Your thoughts on S90V

[Evil D]

Just a thought from the uninformed (I'm truly enjoying this discussion.)

If one steel was superior to all others and one shape superior and one size superior, why does Spyderco et al make so many combinations of blades, steels, etc?

I'm not even going to address the thought of various heat treating of the various steels. Much too long an argument.

I may have missed something but at what time did anyone in this ridiculous debate declare that any steel is superior to another?

[bdblue]

If one steel was superior to all others and one shape superior and one size superior, why does Spyderco et al make so many combinations of blades, steels, etc?

The short answer could be that humans like to make things complicated. Go to any store and look at the variety of any product. We can't be satisfied with just tennis shoes, we have to make running shoes, cross training shoes, walking shoes, basketball shoes, walking shoes, etc.

But the real answer is that this illustrates another valid reason for the variety- People have different needs and uses for their knives, and they also have different tastes and preferences. The variety produced by any manufacturer is an attempt to appeal to different needs and different preferences.

But back to steel itself- different steels have different properties so one steel might be better suited for one task than another steel, which itself is better suited for a different task. And different steels have different costs so a knife in my price range might have a different steel from a knife in another person's price range.

It is very difficult to proclaim a "best" in many categories. Pick a steel, the next thing to pick is the heat treat, then the blade shape and grind, and then the sharpening angle, and lastly the level of grit that you are going to sharpen/polish to. Now pick how you are going to use the knife and test it. There are too many combinations to be practical to test in order to do a scientific comparison to choose which is best for any given use. I dare say it would take many thousands of blade samples to start this process.

[bdblue]

Lets say Bill comes on the forum and he remarks that in his experience Spyderco's S30V is absolute junk compared to QualityCutters. He bases this on the fact that he tried to use a Paramilitary from Spyderco and it went dull immediately but the knife he used from QualityCutters stayed sharp an entire month.

If asked for a little detail he noted further :

-the Paramilitary was used with the initial edge
-it had been left exposed to salt water for quite some time
-he cut fibreglass insulation on concrete with it

and the QualityCutters knife :

-had been sharpened many times
-used for mainly light work for that month
-never left wet

In my case I'm smart enough to know that this is not a valid comparison. But I also realize that my knife use might be similar to this- I carry a Para2 during the week and don't do anything with it but slice a Banana or open some envelopes, but then on weekends I use the Manix 2 that stays on my workbench to slice up a mound of cardboard boxes and carve on my fence to get the gate latch to fit. I know that I can't compare the edgeholding of one vs. the other based on the different use so I cannot form opinions of one steel vs. another. So I rely on more scientific comparisons done by other people to tell me that M4 or M390 or S90V would last a lot longer under those uses. I may never be able to prove this myself but I have confidence in the work of other people and feel that my new knife in S90V should do better than my old knife in 154.

[Cliff Stamp]

[...] There are too many combinations to be practical to test in order to do a scientific comparison to choose which is best for any given use.

Science in general isn't about absolutes in that kind of extreme state, because we can't know everything, doesn't mean we can't know anything. Meaningful questions tend to be specific precisely because they actually allow answers. Asking "Is 420HC better than S90V?" isn't meaningful. However asking "Is 420HC going to give me better edge retention in filleting fish than S90V?" is starting to get meaning and with a little discussion then you could approach an answer.

If that discussion was to be productive then the response should be similar to "When your 420HC knife blunts do you notice the edge rolling, does it chip, does it rust or does it just seem to wear really smooth?" and followup with questions such as "What do you use to sharpen? How dull does the knife get before you sharpen?". With answers to these questions then it is possible to come to a conclusion on if S90V would be a better choice given the guys goal.

In my case I'm smart enough to know that this is not a valid comparison.

Exactly, and the fact that it is his personal experience doesn't mean this isn't true and that it would be rational for Bill to reject that argument and persist in his claims even though that is what his experience leads him to believe. In fact if he did that you would conclude he is not only unreasonable but irrational and likely ignorant/not-intelligent.

[OldSarSwmr]

Hey Gull Wing, if you are still following this thread :o , were you thinking of making a knife in S90V or picking up a Spyderco with that steel? If a Spyderco, which model?

I only have one Spyderco in S90V, the Phil Wilson FB, it has only seen limited kitchen use. I do carry a Southard (204P) often. I really like both knives but I had difficulty sharpening them at first. At first, I blamed it on the steel but came to realize it was my technique. I think I got the hang of it now. Oh, I also have been carrying a Manix 2 in S110V and dang, its a slicer!

I hope you get a chance to try out some S90V, I'd appreciate hearing your thoughts on it after using and sharpening it.

Sometimes the teacher forgets about the student.

[bh49]

In this case, why are you here?

Do you really only participate in discussions with people who have the exact same views as you do and you can't see any value in doing otherwise?

No. But I do not participate in discussion with ignorant. And you post, I refereed to sounds like majority of people here are ignorant who go against well proven silence.

[Cliff Stamp]

But I do not participate in discussion with ignorant.

I don't find that label to be overly useful. If you look at what we know compared to what can be known we are all ignorant to a percentage that isn't meaningful to try to rank who is less ignorant than who. Simply because someone disagrees with something I hold isn't a reason to ignore them, that is about as irrational as you can get. It should be obvious that isn't a sensible approach to learning.

[Donut]

.... It allows them to spend less money on belts while making their blades. It makes a nicer looking product.

From a business perspective they can simply make the argument that it sells and it is common to see in the industry when something becomes popular then makers/manufacturers will rush to get out clones before the fad is lost, even when what they are doing directly contradicts how they promoted past products.

I agree that we need to make sure what we're being told makes sense.

You'll always have that 1 guy out of 1,000 that prefers the other steel for whatever reason.

Well yes, but there is a difference between saying that you like Justin Bieber more than Freddy Mercury as a singer than making the claim that Justin Bieber has more powerful vocals over a wider range than Mercury and that further this is true because you were at a Bieber concert once and all the "mumbo jumbo" about vocal power and range (which can be measured) doesn't mean anything.

Then you'll always have those people who just like the sound of the name better or like how they appear on social media, which has nothing to do with science.

If someone asked "I need a knife for salt water fishing, I don't want rust!!! There are two blades I like, one is 440C and another is 1095, which one is more stainless?" - would anyone in the above say something like "Well the science/data is all just paper-testing it doesn't mean anything in the real world, you need to buy both and see." Of course not. Why would anyone do materials research if it can't actually be used to make decisions.

You can do all that testing, recommend a H1 or 440C knife knife based on his requirements and at the end of the day, he might still like 1095 more. It could be that he's familiar with 1095 and that it works "well enough" at the price point.

This is where you can also go too far the other way and as Cashen and Landes have argued that you can't learn anything by using a knife or even trying to do some kind of cutting comparison and that only materials data contains knowledge. I would make the argument it is possible as long as you use basic controls and that further when people actually want to know things they have those discussions. Chris and DK are discussing right now on the T0.1M forum why they have opposite experiences with two different steels. What is the difference in what they are doing which is generating the different conclusions - that is an interesting question.

It is probably the conclusion that they expect to see and differences in their constraints.

DK has some pretty interesting results because on one hand he gets very strong performance from 420HC, which is above steels like ATS-34, but steels like Sleipner and 3V are often better than 420HC. He does both controlled comparisons on cardboard and just regular work as a tradesmen and they appear to be strongly correlated. It isn't obvious what material properties are actually being measured and so a number of people are trying to figure it out, including DK himself, based on what he is doing, how he is sharpening, etc. .

I've really been meaning to try FFG ATS-34/154cm. I like Sleipner. I haven't tried 3V, but only because Spyderco has only offered it with the Tuff. The testing sounds interesting.

420HC seems to get a bad wrap getting bundled with the other 400 series steels.



I honestly believe that the general conclusions of steel could be gathered, if the data pool was large enough and the method of gathering the information was sound... and you could get useful information out of it. All of the people carrying and using all of this steel seem to generate far more testing and conclusions than the dozens of people doing more strict testing.

Maybe we should start a thread where you were using a knife and it performed different than you were expecting.

[Evil D]

Maybe we should start a thread where you were using a knife and it performed different than you were expecting.

Man, I hate to sound negative but that would surely lead to huge walls of text telling everyone how wrong they are lol. Isn't that pretty much what this thread resulted in?

[Donut]

Yeah, maybe you're right. The post specific info type threads that I've started in the past have only included myself contributing. Well, except for the dealer deals one.

It's tough to get people working towards the same goal.

[Surfingringo]

But I do not participate in discussion with ignorant.

I don't find that label to be overly useful. If you look at what we know compared to what can be known we are all ignorant to a percentage that isn't meaningful to try to rank who is less ignorant than who. Simply because someone disagrees with something I hold isn't a reason to ignore them, that is about as irrational as you can get. It should be obvious that isn't a sensible approach to learning.

Correct. So what are the remaining options? Accept their opinion or try to change it. I tend to go for the latter but I have to know when to say when.

My pops once told me at I would know I was growing up when I could have an argument with someone and allow them to be right...but I was really becoming a man when I could allow them to be wrong. I try my best but I've still got a lot of growing to do. :rolleyes:

[ChrisinHove]

But I do not participate in discussion with ignorant.

I don't find that label to be overly useful. If you look at what we know compared to what can be known we are all ignorant to a percentage that isn't meaningful to try to rank who is less ignorant than who. Simply because someone disagrees with something I hold isn't a reason to ignore them, that is about as irrational as you can get. It should be obvious that isn't a sensible approach to learning.

Correct. So what are the remaining options? Accept their opinion or try to change it. I tend to go for the latter but I have to know when to say when.

My pops once told me at I would know I was growing up when I could have an argument with someone and allow them to be right...but I was really becoming a man when I could allow them to be wrong. I try my best but I've still got a lot of growing to do. :rolleyes:

Wow. I had actually lost the will to live, on this thread, until I read Mr Gringo Snrs wise and perceptive words.

[Evil D]

But I do not participate in discussion with ignorant.

I don't find that label to be overly useful. If you look at what we know compared to what can be known we are all ignorant to a percentage that isn't meaningful to try to rank who is less ignorant than who. Simply because someone disagrees with something I hold isn't a reason to ignore them, that is about as irrational as you can get. It should be obvious that isn't a sensible approach to learning.

Correct. So what are the remaining options? Accept their opinion or try to change it. I tend to go for the latter but I have to know when to say when.

My pops once told me at I would know I was growing up when I could have an argument with someone and allow them to be right...but I was really becoming a man when I could allow them to be wrong. I try my best but I've still got a lot of growing to do. :rolleyes:

I've gone a step further and understand that almost nothing is absolutely black or white, and so almost nothing is absolutely right or wrong.

[Cliff Stamp]

Accept their opinion or try to change it.

That is a false dichotomy, but in order to actually see the other option you have to have an objective view of truth.

Chum posts here at times, he also posts on T0.1M about issues such as morality, religion and other topics which are far more controversial than the scratch resistance of metals. I don't accept his perspective, however I don't try to change it either. Discussions don't require either of those.

Then you'll always have those people who just like the sound of the name better or like how they appear on social media, which has nothing to do with science.

Of course, but that is again a different type of claim, you are not talking about the analog of the performance of the knife in that type of claim, you are talking about something like the weeaboo effect of owning it.

Now if someone wanted to make the statement "It doesn't matter what is on a patent application, the only way for you to know how cool it makes you feel to own a knife is to own it!", then of course material science doesn't try to figure out how owning a knife makes you feel part of a clique.

It could be that he's familiar with 1095 and that it works "well enough" at the price point.

As I have noted before there is a difference in stating a preference and talking about material properties. Is it not clear to you that :

-I like 1095 in fillet knives.

and

-1095 has higher corrosion resistance than 440C

are two very different types of claims. One is a subjective preference and one is a claim of an objective fact. Materials science deals with if one is true or not. The other one is true simply by being stated and it is explored in evolutionary psychology for the why and experimental psychology for the what.

Hence the well known quote "You are entitled to you own opinions, just not your own facts." .

It is probably the conclusion that they expect to see and differences in their constraints.

I don't believe the biases are dominant based on what both have described as both of them are taking steps to minimize conclusion bias. However the methods are not the same and there are differences in the steels used, the sharpening - essentially everything is different. However the point of it is that they are talking to each other to try to understand why they are reaching different conclusions and thus actually learn what they are really saying as they can't actually be in conflict unless one (or both) are insane and not reporting what they are observing.

420HC seems to get a bad wrap getting bundled with the other 400 series steels.

Hence why 420V was renamed. If you want to see interesting work on 420HC class steel then look at Verhoeven's work comparing it to 52100 / 1084.

I honestly believe that the general conclusions of steel could be gathered, if the data pool was large enough and the method of gathering the information was sound... and you could get useful information out of it. All of the people carrying and using all of this steel seem to generate far more testing and conclusions than the dozens of people doing more strict testing.

Hence why I have been sponsoring passarounds since the late 90's. The problem in most cases is getting people to report information in enough detail to make sense out of them as it isn't trivial to try to correlate the performance to what is causing it.

Maybe we should start a thread where you were using a knife and it performed different than you were expecting.

There is an entire thread on the forum where I describe experiments which "fail" in the sense that they can not even be completed because the performance of the knife was so different that the original scope of work can't be completed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi1nPXrV--g" target="_blank

I originally planned to do a low performance benchmark for high sharpness slicing wood :

-cut pine
-stop when the knife would not shave
-use a very cheap/basic steel
-coarse apex

The last two conditions were set to allow the performance to be so low I could do the work a number of times fairly quickly. However as it turns out, even with the most basic steels I had which are literally $1 stainless steel knives then 1000+ slices into pine would not remove the shaving sharpness.

Even with a very similar steel, in a very sharp cheap knife, with a very poor choice apex finish (420HC/Leatherman Crater/Norton Economy fine) it still took 1100 (100) slices to remove the shaving sharpenss when I switched to hardwoods over pine.

If I switch to a more sensible apex finish (much higher polish) and jump up the knife even a little (Normark EKA 12C27) then 2000 slices won't remove the shaving sharpness and the edge retention is essentially infinite because the edge would get damaged long before it would slowly wear.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVzJiZF5YeE" target="_blank

Here I originally planned to cut used carpet until I could not cut it any more. The problem is that never really happened. After 1000 slices the original knife used could still do semi-precise cutting let alone cut the carpet. I then repeated it with two other knives to confirm behavior.

[Surfingringo]

Accept their opinion or try to change it.

That is a false dichotomy, but in order to actually see the other option you have to have an objective view of truth.

Chum posts here at times, he also posts on T0.1M about issues such as morality, religion and other topics which are far more controversial than the scratch resistance of metals. I don't accept his perspective, however I don't try to change it either. Discussions don't require either of those.

Yes, I misspoke. I knew you would catch that but I was too lazy to edit. :). What I meant was accept that they have an opinion that is different from yours...not accept that their opinion is fact.

[Donut]

First off, I apologize if I'm a pain in the butt. I've had discussions before and I tend to lead in circular or odd patterned logic.

No, what I mean is, I've replied to dozens of "suggest me a knife" threads where they list constraints. I give them something that is 99% of their constraints and they choose something that is completely different than their own constraints.

If you go outside of Spyderco, I see a lot of people who are picking knives completely on looks. They don't like Spyderco because of the weird angles of the handle or the hump on the back of the blade. The first Spyderco I ever bought was a Goddard because it didn't have the hump on it.

This whole business is lead by a very shifty clientel. I can watch someone and what they like for a year and they will make really odd decisions when compared to all of their previous decisions.

I want a Roc and I can't tell you one reason for me to want one.

The choosing a knife based on performance whether it be corrosion resistance, edge stability, wear resistance, the amount of carbides, the type of carbides... Well, 99% of people won't be able to tell you which one they see, including me, unless we're talking about Corrosion resistance. I totally agree with you saying blade profile, the grind, the thickness behind the edge are almost everything.

The only knife I have in 420HC is a Leatherman, which in my opinion is too heavy to carry around and use unless I need it for other things. Also, I think that my Leatherman has a blade that is thinner than I am used to, that I will only see the blade thickness if I test it.

In my opinion 420V isn't a big enough name change for it to not be considered a 400 series steel. I know that S90V and S60V (440V) have 400 series names.

Bearthedog on the RAT forum creates feather sticks and tries to prove that you don't need much of a knife to survive, by only using a swiss army knife.

I'll check out the videos later tonight.

[Cliff Stamp]

What I meant was accept that they have an opinion that is different from yours...not accept that their opinion is fact.

Opinions are unjustified claims, if someone states an opinion then by definition they have it. The only concerns about opinions is when people having or stating them have consequences which are relevant in some way. If you are making a movie for example and you want to cast someone and you know that right now opinions of them are very poor then those opinions matter because the consequences matter. But if you were not casting them it is not likely they would.

[Cliff Stamp]

No, what I mean is, I've replied to dozens of "suggest me a knife" threads where they list constraints. I give them something that is 99% of their constraints and they choose something that is completely different than their own constraints.

Yes, people make irrational decisions and/or don't tend to be very precise often in making requests.

Bearthedog on the RAT forum creates feather sticks and tries to prove that you don't need much of a knife to survive, by only using a swiss army knife.

People survived before there were knives.

At times some of these conversations go to odd places, it is often reactionary where someone responds to an extreme claim by making one which is just as extreme in the opposite direction.

One of the most practical commentaries I have seen on edge retention was awhile ago where a wood worker took the amount of time he used to make a piece of furniture and looked at the time spend sharpening and showed that even if the edge retention doubled then it would make a completely trivial difference to the time of the project. The argument here is that edge retention is often hugely over stated, but this doesn't mean that it is not relevant.

For example imagine using a chisel which isn't hardened at all. The strength could be so low that you would have to thicken the profile to such an extent that the cutting ability would be significantly compromised and the edge retention so low that even simple tasks could not be completed without sharpening. At this point the properties of the steel have seriously compromised the performance of the tool.

To put it another way, what difference does it make on how hard it is to survive if you have :

-no knife

-a really cheap/poor knife

-a decent production knife

-an excellent production knife

-the best custom knife you have had made exactly for you.

As you walk down this chain of steps the difference gets smaller and smaller.

[bearfacedkiller]

Why? Every steel thread must be a train wreck?

There are too many variables and we are all going to get different results based on our uses. Real world use is very different for each of us and expectations are very different for each of us. Based on all these variables what works best for me may not work best for you. What I see in my actual use is going to be different than what you see in your actual use. For that reason you should just try it out for yourself and see if it works for you and meets your expectations.

Cliff, you are either a robot or a computer program or something. Either way, you obviously don't care if you alienate yourself.

As has already been stated, we all value your knowledge base but you have to always be right and if we base any of our opinions on subjective data we are not just wrong but we are undermining science.

[Donut]

That's a pretty good point, a $5 knife is 100 times better than no knife until it breaks.

The thing with that wood worker is: he has sharpening tools available. When you're EDC'ing a knife, you don't always have sharpening tools with you, so edge retention could be fairly important.