Wartstein wrote: ↑Tue Feb 16, 2021 12:35 am
Cambertree wrote: ↑Mon Feb 15, 2021 5:53 pm
Hmmm...how’s the heat treat on those tiles, D? :D :p :)
Excactly. We haven´t heard anything yet about if they perhaps sacrifice too much toughness for being hard!
As a
total expert I assume they could even be a bit brittle?!
Haha, yeah, I think I want to see some micrographs before forming an opinion! :D :p
I guess you could always pull up that random tile and use it for a sharpening stone! :D
I have a few knives from the ‘Golden Age’ of Sheffield production (~1890-1930), and I’ve examined quite a few more from that period by English, French and German makers in other people’s collections and museums. I can confirm that blade centring certainly wasn’t a thing back then, even in high quality pieces.
Although, as mentioned, it’s possible that some of them have suffered some dimensional change and blade warping from retained austenite conversion in the decades since they were made.
But it’s an interesting thing to consider, that back in the day, when it was expected that nearly all knives sold would be used and eventually sharpened down to toothpicks, or otherwise worn out, it doesn’t seem to have been an issue that the makers or users were even conscious of as a desirable trait.
If people choose to focus on it now, and it makes knifemakers design and build their knives to a higher standard, then that’s a good thing, I suppose.
But sometimes I think it’s possible to focus on some qualities to the detriment of others.
As an example, I have a knife which was a forum knife made with collective input from a whole bunch of knife knuts, mainly collectors.
The materials are excellent, it looks really cool, the bladesteel is a ‘premium’ PM stainless which was popular then. Blade centring is pretty close to perfect to the naked eye.
The heat treat is possibly sub optimal, but still ok.
But behind the edge it’s so ridiculously thick and the edge is so obtuse that it’s a very poor cutter.
It took a lot of thinning out by hand on benchstones to get it into a state where it could function as a serviceable cutting tool, and any Opinel would still run rings around it.
I suppose a lot of those knives still reside in safes and the owners are none the wiser.
But I guess that’s an extreme example of what I would regard as some curiously misaligned priorities...