Spyderco Forums

Surfingringo wrote: :) . We tend to respect peoples opinions on here all the time. Why is it so hard to accept an opinion accompanied by video?

First off, welcome to the Forum. Personalities and history comes into play when reading someone's posts. For better or worse, attitude has a lot to do with how someone is received.

Surfingringo wrote:... We tend to respect peoples opinions on here all the time. Why is it so hard to accept an opinion accompanied by video?

Did you know that he also reviewed two GB folders and found that they were "bad". IIRC, Sal and Mike Janich practically begged him to send in his knives for evaluation. He just blew them off and later said that being a medical student, he was too busy to mail the knives. In the meantime he had the time to make and upload a few more vids. Also, I think he later said that he had sold the knives. If he really thought the blades on them were bad, wasn't it a bit dishonest to sell them?

flipe8 wrote:First off, welcome to the Forum. Personalities and history comes into play when reading someone's posts. For better or worse, attitude has a lot to do with how someone is received.

Here's one well written post that summarizes his foray into "reviewing".

I used to support your position as one of truthfulness at least, though not really informed on steels, heat treats, and production stuff like that. In my eyes you lost credibility with me when you didn't send a knife back for testing when asked to after you decided you had problems with it and started posting about it. You have a way of disappearing when asked by the company to let them look at the knife you just slammed. I do think you are a equal opportunity knife testing wannabe though. Your lack of knowledge has shown through a few times. I also think you have a inflated sense of self importance and a need for drama. This thread is evidence to me of that.

We wouldn't have cared or even noticed to be honest. Not trying to be mean, just giving you an honest assessment of your performance as you have always done with others knives, steels, heat treats, etc. .

I think we should likely get back on track in the discussion of S30V vs S35VN instead of talking about John......

It would be a lot more interesting that way. :D

Here is my review on the Native 5 in S35VN:

http://www.spyderco.com/forums/showthre ... est-report

And my Video.

[video=youtube;KI_unv65qbU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KI_unv65qbU[/video]

chuck_roxas45 wrote:You're right. I'm out.

It's sad when someone can't even continue a civil conversation.... The gossip and drama brought on by people like the above are ruining forums.

Ankerson wrote:I think we should likely get back on track in the discussion of S30V vs S35VN instead of talking about John......

It would be a lot more interesting that way. :D

Lol thank you. I'm very uninteresting. :D


Hey when is your review of the forum Native going up?

CrimsonTideShooter wrote:Lol thank you. I'm very uninteresting. :D


Hey when is your review of the forum Native going up?

I already did one for the forums, no video yet though.

Cliff Stamp wrote:John did Reeve ever comment and say if that was or was not the expected behavior?

Clip wrote:That's what I was wondering too. Did John ever contact CRK and if so, what was the result?

John, if you did contact and receive a reply, was it suitable to continue using Reeve's products?

I too am wondering about the answer to this question.

w3tnz wrote:Edge retention is but one of the many factors that make a good pocket knife. Forcing a blunt knife though stupid-thick rope until it inevitably gives in is not a realistic scenario for the end user.

Yes, edge retention is a factor, however John's work on the Sebenza/S35VN did not simply show poor edge retention, it showed catastrophic failure of the blade itself. You really don't mean to argue that the performance of the Sebenza where the blade itself warped is actually sensible behavior simply because the edge was dull on a piece of slight natural rope?

senorsquare wrote:I too am wondering about the answer to this question.

I contacted them, and subsequently received a phone call from the man himself.


To put it bluntly, he was verbally abusive and absolutely refused to hear anything I had to say. I was called every name you can think of, with the addition of every colorful cuss word. The call ended with him hanging up after he was done with his abusive diatribe.

Nothing productive came from it. He just would not hear anything I had to say. Needless to say, I wasn't sending my knife to them.

bh49 wrote: Yes, IMHO CATRA testing, if it is done right will allow to compare steels in edge retention.

For machines, but not for people, it is an invalid test for that.

This is known quite well in the industry and Buck was even open about it many years ago due to the work they did.

Buck found CATRA results did not correlate well to user feedback in the IonFusion line. They then had a bunch of people at work do a bunch of cutting and measured the sharpness at intervals and those results matched user feedback quite well.

The reason for this is because CATRA uses an extremely precise cutting motion and this does not then put lateral loads on the edge which happen when a person is using the knife. These lateral loads are critical because they are what causes rolling and micro-fracture (tear out).

Thus even those CATRA is very precise, it is not very accurate and is not an unbiased estimator.On side coated blades they will self-sharpen in CATRA cutting but they do not in use by a person as the coating lip just cracks off under lateral loads.

bh49 wrote:Did I answered you question?

Yes, now as a followup, consider if valid experiments were conducted more than a 1000 years ago with none of the lab equipment today, it is obviously possible for someone today to also do valid experiments at their home. How much precision and accuracy they need depends on what conclusions they wish to form.

A normal person could easily for example perform a valid experiment to show that the speed of light is much greater than the speed of sound. They could also show for example that it is not significantly changed in that regard by relative motion.

What is critical are the conclusions they reach.

In regards to S35VN. If John concluded that because of what he saw with the Sebenza that all Sebenzas or all S35VN were defective that would be an unfounded conclusion and in invalid experiment. However if he concluded that one was defective it would be well supported by the data and it is a perfectly valid experiment.

If you look at the fact that John considers :

-material properties
-rope cutting
-EDC use
-misc stock cutting

and then does peer review (the critical part) by talking with other people who do such work and uses all of this to generate a conclusion, then it would be expected that in general he gains knowledge from the work.

Now is he right all of the time, no of course not. I have discussed with John about how at times I don't think his conclusions are supported by his data (recent work on S110V and carpet and carbides/cutting). However science in general is never right all of the time no matter how rigorous you are in method.

In the words of Richard Feynman :

"I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of uncertainty about different things, but I am not absolutely sure of anything ..."

Another way to look at it is as simple as this :

Has John learned from his experiments - has he gained knowledge from his observations, deductions and conclusions? If he has, it is very difficult to say he is doing invalid experiments because that is foundational to the definition of science.

Moving beyond John, if you look at YT maker Mike Gavac, he has only been a knife maker for a couple of years, but the performance of his knives had improved dramatically. This is because of knowledge he has gained through basic experiments to confirm aspects of performance of knives, all done in his home, back yard and other places.

Of course such methods are not without risk, and at times conclusions can be false due to incorrect correlation and that is why people serious about knowledge (vs shilling) always utilize peer review to check and confirm their work.

flipe8 wrote:First off, welcome to the Forum. Personalities and history comes into play when reading someone's posts. For better or worse, attitude has a lot to do with how someone is received.

Thanks for the welcome. You're right. I got no dog in this fight. Carry on. I would like to hear more "opinions" about s35 vs s30 though. That's why I clicked on the thread. I didn't mean to get sucked into the drama. My bad.

Bless

So what is the "current verdict" on S35vn? It is used in knives ranging from customs, midtechs and on down. It has been out for some time now. Surely we would have more negative feedback from it by now... Oh that is right, only John uses his knives. Everyone else buys knives to take pictures of them next to flowers and such.

Mr. Reeve "had a part" in developing S30 and S35, With his reputation as being a firecracker at times I am not surprised that he took ownership and responded in that manner. He could have handled it better we can say but two other heads of knife companies have had issues with John as well. Do these companies have something to hide? Spyderco welcomes customer feedback and even criticism but even they have had things to say about John.

FCM415 wrote:So what is the "current verdict" on S35vn?

In truth, I can't speak to how Spyderco's S35vn is as I've never used it. I did, however, carry(should probably say "use") a CRK folder about 90% of the time for the better part of 6.5 years. During that time, it saw use both on and off duty and was used for everything from cutting apples to cutting fire hose. I never took any videos, so people will have to take my words as being the truth. I never noticed any difference between the S35vn and the S30v. It just worked for me without ever getting any chips and no rolling that I can remember.

Most of the negative things I've read about S35vn have been around CRK's products and it seems to come down to people wanting the steel to be bumped up a bit in terms of hardness. Again, I never had an issue, but that's just me.

Surfingringo wrote:Thanks for the welcome. You're right. I got no dog in this fight. Carry on. I would like to hear more "opinions" about s35 vs s30 though. That's why I clicked on the thread. I didn't mean to get sucked into the drama. My bad.

Bless

The title drew me in on this thread, wanting to know more about the two steels. There does seem to be heated debates of a similar nature in the past as well, but I do not mind reading through them and trying to learn anything I can. What I would love to see is the same blade "tested" by both Cliff and Jim for their impressions, and in particular the ones in question as tested by JDavis. I'll contribute for the postage for that!

WorkingEdge wrote:The title drew me in on this thread, wanting to know more about the two steels. There does seem to be heated debates of a similar nature in the past as well, but I do not mind reading through them and trying to learn anything I can. What I would love to see is the same blade "tested" by both Cliff and Jim for their impressions, and in particular the ones in question as tested by JDavis. I'll contribute for the postage for that!

John could send me that S35VN CRK and I would run it and see what happens, but I don't think he has that one anymore.

WorkingEdge wrote:The title drew me in on this thread, wanting to know more about the two steels. There does seem to be heated debates of a similar nature in the past as well, but I do not mind reading through them and trying to learn anything I can. What I would love to see is the same blade "tested" by both Cliff and Jim for their impressions, and in particular the ones in question as tested by JDavis. I'll contribute for the postage for that!

+1 WorkingEdge,

I came to this forum as a person passionate about knife-making, and I want to learn more about it. This thread was an enjoyable read, despite the slight direction it was going about half way through ...

Cliff Stamp, I enjoy reading your posts, you seem to have some nuggets of knowledge coming out of your posts, have you taken a course or two on statistics?

I don't think users could tell the difference in the two steels if the knives weren't marked.
Crucible has said they should hold a similar edge and S35VN may be a bit tougher, but I don't think it would be enough to notice. I can't tell the difference, and I've heard the same from others I trust that has used and tested the steel.
I do believe the manufacturers find it easier to work with, but they're probably the only ones that can tell them apart.

Cliff Stamp wrote:Yes, edge retention is a factor, however John's work on the Sebenza/S35VN did not simply show poor edge retention, it showed catastrophic failure of the blade itself. You really don't mean to argue that the performance of the Sebenza where the blade itself warped is actually sensible behavior simply because the edge was dull on a piece of slight natural rope?

I don't consider abusing a knife to the point of faliure sensible behavior for a start, everything will break/bend if you try hard enough. The hollow ground edge is thinner, steel is softer, it will dull at a higher rate, it will take more force to push through the rope at an earlier stage, therefore it will fail before a ffg edge of harder steel, but those knives wil also have a "breaking point" would they not? To push only one knife to this point and call it faulty dosent seem fair to me. The end user, who uses and sharpens their knife as intended, should not see such a faliure, which is why I dont consider that test relevant or a fair reflection of how the knife would preform in the hands of a sensible user.

Ken44 wrote:I don't think users could tell the difference in the two steels if the knives weren't marked.
Crucible has said they should hold a similar edge and S35VN may be a bit tougher, but I don't think it would be enough to notice. I can't tell the difference, and I've heard the same from others I trust that has used and tested the steel.
I do believe the manufacturers find it easier to work with, but they're probably the only ones that can tell them apart.

I think Jim said more or less the same, and I think your last paragraph is especially true. Users get about the same performance and manufacturers get lower production costs (better finish with less time and abrasives costs). :shrug: :)