Ken ,
I'm right in the middle of these same disputes with Kershaw and they have some pretty good reasons for doing what they do . first off you can never make everyone happy as no two people agree on the same things .Most people want an affordable knife to do this companies need to fine blank there blades to help keep the cost down.Well guess what theres not a lot of choices for blade steel when doing this because you cannot fine blank 440-C, BG-42 etc ... as they will destroy the tooling . you can however fine blank 440-A,440-B,12C27, AUS-6
In order to utilize the highbred steels you must either laser cut or hydro saber ,all at quite an expense plus after laser cutting the outside of the knife needs to be trimmed to remove scale and irregularities due to the laser .This costs time and money also.
Some people want the super steels 440-V,420-V,BG-42
These steels have enormous wear resistance they wear out bits ,stones and tooling extremely fast which again adds cost as well asthe fact that these super steels usually cost 2-3X the price of ATS-34 and as much as 5X the cost of 440-A,
Companies have to purchase specialty stones to grind these alloys and they cost extra too, these steels also don't polish well with a scotch brite wheel and as a result take a second grinding opperation to smooth any irregularities in the grind befor polishing .You guessed it added cost .
Some people want nice thin edges because all of us know thin edges cut better .The only trouble is when some GI Joe wannabe decides to use it for as pry bar and then complain because it broke,Claiming warranty and wanting a free knife.
So from several generations of this, companies leave there edges a little thicker to help offset this problem.
Super steels , I personaly love them and mostly because I have a Burr KIng grinder and can sharpen them in a couple secconds when they go dull . This is not the case with the average knife consumer. We all want a knife that stays sharp the only down fall to this is that they all get dull sooner or later unless there Ginsu's
. and when they do ,does the average knife consumer know how to sharpen it ? No. maybe you guys do cause we just happen to live for this ****.But not the average consumer.
So the challenge to knife companies is to develop knives that will appeal to the masses ,as affordable as possable using the best materials available within a given price range and as accurately as possable for consistency and precision.
I hope I've helped.
Ps.440-C blows ats-34 out of the water in corrosion resistance ,impact resistance ,toughness and in my opinion holds an edge just as long. and Ive used them both for years until I stopped using ats-34 ,3 years ago due to it's inferiority to 440-C in every aspect eccept edge holding .
Aloha!!! Ken Onion
