The Forums Opinion Of Mad Dog?

Cobalt,

I agree with your suggestions and would add:

1) Fix the handle to strengthen blade retention. At this price level I expect a little better than epoxied in place.

2) Fix the warranty. We have heard a number of complaints about the warranty coverage. Either the knife is, or is not, built for heavy use. If it is intended for heavy use then the warranty should cover damage from heavy use.

As I opened this page a few whiffs of smoke rose slowly towards the ceiling. Its time to keep your fire extinguishers handy, and put on your tall rubber boots.
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Carnifex :

Do you guys know anybody that has ever broken a Seal Knife 2000, I mean shattered it into two pieces, like the MD's Cliff Stamp tested?
Click to expand...

The reason the TUSK's cracked like they did, and the second one into 4+ pieces is that at 62+ RC the ductility of the material is very low. 440A which I think what the SOG 2000 is currently being made out of should be much more ductile unless SOG is doing a very odd heat treat. There is a SOG forum here now, you could post a question there.

-Cliff
 
I can't believe it, people are actually echoing the point's I've been making over and over again, it's incredible... I really must go lie down now this is far too much of a shock.
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What's really funny is that none of these is a particually giant leap, or groundbreaking research, or untested speculation. It's already been proven that there are better steels. It's already been proven that there are better coatings. It's mostly common sense...

Spark

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Kevin Jon Schlossberg
SysOp and Administrator for BladeForums.com

Insert witty quip here
 
Cliff, I was being ummm, what's the word I'm looking for... oh, yeah, Sarcastic.
 
Hello,

Well i wasnt going to post on this thread because i didnt want to seem Bias in any way.

But since my name/knives were mentioned i guess i can Babble a bit.

The knife Steve Harvey has is decribed correctly,, i have not used the Black oxide coating much anymore for the Corrosion reason stated, although with application of Tough Cloth its minimal.

All my COmbat Patrol Bowies are a Full Bevel Flat grind, as are 90% or all the Knives i make anymore, All my Carbon Based
Blades,,, 5160, 1095, 52100 ect,,ect are all Differentially Hardened and Triple Tempered by me.

Kevin Likes G-10, I prefer Micarta in the Canvas based Variety. I feel it provides
a Better Grip Surface when Wet, and is Visually more appealing, and for its intended
Purpose just as Viable as G-10/11

Kevins handles do feel good in the hand,,but so do hundreds of other makers knives.

I know the Price structure of Kevins Knives is brought into question from time to time,
but no one is making them Pay that price if they dont want to.

as an example my 9 inch full flat ground
Combat patrol bowie full bevel Flat grind,
Zone hardened tripple tempered blade of 5160 with Double or single Brass Guard with 6061
Aircraft grade aluminum pommel and Black canvas micarta handle , in standard Field Grade finish (which is 90% of my finishes i apply) goes for 155.00 with Consealex/Kydex sheath. To me it is a Great Buy in todays handmade knife seen, and is below the Price of alot of the Factory Imported Junk out there.

My self ,i never liked hardchrome finished blades for the reasons mentioned in this Thread by a few people. I put the Clear hardcoat finish on my knives for one simple reason, it protects from Corrosion in conjunction with Tuff Cloth,,, is a Tough
durable finish, and i can replace the finish once it is beat up or marred with use
FREE to the customer if they send it to me to refinish. Hardchrome cant be maintained this way or refinished for Free!!


I never felt i was competing directly with Kevin or mad dog knives in my Knifemaking Endevor,,, as for price , fit and finish and symetry of grind, i dont feel i have anything to dwell on, but thats my opinion.

People are going to buy what they like, and if they like the Personna and Tags Kevin puts on his work then buy a Mad Dog knife.
Just dont think they(MD knives) are going to make you
a Navy S.E.A.L, or a Secret CIA operative because you own one,,or have some mystical powers, they are just knives. Kevin makes
simple constructed knives meant to perform
for the Purpose intended that he created them for, If they do that for the Person who bought them Great,,,If not then i think its between the Customer and Kevin to hash that out.

I do have to Give KEVIN credit,,,he has done what he wanted to in Knifemaking as we all have, and has not given up on his Dream of making the Best knives he feels he can make. Its not easy to have Knifmaking as your sole means of support, and Kevin has a big family to tend after, and i for one applaud his efforts in doing so with Knifmaking. I havent Agreed with or thought his methods were always the best,
but its his deal and more power to him if he can keep doing his methods the way he is and support his family, If not he needs to change things i guess.

So i guess in the End its up to the Consumer
to wade through the Hype,,,BS or whatever they want to call it,,and decide on where they want to spend there money, and the expectaions they think said knife purchase provides.

As for Myself,i will keep doing what i do best,,,,,,Making the Best Knives i feel are available on todays market taking into consideration , Fit and finish,price structure and size ratio on a consistant basis.

enough Babbling i have Kydex to make!!!

Take care ,,,,,, Allen Blade

 
Good stuff Allen but...what happened to your web site?
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Hoodoo

The low, hoarse purr of the whirling stone—the light-press’d blade,
Diffusing, dropping, sideways-darting, in tiny showers of gold,
Sparkles from the wheel.

Walt Whitman
 
Hello,

well the web site David poff made was fine but it was under his account at geocities and i wasnt able to Add to or take away things on it. So i decided to make my own site that i could manage on my own. I should have it done within the week and up to look at.

thanks, Allen
 
A thought on the cost of the knife . . . .

I saw somewhere above that MD handles are G10. Machining and sculpting pieces of G10 - i.e. for inletting the tang - is a job requiring industrial-strength equipment. The stuff eats ordinary tooling that can work hardwood or Micarta.

The dust is, by most reports, a lot nastier than Micarta dust, and Micarta dust is nasty enough. And it looks like a lot more gets turned to dust than would happen when thin sheets of the stuff are cut out for folder handle slabs.

Harder to work, more precautions - that would add something to the price. How much, I can't speak to.

BTW, so far this has been a relatively civilized Mad Dog thread, as Mad Dog threads go.
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- JKM
www.chaicutlery.com
AKTI Member # SA00001
 
One thing is for sure. You won't see a MD thread here with less than 25 posts! Maybe Mad Dog should open a forum here? There are probably more Mad Dog posts here than on his own forum. That is not a knock on his forum folks, just a funny observation
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Mike Turber
BladeForums Site Owner and Administrator
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Hello,

Actually Mr Mattis G-10/11 is quite Easy to work with standard tools,,, i have when i was using it,,,,, Drilled,, and milled it with 4-flute cobalt coated end mills chucked up in my Drill Press using a 2 axis cross slide vise, Easy!!

as for grinding,,, it grinds as easy basically as Micarta to me, but your right about the DUst,,its a bad thing.

and there is even a way to take the
green G-10/11 and turn it into Green/Black Camo.

see ya ,,, Allen
 
My MD knives have chipped as described before (tapping on soft iron that did not seem to affect other knives and prying with the edge in particleboard).

I have never stabbed a 55 gallon drum with a MD knife for fear of damage. A small part of the tip on my ATAK2 was bent from stabbing into a 2x4 repeatedly. I have stabbed my Mission MPK (A2) into a 55 Gal drum with just coating damage and it handles stabbing into wood fine.

I have come to like my MD knives despite their weaknesses. My ATAK2 handles chopping as well as any knife of its size. This includes chopping maple dowels. The handle is really durable. I have dropped the handles on a concrete floor without noticeable damage. The handle is also allows easy grip changes which can happen quite a bit for intricate work.

The YFA3 handles frozen food like no other knife I own. The serrated edge is really effective in cutting frozen meat into cooking portions.

The sheath is really nice but there is a lot of room for improvement. The kydex MD uses is the less affected by DEET as compared to my other kydex sheaths. The kydex is thick. Blade retention is really excellent. It should have been made ambidextrous.

I think there are a lot of knives with similar capabilities at a lower price range. However, until you have tried a MD you will always want one. If you don’t like it, it is easy to get rid of as MD knives retain their value well.

Will

 
How do you cut a block of G11/Micarta to perfectly fit the tang? I am familiar with wood, where you make a undersized cut and burn the slot with the hot tang. But I don't think you can burn G11.

Regarding a post Allen Blade made a while ago, I'm surprised the blade is stress-relieved but not tempered. That and using a convex grind instead of flat grind on the bigger knives should reslove issues of fragility. The design is essentially good so long as he hasn't stopped improving it.
 
Tallwingedgoat, the handle is not one solid piece of G10, it is several bits glued together. As for the geometry change, for high impact work the critical factor in edge retention is not wear resistance it is toughness so leaving the O1 at 62 RC is optomizing the wrong aspect. How many other makers do you see doing this?

Cobalt, INFI is actually in that RC range, it is spec'ed slightly softer (60-62) but not by much. I don't understand how it is as tough as it is though considering its hardness. I have exerted far more stress on my BM than I did on the TUSK's and it is still fine.

Will, I like the serration pattern too, it is one of the few durable enough for impacts/twisting and easily field sharpenable. I think Busse Combat is using something similar.

-Cliff
 
Guys - I am very proud of you all...

Strait remarks - professional opinions, no name calling and bashing...

This is getting almost boring...


 
Thanks Ryan, Allen and others for the info on the Allen Blades Combat Bowie. It does indeed sound like a heck of a knife for the price.

The individual has to understand what Mad Dog is trying to achieve in his knives, and decide for themself if it is what they want. He is looking not for the toughest blade, and not just the the best edge holding, but the best that can be achieved of both in one blade. He feels that what he gets from O-1 is closest to what he is trying to achieve. It is his show, his name goes on the blade, and I for one think it is a great knife. I think there are other great knives out there made out of different steels too. Walter Brend has achieved a brilliant reputation for his D-2 combat blades, and I would love to have one, though they are $800, if you can find one. I am perfectly willing to believe that a D-2 blade could be made that would be just as tough, or hold an edge just as well as a Mad Dog blade, but would it be able to achieve both at the same time? If somebody has such a blade, I would love to read about it, and I don't mean that at all sarcasticly.

The edges of Mad Dog knives are hard, and if you want to hammer the edge into metal objects without causing any chips, you should probably get a different knife, though I am not sure which one that would be. I like knives with fine, hard edges. I have done a lot of chopping on fibrous materials, i.e. wood, with my Mad Dog knives, including some very hard wood, and have not observed any edge damage. They hold an edge a long time under normal cutting use, the ergonomics are great, and I feel I know the limits of the blades well enough to stop prying before they break or bend. What more can be said of any knife blade?

Much is made out of what a poor corrosion inhibitor hard chrome is, but it all sounds purely hypothetical to me. I have been to knife shows, I have browsed the knife maker's web sites, and I have read the knife magazines, and I haven't seen a blade coating offered for sale on a knife that promised to be significantly better. The best rust inhibitor in the world doesn't mean much if it isn't available on the knife you want. Hard chrome has worked fine for me.

 
FWIW, I was concerned about the toughness of my ATAK. I took it and chopped all kinds of wood and "cleaned" deer with it also. I chopped through all four knee joints and the spine in two places with no chips. As a matter of fact, as cliche as it sounds, you could still shave with all but one inch of the blade. Touched up easily to better than new (it was delivered so-so sharp, as opposed to RJ Martin and others).I still would DEFINITELY be will ing to take the edge back to 60 RC for peace of mind, but no probs yet. Oh, and I tried the above with a Black Jack Assault Team I and it chipped terribly after doing the spine once. Hope this helps.

-Bart
 
I would like to address two things, one already covered and another that has not been.

The glue bond of a mortise tang handle- Does anyone really believe that this is going to come loose? Given good fit and a proper epoxying, how can this come apart? I am not saying that the physical lock is a bad idea, but I wonder if it is necessary.

http://www.geocities.com/mdpoff/images/atak.jpg[/url]

The other issue, the transition of the tang from outside to inside the handle. It reduces in size, maybe as much as 1/3 of it's width. And since it does so at the juncture of the handle, isn't that where the stresses of use are going to focus, just ahead of where the force is applied by the hand? And given a piece where those corners are not radiused you now have stress risers.

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Thank you,
[b]Marion David Poff[/b] aka Eye, Cd'A ID, USA [email]mdpoff@hotmail.com[/email]

[url="http://www.geocities.com/mdpoff/talonite.html"]Talonite[/url] [url="http://www.geocities.com/mdpoff/fire.html"]Fire[/url]

"Many are blinded by name and reputation, few see the truth" Lao Tzu

[This message has been edited by Marion David Poff (edited 04-18-2000).]
 
Here's an opinion on Mad Dog knives.

The TUSK is supposed to be a sniper's tool for clearing out little hidey holes to shoot from. For 900 bucks you can buy a decent sniper rifle, a Livesay RTAK and even a Busse Battle Mistress that you can trade off for a Ghillie suit. Good sniper package.

Now the Panther is supposed to be a fighter. Now I say for that same 900 bucks you can buy a Busse Steel Heart and a Glock 19. You should be able to fight pretty good with that setup. Price here even includes a box of 50 rounds for the pistol.

You got an ATAK coming and you want to know what to expect? Probably an ATAK in the mail sometime.

Keep in mind, these are only OPINIONS. You did ask.
(This post should also sufficiently address PhilL's boring post topic).
 
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