Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2011 4:01 pm
Feel free to PM me what you really think, i don't mind reading it :DAnkerson wrote: Yeah it was a slight rant because I can't post on a public forum what I really think.
Feel free to PM me what you really think, i don't mind reading it :DAnkerson wrote: Yeah it was a slight rant because I can't post on a public forum what I really think.
Cliff Stamp wrote: I know what the placebo effect is and have extensive training and experience in measurement bias, but still I have to take extensive precautions or it will easily influence, or even dominate results and again I am actually trained to eliminate it and it is still by far the largest problem I have to deal with in any performance comparison.
Not everyone falls for the placebo effect though. I am one of those people. I am a huge skeptic though.Evil D wrote:In the car world we call this the "butt dyno" because surely every little mod you do to your engine has to make it faster.
One guy goes out and buys this new gimmicky spark plug and goes around saying his car is soooo much faster now. Placebo effect is what makes the world revolve.
Yep, this is precisely why is it important for us to see for ourselves what is what and not just to rely on the hype.CrimsonTideShooter wrote:Not everyone falls for the placebo effect though. I am one of those people. I am a huge skeptic though.
I'm with you, very skeptical especially when hype is involved. It took me the longest time to buy a Paramilitary 2 because everyone acted like it was God's gift to knives. Even the first time i handled one i wasn't impressed, but the second time i held one, something clicked.CrimsonTideShooter wrote:Not everyone falls for the placebo effect though. I am one of those people. I am a huge skeptic though.
And all this time, I thought it was Fat Bottomed Girls :D :pEvil D wrote: Placebo effect is what makes the world revolve.
Cliff Stamp wrote:Hype, yes. The problem is that some consumers get way over zealous and as a manufacturer it is not always so easy to reign someone in. For example it is all over the internets that sharpening H1 increases the edge retention. Spyderco has never claimed this, but it is hard to fault them for people running wild with the idea. I have mentioned in a couple of places that no data from Spyderco ever supported this, nor was it even implied - but it is like trying soap up the ocean with a shamwow.
With any new steel there were be a few guys who run wild, and there will also be makers/manufacturers who decide that it is time to go crazy with allegations. I have spoke out against this before, but I also have some sympathy for them because it is not the easiest thing in the world to explain to someone who is not really into knives what it means to move from S30V to S35VN and thus you end up with "it is just a better steel" which for a lot of people is what they want to hear.
The other thing is that the placebo effect is can easily dominate any results. For example Mike Stewart has spoke out very strong against S30V noting that the average user can not sharpen it properly and thus the performance is always very low compared to what it can achieve, but S35VN solves this problem completely thus it is a great steel.
Now I would dispute this strongly for any number of reasons :
-the change in total carbide volume is only 0.5%
-niobium is still a very hard carbide, it is softer than vanadium carbide but harder than almost all sharpening abrasives (it is even harder than silicon carbide)
-there is still quite a large amount of vanadium carbide, to be specific the amount was reduced by just 7% of the total carbide volume
There is no way given these small changes that the material properties could be so dramatic and S35VN is wonderful and easy to sharpen while S30V is difficult to impossible. But regardless, if you put 20 people in a room and gave them all one knife and then another and told them the first knife was very difficult to sharpen and the next one had a steel which was reformulated to make it very easy to sharpen then 19/20 people are going to note that the second one was indeed a vast improvement if they accept you as an authority.
I know what the placebo effect is and have extensive training and experience in measurement bias, but still I have to take extensive precautions or it will easily influence, or even dominate results and again I am actually trained to eliminate it and it is still by far the largest problem I have to deal with in any performance comparison.
Yeah I did it twice without sharpening between, not something I would want to use on a daily basis though as a razor, but it can be done and S30V will take a VERY fine edge.Zenith wrote:Some very good information has been presented in this thread and boy have I learned a lot.
The one thing that gets me, well that I have learned, there is a lot of hype surrounding new knife models and steels.
I was the one that posted the quote of Mike Stewart (someone contacted me in that regard and gave some good information for me) but I do agree with Ankerson and Cliff that S30V is not that difficult to sharpen. In fact many people that complain about a steel not getting sharp dont realise it has a lot to do with skill and developing those skills till you get a knife sharp. They quit before they get any results.
Ankerson: S30V razor huh? Been using my CPM-M4 military for that :)
It is hard to know what the problem is when you have so little information, but the majority of the time people note this issue they are trying to change an angle on a knife (remove damage, etc.) with a very fine stone and seeing no progress. It also happens if they make a big jump in steels, for example Bark River uses steels like A2, AEB-L, etc. which are very low carbide steels and very easy to grind. If you sharpen S30V with the same number of passes on a stone then nothing happens.Ankerson wrote:
S30V is NOT hard to sharpen and it will as you know take one heck of an edge.
Cliff Stamp wrote:It is hard to know what the problem is when you have so little information, but the majority of the time people note this issue they are trying to change an angle on a knife (remove damage, etc.) with a very fine stone and seeing no progress. It also happens if they make a big jump in steels, for example Bark River uses steels like A2, AEB-L, etc. which are very low carbide steels and very easy to grind. If you sharpen S30V with the same number of passes on a stone then nothing happens.
Of course if you micro-bevel then grindability really isn't an issue unless the edge is getting damaged. If you use an 80 grit "lobster" waterstone to set the edge on your knife and then elevate the edge angle 1-3 degrees and polish the microbevel then even S90V sharpens very quickly because all you are honing with the higher grit finishes is a little strip of metal about 0.1 mm wide so it will polish with just a few passes on the stone. The same can be done with a convex bevel by just altering the pressure on the medium if you are using some kind of paper+pad.
By the issue that amuses me is how S30V was great and now S30V is apparently horrible but a very minor change to its properties, which is on the order of a percent, suddenly makes a huge difference. Quite frankly the differences between them are so slightly that the batch variances are likely to cause them to over lap. Most steel families are like this, 440B for example has enough batch variance to overlap 440A and 440C.
Do you mean S30V was great and S35VN is horrible.....Cliff Stamp wrote: By the issue that amuses me is how S30V was great and now S30V is apparently horrible.....
But how can it be bad when (insert knife god's name here) himself recommends it and will be using it exclusively? :pAnkerson wrote:
Yeah I find that to be VERY funny that now S30V sucks and has all these issues since some are pushing S35VN when about a year ago it was GREAT.
Shiny Footprints....chuck_roxas45 wrote:But how can it be bad when (insert knife god's name here) himself recommends it and will be using it exclusively? :p
rosconey wrote:either ever maker i can find (spyderco ,strider,boker,crk ect ect)has been sold a bill of goods on this steel-
or its just some early ht issues -imho
I was not stating an opinion, just noting how the perspective in S30V has shifted dramatically due to the promotion of a new replacement and suddenly there are problems with the steel when a few years ago it was perfect and these issues are huge and impossible to deal with - but S35VN (a small refinement) is wonderful. It is like saying that the new Phil Wilson production is way too overpriced and you would never even consider it, but if the cost was reduced by $5 you would buy a dozen of them immediately as it would be a great value.maxbelg wrote:Do you mean S30V was great and S35VN is horrible.....
S30V has never gotten the praise it deserves in my opinion. It is an excellent steel in almost every respect, but so often you hear terrible things about it. Doesn't make sense.Cliff Stamp wrote:I was not stating an opinion, just noting how the perspective in S30V has shifted dramatically due to the promotion of a new replacement and suddenly there are problems with the steel when a few years ago it was perfect and these issues are huge and impossible to deal with - but S35VN (a small refinement) is wonderful. It is like saying that the new Phil Wilson production is way too overpriced and you would never even consider it, but if the cost was reduced by $5 you would buy a dozen of them immediately as it would be a great value.