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have you ever used to steal on a project
and found after the fact that it was
just hopefully inadequate and vowed
never again to use that particular steal
no I usually test my stuff first
somebody sends me a new flavor of the
month steal I'll test it and either
performs or doesn't there are a lot of
different steals out there a lot of
different steal fads I usually prefer a
harder steal that's more wear resistant
lately I've been a big fan of CTS xhp
and also CPM 20 CV I favor the X HP just
because I've always loved d2 so being
very similar that's that's helpful
I love metallurgy but without going into
too much detail on why I choose specific
Steel's I love I love testing different
Steel's so to start with just the steel
before I ever see it on a knife in
public that I'll sell I end up testing
the steel I'll make a knife out of it
and I'll carry it for a minimum a month
and beat it up as much as I possibly can
because I want to understand what the
steel is capable of what it can do so
what I look for a lot in steels
I want a stainless knife I always stick
with stainless steels I don't like
having corrosion issues with knives
titanium goes along with that you're
never gonna have any corrosion issues it
holds up really well it's relatively
easy to machine fitting parts they stay
very stable at temperature while
titanium is pretty well settled at this
point six a l4v titanium is the pretty
good standard and that's mostly down to
its spring memory which works great in
things like frame locks and minor locks
because it can bend millions of times
back and forth without deforming
permanently I use a lot of very inert
materials carbon fiber g10 things of
that nature because I don't like to have
to worry about glue delaminating or just
things falling apart or expanding or
contracting when you don't want them to
there's a lot of really good materials
out there but I want to know what
they're gonna do and how they're gonna
move over
time.sometimes wood and natural
materials is a hard one to work with
unless they're properly sealed or
properly plasticized basically we call
it stabilizing but it's basically
plasticizing the material that's filling
the silt cellulose pores with plastic so
that it can't absorb moisture and
finding quality woods like that is
actually pretty hard wood can an ebb and
flow and with changes in humidity and
changes in moisture content so if I use
what I have to test that sort of thing
so how do I choose materials depends on
the project what am i doing you know
what kind of knife am I am I making how
is it going to be used and then I test
every piece of steel there is every new
thing flavor the month steel it's out
there and I test it to its fault it's
essentially a lot of rattan a lot of
beading heavy whittling cardboard
corrosion resistance tests toughness
tests I find out what it excels at or
whether it excels at all and then I
defeat the blade I break the blade and I
check out the green structure of the
steel a lot of guys use backyard testing
this is my term I swear I do certain
things in my own facility to see whether
Bend flex will break a knife whether
certain things chipping damaging but my
data then isn't comparable with the rest
of the world so I like using standards
so if I use a standardized test method
which I'm we're a California certified
test facility with with ultrasound mag
particle any current all those methods
so we have the ability to do all of
those things and and by doing so and
doing them to standards that are that
provide comparable data meaning that if
I do it here and I send my data to the
steel mill themselves they use the same
equipment in the same criteria to
accomplish their data
I don't trust data from anyone except
myself I use their data as a starting
point but I want to know what it's
actually capable of so even with steel
companies I'll look at their data sheets
I'll look at the chemical makeup and I
have a pretty good understanding after
all these years of making knives and
studying them as much as I can of what
the steel is gonna do beforehand but I
still have surprises a evl is a perfect
example of one that has very pleasantly
surprised me if you look at its makeup
and its structure
should be a mediocre steal but it
outperforms its chemistry it it's an
incredibly robust steel that can take an
enormous amount of beating and and hold
an edge wonderfully and it's still easy
to sharpen and it's incredibly rust
resistant so it's it's one that the
testing I did on it completely blew me
away it outperformed what it it says it
should do
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you
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