Who is the greatest knife steel metallurgist of all time?

For anyone who hasn't, would highly recommend. Railroad spikes are cheap and easy to hammer. Not great steel, but great for practicing metalwork.

Good to see they're back to normal operations. Last time I looked them up a few years ago they didn't actually have any knives for sale.

Fascinating!

> [Glass knives] were once the blade of choice for the ultra-thin sectioning required in transmission electron microscopy because they can be manufactured by hand.

> ..Some labs still use glass knives because they are significantly less expensive than diamond knives. A common practice is to use a glass knife to cut the block which contains the sample to near the location of the specimen to be examined.

> Then the glass knife is replaced by a diamond blade for the actual ultrathin sectioning. This extends the life of the diamond blade which is used only when its superior performance is critical.

> Obsidian, a naturally occurring volcanic glass, can also be used to make sharp glass knives; obsidian surgical scalpels are available commercially.

> A Spyderco Manix seems to cost about twice as much as a ~15 tool Victorinox. In what way is it better, given that it's just a knife?

I guess it really depends on what you care about.

If you have the Victorinox mostly for the tools, then it's obviously better than the Spyderco. If you have it mostly for the blade, then the Spyderco will be better. The edge will be sharper and will last longer. Also, the lock is more ergonomic and probably stronger.

If you really like the Victorinox and don't care that much about the cork screw, a Leatherman wave/charge just has much better tools and blade than Victorinox, and you can get the blade in s30v for a bit better performance.

What kind of steel is in that Victorinox? How well does it take an edge (can it even take the same kind of edge), hold an edge, resist chipping, corrosion, etc. compared to the Spyderco? It might well be a better overall EDC tool, but since this is a story specifically about steel I'd guess that the answers to those questions would explain why 2x is literally a small price to pay for some people.

The Spyderco is "just a knife" but the Victorinox is more of a multitool. Yes, the multitool has blades, but they're typically thin and don't lock back. Basically the Spyderco is excellent at many cutting tasks, and a Swiss Army Knife is rarely the best tool but might be the only one you have available for a wide variety of tasks. Choose the right tool for the job.

I don't have one, but they are pretty different in terms of value proposition, a Victorinox is barely a knife (most are non-locking, which makes them only suited for opening letters), but has some extra tools tucked in that might come in handy, or not. As you pay more for folding knives you get better steel (for holding an edge), locking (for not cutting your fingers off), ergonomics in the handle. There are certainly diminishing returns, and past a point you're mostly paying for fancy materials in the scales of the handle, and a designer's signature. There are lots of cheap and cheerful Chinese-made knives that are still a lot sturdier that a Victorinox, though.

They are tools, so let's start with the handles. The Manix handle has a shape which is thin enough to easily carry in pocket yet which fills the hand to enable not just one but a range of different solid grips for maximizing strength or control. The handle materials also make the knife extremely durable yet light even though it is relatively large.

Deploying a Victorinox usually means using two hands and then not having a solid lock on the deployed blade. Putting the knife back is also a two handed gesture. While the blade has a stop around halfway to retracted there is still some risk involved. The Manix uses a Spyderco specific variation of a slider lock mechanism which allows the blade to be easily deployed using a range of fast flick or slow slide gestures that require only one hand. When the Manix blade is deployed and the slider lock is not manually held open it automatically locks solidly so that the blade does not move against the handle and the strength of the lock is such that the handle is more likely to fail than the lock itself. Retracting the Manix blade is as simple as pulling back on the slide and then letting the blade fall or swing back into place and while some prefer to use two hands it is easy and even fun to deploy and retract the Manix with one hand.

When it comes to cutting there are many variables and the most important is the geometry of the blade. The broad flat grind of the Manix and the classic shape of the cutting edge make it easy to use for piercing and cutting action that slices instead of chopping. Superior materials mean that under use almost any of the Manix blade variants will hold an edge far longer than the Victorinox.

So whether simply carrying the knife around just in case it is needed, deploying it for use, or actually cutting things the Manix is going to deliver easer and more reliable performance. It may be just a knife, but if you often use a knife then the convenience can quickly pile up to being less than a dollar--even pennies per actual use with each. And every time you can have the satisfaction of doing what needs to be done with minimal inconvenience. And it is also just plain fun: A fidgety machine that looks cool and works well can inspire confidence in the modern world the way so many other widgets can turn promise into a drag.

I think you're confusing two Sypderco models. The Manix costs about $120-130.

If you need to cut things even a few times a week, I'd recommend trying a knife with a pocket clip and one-handed opening. Being able to have the knife ready in 2 seconds without having to put down what you're holding is both useful and gratifying. Spyderco's thumb-hole system works very well for one handed opening and the grip ergonomics on the Manix2 and Paramilitary2 are great. If those are too large for your tastes, the Spyderco Native is a good choice (while being harder to close one-handed)

m0llusk gave a great answer, but to add to it, they aren't the same types of knives either.

You can buy a Victorinox Swiss Army knife (SAK) in exactly one blade steel and it's a stainless steel that's extremely soft, relatively speaking. That's actually a good thing for most casual users since it's fast and easy to sharpen, resilient to abuse, and being stainless, easy to maintain. However, it will not stand up to a lot of normal usage before the edge dulls and it just doesn't perform well anymore.

By contrast, the Manix's base model uses S30V and you'll probably get three or four times as much use from it before it dulls. Spyderco is also a "knife enthusiast's knife company" and they make a lot of their knives available in other varieties of steel too. One variant is Maxamet (a tool steel uses to cut other metals) and you'd easily have an edge on that variant last probably 10 times longer than a Swiss Army knife, but at the cost of having a more brittle edge that is much more difficult to sharpen and it's not a truly stainless steel either, so you have to be mindful of rust and exposure. If you're in a job position where you use it a lot, like in a warehouse where you cut pallet straps and break down boxes constantly, the steel variant choice can easily be the difference between needing to touch up the edge every single day vs. once a week. Spyderco also makes an entire lineup of knives that can withstand saltwater exposure without needing constant maintenance, something that would render a Swiss Army knife useless quickly. Those attributes mean the cost difference can be just about anything if the real world choice is between "useless hunk of rust" and "usable".

There are also economies of scale. Victorinox sells a lot more SAKs than Spyderco sells Manixes, they stamp out their blades by the thousands, if not millions. Spyderco probably doesn't make more than 100k Manix knives a year. A single Manix also has about as much steel in it as 2 or 3 SAKs (the blade is two or three times thicker at the spine), the handle material is nicer and more expensive, the construction is maintainable, the lock is stronger and more intricate. Also there's a machining cost difference, you don't stamp out thick blade blanks of high end steels, you have to cut them out of a billet. Grinder belts are a consumable that are used to sharpen a knife and they last a lot longer for soft steels vs. hard steels. That cost as well as the additional time an employee spends on it goes into the knife's cost. Spyderco's Manix is made in Golden Colorado, which also has a high cost of living and afaik they compensate their employees with a livable wage (I've been to their factory outlet several years in a row and keep seeing the same faces).

All that said, knives can also be pocket jewelry and there's a whole world of stupidly expensive knives out there that enthusiasts push up the prices of, just like there's stupidly expensive cars, watches, keyboards, shaving razors, dress shoes, sneakers, streetwear, raw denim, etc, etc. You can easily reframe your question as to why a pair of Japanese raw denim jeans costs way more than twice as much as a pair of Wranglers at WalMart, given that they're just pants. Or why a Lamborgini costs more than a Civic, given that they're just cars, or why a Keycult keyboard resales second hand for $4k when you can buy a Dell OEM keyboard for $15.

Varying opinions already; here's one more.

I see it as a category thing; a multitool has a knife, but is not a pocket knife. It is fine for cutting things in a pinch, but is terrible for much use - the ergonomics are all wrong, it is heavy and awkwardly shaped, and usually the blade shape is going to be very generic.

As far as cost, it is like anything else - you pay for quality. Others have covered this, I don't have anything to add, other than a rule of thumb - if you've never sharpened a knife, you will probably not find much value in nice ones.

As far as value, that's up to you. I use a knife daily, some days more than anything else I carry with me. If you don't need one, then it will be worth far less to you.

After having a pocket knife close on my finger as a kid (when I did something stupid;)), I will never again use a pocketknife without a locking mechanism.

A knife is a personal tool; Often what you're paying for is not just the blade quality, but also the ergonomics. For example, my dad has one that he really likes, but I dislike the blade shape, and there's another one I have that is just horribly shaped and feels terrible in the hand.

my current EDC is a Benchmade 940-1 (S90V) - love it. used to EDC a Spyderco Centofante 4 (VG-10), but the flat blade profile is not a great all-arounder.

> I went down a rabbit hole about EDC in WA state. There is a grey area that carrying a pocket knife requires a concealed weapons permit.

From what I can tell, the article you linked talked mostly about the illegality of concealed carrying a fixed blade knife. From what I can tell, it's perfectly legal to carry a folder as long as it doesn't possess any "bad" features[2] and is within the length restriction.

The law in Seattle is pretty clear.

> "Dangerous knife" means any fixed-blade knife and any other knife having a blade more than 3 1/2 inches in length[1].

___

1. https://library.municode.com/wa/seattle/codes/municipal_code...

2. My understanding is that a lot of otherwise normal "folding knives" fall under the "gravity knife" definition because the detent that holds the blade closes is often pretty weak (on purpose - it makes opening the knives one handed easier).

There is no 'concealed weapons permit' in Washington state. The only available permit is pistol-specific.

Knife laws vary allot by city and state.

In Colorado I believe the maximum length allowed is 3.5 inches in blade length. This sounds simple but can even be a grey area because some knives like Spyderco have a part of the blade thats not sharpened and technically part of the handle.

NYC used to be very knife unfriendly and you could get charged with carrying a gravity knife if the knife could be flicked open in any way. Good news though as it sounds like that changed https://reason.com/2019/03/28/federal-judge-rules-new-yorks-... There was still a case in NYC of a chef who was charged with something for carrying a very small pocket knife on his way home from work. He was charged with something for the pocket knife but from what I remember it was totally okay that he was carrying a bunch of large chefs knives in his backpack.

Its important to read and understand the law as well as how its actually enforced.

I dunno, I think I'd rather have the QC of a big player for an EDC. Those artisan blades are nice showpieces though.

I am no knife nerd and it is heresy to bring it up in this thread but I am a big believer in ceramic knives. They cut clean, maintain an edge with no fuss, and just work. I recommend ones from Kyocera (made in Japan) since those have worked well for me. Also somewhat related, my peppermill is a Kyocera ceramic as well - works awesome compared to some of the others I've tried.

All kitchen knives worth anything require maintenance.

Really good knives (i.e. usually made with good steel) will hold an edge, and require less sharpening before each use.

Instead you can just hit them weekly or so with a sharpening ceramic.

Cheaper knives need constant sharpening, and or don't hold an edge for anything, and require you to do all the work.

Regardless, always wash and dry your knives by hand, and always cut on a cutting board.

Me personally, I love Shun knives. Not cheap, but the time and effort saved when cooking make it worth the investment.

My first shun is over 10 years old, and I have never sharpened it with a stone, just a sharpening ceramic.

Victorinox chef knife is a good choice, and not expensive.

You'll still have to sharpen it, but not often. It won't rust etc.

Bought one of those Wusthof Classic Block Set with a few knives in it more than 20 years ago. The blades still look like new, the handles have some scratch marks. Use them every week multiple times.

Only care provided was to hand wash them, dry them and put them back in the block. Very rarely attempted sharpening but frequently honed with a steel whenever I felt any dullness while cutting.

Thats about the lowest maintenance I can think of.

Buy decent knives, take care of them and they will last a lifetime and maybe multiple generations.

There’s no such thing as a zero maintenance knife. Stainless steel knifes are lower maintenance than higher carbon steel ones. Zwilling, Wustof, Victorinox and Global all make good quality “affordable” stainless knifes.

But if you want it to last and keep a sharp edge, the only way you can do that is by sharpening them every so often. Even once a month on a ~400 grit stone will keep them in pretty good condition.

People are suggesting ceramic, but seriously don’t bother. They dull and chip, and you can NEVER sharpen them. A ceramic knife has a short life span, after which there is literally nothing you can do to bring back it’s cutting edge.

I have a set of Shun Classics that I hone maybe once every two weeks. They are still incredibly sharp after 8 years of daily, extensive use and I’ve only sharpened them three times on my whetstone. I will only break out the stone if I can see missing chunks in the blade edge; this is the goal of sharpening: to remove the blade material around a divot to create a new, continuous blade edge.

Also, make sure to use a honing steel. If you “hone” on one of those ceramic sharpening rods, you will reduce the life span of your knife. Ceramic removes blade material, steel simply realigns it. The edge of the blade will curl over with use, honing straightens it back up, no need to remove material!

> zero maintenance kitchen knife

First, use a wooden cutting board. Or soft plastic.

Ceramic knives (Kyocera) are harder and more wear resistant than any steel can be, but they're also brittle. The edge can chip if you hit anything hard. You can't cut bones or crusty bread. Don't hit it against any hard object by accident. Don't twist or bend. You could get several years of use out of it, but when it wears out and gets dull, you'd need diamond files to sharpen it.

European chef knives are softer steel (56 to 58 hardness in Rockwell scale), but they are not brittle. Wusthof is a premium brand. The Victorinox Fibrox is very good value at about $40. The steel will bend and give in, but not chip. If you use a honing rod weekly and sharpen every couple of months, you can always have a nice sharp knife. A single 1000 grit sharpening stone like Shapton should suffice, but not everyone wants to learn hand sharpening. You can also use a pull-through sharpener, some are ok but some are just bad. A skilled hand sharpening will produce a finer edge, though.

Then there is a whole world of Japanese chef knives, called gyutos. Rockwell hardness is usually from 61 to 64. They are thinner, lighter, nimbler and sharper than Western style knives, but the steel is so hard that it can be brittle. Hard steel can be sharpened to a small angle to get a very sharp knife, but if you hit a hard object the edge will chip. Slicing vegetables is just a breeze. Honing rod might also damage the edge, unless you apply very light touch. Pull-through sharpeners might destroy the edge. Some "super steels" are very wear resistant so they stay sharp for months, but wear resistance also makes it more laborious to sharpen them.

Strong recommendation: you will be happier with a Japanese style chef's knife/gyuto than with a Western one. The blade is thinner, as is the edge geometry. This is if and only if you can treat the edge properly; the thicker steel and wider edge of a Wusthof may be more your style, otherwise.

Properly means cutting on surfaces designed for cutting, cleaning it, honing it, and storing it in a way that protects the edge.

Fujiwara Kanefusa makes a few which are reasonably priced and all you'll ever need. I got mine on vacation in Kappabashi in Tokyo, a trip I get to remember fondly every time I'm in the kitchen, but it's not really a product category where you get much more by paying a lot more.

Note: there's no such thing as a zero maintenance kitchen knife. Any knife you use will need sharpening about yearly. There's also someone in your town who will do it for ten quid; no reason at all to learn how unless you want another hobby.

My favorite kitchen knife is an old steel knife with a handle ~4 1/2" long, blade ~8" long and width of ~1". I keep it clean and oiled and sharpen it occasionally with one of those crappy cheap kitchen knife-sharpeners you get in any grocery store. I oil it with olive oil (soak the handle too) and dry it out in a warm spot once a year too. It gets better with age.

I was lucky: one day at the convenience store I walked into the (tiny) restroom as a homeless guy was stashing his knife collection up in the attic space (he had failed to lock the door). I excused myself and backed out but notified the manager. We retrieved the knife set, which proved to be a collection of professional Japanese restaurant kitchen knives (very high end and nice) and various other sundry knives. I picked out the knife I describe above (it was one of the "other sundry") and said I wanted it; the manager gladly let me take it. The rest went into the trash. I've had that knife for years now and its the most useful of all my kitchen knives.

Lessons learned:

- don't mess with the homeless guy!

- How well a knife works doesn't depend on looks.

I carry a benchmade knife everywhere. Why? Because all hell breaks loose if you have three kids and only one nectarine. Not that you need a fancy-ass knife for such work.

Other field-knife activities include “what does the inside of this seed look like?” and “I got a splinter!”

The only issue is even though the state of California permits them, the university of California forbids carrying knives, and there is one of those right in the middle of my city.

I live in the city and carry a knife where allowed. I use it to open boxes and packaging, cut food, turn screws (sometimes when they fit), pry things open, pick out splinters, strip wires... Its the most basic tool.

The other day I was replacing my windshield wiper blades and needed to pry out a small adapter that they came with and used an old knife I keep in my car. I was doing this in the parking lot of the auto parts store because the first set I took home did not fit correctly even though the computer said they did.

A small pocket knife is a handy tool to have, whether you think you need it everyday or not. The general idea is that it's better to have it and not need it, rather than need it and not have it.

Beyond self-defense, which is a fairly obvious use case for any "weapon," I've used my pocket knife to cut loose threads from clothing, open plastic packaging that broke a good pair of scissors, removing stickers, splinters, and even as a makeshift screwdriver (in a pinch).

You can do almost all of those with scissors, but are you going to carry a pair of scissors in your pocket? Probably not.

Beyond that, there are emergency scenarios you may never run into, such as cutting seatbelts, clothing, or stuck shoelaces -- again, better to have it and not need it...

Outside the house recent uses:

Cutting some cord while camping. Cutting food while camping. Making a slit in a facemask lining to allow insertion of a filter. Cutting some card for a bookmark.

If you have a knife on you, it gets used.

Side-note - people tend to assume it's for self defense. I doubt that's actually practical, and I'll run away every time. Maybe throw the knife into a lake along the way to be safe from someone using it against me.

I don’t understand American knives. Too big, and in my taste often very ugly. Something like the a Victorinox Climber fits better in the pocket and works better both for city life as well as for camping, with essentials as cork screw and pincer (works very well for ticks).

I think your experience is totally valid. For me, a Swiss Army Knife is often provides a better tool for the job than a knife.

In descending frequency of use as a city slicker:

- scissors

- Philips screwdriver

- tweezers

- awl

- package hook (untying knots)

The knife doesn't make it in the top 5, but would get used on the occasional picnic when someone forgets to bring a knife.

Simply, many of the common situations where you'll find a pocket knife handy around your home also happen outside your home not infrequently. As you go through your day, look around for situations where a tool that can cut, pry or poke would be useful. They're probably more common than you might think.

Some examples I can think of off the top of my head, some of which may be decried as blade abuse by knife enthusiasts.

* Need to get a can of paint open, and just how all Phillips-tip screwdrivers in a 30 meter radius spontaneously cease to exist when it's time to open the case to some piece of tech, so do all flat-tip screwdrivers when it's time to open a can of paint. But the spine of the knife behind the tip makes a decent pry tool in this case.

* The ram upgrades that were ordered two weeks ago for all the CAD workstations in the engineering department have just arrived, in those thrice-damned bubble packs that cut you back when you try to cut them open with scissors. Stab, slice and now the only gods that are getting a blood sacrifice today are the gods of the insides of computer cases.

* Pulling network cable in a new office installation. Juan borrowed your jacket stripper, and hasn't come back from back from lunch yet. But, you've got practice in applying just the right pressure to cut the jacket without nicking the insulation of the twisted pairs inside or slicing your thumb.

* While visiting a friend, the mail arrives, including little Billy's latest issue of Superman. To Billy's frustration, it in one of those plastic bags that simply does not tear when pulled on, it just stretches. One poke later, and now it actually will tear open, and Billy can see how Superman's fight with Darkseid comes out.

* It's Reverse Engineering Night at the local hackerspace. Ahh, gadget makers are so cute. They think a recessed plastic tab smaller than human fingers can protect the case screws from your kit of specialty screwdrivers designed for voiding warranties.

* Rebuilding the engine for a project car. While assembling the cylinder head, you notice that the caps for the camshaft had little slots machined into their faces to act as channels for oil distribution. But, when the machine shop did a hot-tank cleaning of these parts, not all of the hardened crud came of of those little channels. Dammit, now your remember the reason you'd been keeping that old set of dental picks that you threw away last week when cleaning out the garage. Well, pocket knife tip is fine enough to get in there with some care.

I'm sure you or your friends can probably come up with some more examples.

Definitely cutting food. Maybe this goes back to my camping days, it was easier to carry a loaf of good bread and a chunk of cheese than a bag of sandwiches. (And a tube of mustard, must not forget). A pocket knife didn't make the cleanest of cuts, but did the job, and the food always got eaten as fast as I could cut it up and hand out the pieces. Likewise for bringing food along on a car trip.

Being able to do this prevented us from getting into the habit of traveling with junk food.

The knife for this job never had to be particularly big or sharp. I have a Victorinox and a cheap old boy scout knife that won't take an edge at all.

Oddly enough when my family traveled in Europe, we would usually rent an apartment for a week or two, and would just borrow a knife from the kitchen drawer for our daily hike. It was usually a stainless serrated knife with molded handle.

Yes we also used the corkscrew. ;-)

I've carried a pocket knife since I was a boy. I cut myself once, as every boy must.

The knife is an endlessly useful tool for exploration, for testing materials, for abusing as a screwdriver or lever, removing splinters, trimming loose threads/cloth, etc. I've sometimes thought that carrying a pair of scissors might be handier but then cutting boxes, carving wood or cleaning under my fingernails would not be so easy and I worry about what image it might project. Nonetheless I would be hesitant to pick a fight with a tailor or a seamstress.

Perhaps you're too old and fixed in your ways to adapt to carrying a knife, since it seems that it's presence worries you.

If you are thinking of self-defense, you could always carry a firearm instead (or perhaps a sword or staff), since most people apparently consider that a more persuasive deterrent to violence. You can always carry a pistol unloaded, with ammo in a separate pocket, so you have time to think clearly whether to load should violence occur!8-)) Remember that one can both punch or bludgeon quite effectively with a pistol even if it is not loaded. This is called "pistol-whipping" and is commonly displayed in old Hollywood westerns.

If you cannot make up your mind there is always the "Apache" knife/gun/brass knuckles:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=apache+knife%2Fgun+brass+knuckles&...

but this is unwieldy for removing splinters and in everyday use tends to make companions unduly nervous.

As another city-dwelling office worker, I used to carry a knife everyday when I had a use for it at work. Changed jobs and eventually I realized I hadn't used it in months, so I stopped carrying it. My partner has a pretty large knife collection and enjoys expanding it, but similarly doesn't find it convenient to actually carry one.

I'd call https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessemer_process the major advance and Gilchrest-Thomas a refinement. Shrug.

Bronze was revolutionary in other ways. Sure, copper occurs in native metallic form, but even once you find out that mixing it with certain minerals yields a much better metal, you have other problems. Namely that the mineral that gives the best alloy, cassiterite, or SiO2, only occurs in large quantities thousands of kilometers away from your copper deposits. Trade between regions that had hitherto had little contact became a thing.

Iron, as known to the ancients, was in many ways inferior to bronze. Iron with low carbon content is malleable but soft, whereas iron with too much carbon is hard but brittle. It took a long time for people to painstakingly learn to make iron that was consistently as good as bronze, and even longer to learn how to further refine iron into consistent-quality steel, a process that also required huge amounts of energy compared to bronzemaking.

At this point in the internet there are literally thousands of Youtube videos, Quora threads, and various other articles debunking the myth of Japanese swords. It is really just another example of the myth of the exotic Orient.

Here's one I picked at random to get you started on catching up:

https://www.quora.com/Are-Japanese-swords-overrated

We have enough old swords from when swordfighting was important that we should have some idea of what traits were valued.

What a lot of people also don't know is that forging doesn't give the steel it's strength. Forging is done because it is way easier/cheaper than melting and casting it.

Quenching and tempering gives it it's desired strength.

I think it's sort of funny that people are idolizing medieval Japanese swordsmiths.

"They folded their blades 200 times!!!"

Yes, because they had to, because the source material was pretty crap comparatively. Not because they were some kind of magical elven runesmiths making densetsu katanas.

I'm also a big Benchmade fan. Great company. I used the Bugout forever until a couple months ago when I started using the Grizzly Ridge. Either way you can't go wrong.

This. I’ve had a Benchmade 943 in my pocket every day for more than a decade, but still pack a multitool when camping. Had other knives prior, but kinda lost interest in anything new after getting the 943. Except when wearing a suit... still wouldn’t mind finding a blade a bit more suit-able.

Good point. I just bought a leatherman instead of the knife that I thought I wanted. Thanks ;-)

Corollary: there's a lot higher parrying frequency in modern FIE-style fencing compared to modern kendo, which partially carries over because of the historically more brittle steel used in Japan.