Still think these are better knives worth saving for⬇ (Affiliate) Go ahead h8 me😛 amzn.to/41LI0jE amzn.to/402hdOB As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
11:10 So to be clear, Bigger Pile Gooder, Smaller Pile Bad. Very transparent and intuitive, anyone who's had to breakdown boxes should get it. Thanks for the extended detective work, much appreciated.
100% the most direct and truthful knife tuber. People calling him a shill really annoys me be aude pretty much he's the only larger channel that is honest and not shilling.
"You're totally bought out by the Big Knife Industry, not like little ol' Walmart, the small mom and pop company that flies it's regional managers back to the company town each and every night, who looks out for the little guy!" Yeah I don't think you're dealing with a crowd who can do the "which box pile is bigger" challenge here...
LOL! I laughed and I cried. The cardboard with putty sandwich was the best metaphor ever. And the very last recommendation to buy a $5 knife priceless. I've successfully sharpened my own knives in the past two months, and reshaped two broken tips, thanks in big part to your videos. Your dry, witty, clever and poignant humor is appreciated.
I have been a fan of your channel for years. When I met you at Blade Show 2024, I told you that you are the Galileo of sharpening. This video is a fine testament to that assessment. Excellent work!
Completely unrelated: I dated a young lady we all called Gillette. She was the best a man can get. And she would cut you if crossed. Do with that what you will. Cheers!
I have only been watching your UA-cam content for about 2 months now, and I have decided 2 things. First, you are most definitely NOT a shill. Second, you have the very admirable quality of wanting to present the most accurate information possible. I truly appreciate the effort you put into helping everyone who watches your videos understand process... even if they don't.
Also composition, his videos are more entertaining than 80% of knife/steel/edc creators out there. He has great narrative skills and a knack for breaking up monotony.
Honestly that's probably it. They almost certainly have little to no QC on the knives coming out, which is why the knives can be made of D2 while also being 10 dollars. Kind of a shame, if they spent maybe another 5-ish dollars per knife on QC/hiring someone that actually knows how to use a belt sander, they'd actually have a really solid budget knife.
Was thinking the same thing, however the edges on the Walmart knives aren’t discolored or burnt. If this is the reason for the poor performance, why wouldn’t the edge be ‘burnt’ like the knife he demos? Honest question.
@@overbuiltlimitedthe color is an ultra thin oxide layer, the steel doesn't change color where the oxygen is not present. it would be super easy to just grind the oxide off to hide your crime of doing a very bad job. Whoever profiles the knife has no patience when there's a lot of material to remove and only slows down for the last pass or two, but the damage is already done.
A Looooooot of people are straight clowns 🤡- like bad clowns 🙄 - this guy is the most honest content creator I’ve ever seen regarding knife sharpening, etc.
The presenter must've sold his soul and his integrity for a roast beef sandwich, and ate the evidence. He sure the hell didn't get enough money from BigKnife to even get another zippered hoodie or watchcap. Dang.. He's the worst sellout ever!! 😂
If you work for Big Knife, how come we never see you sharpening any big knives? I wouldn’t mind seeing you figure how to sharpen a BIG knife, like a sword or machete. 🙂 I think if you stack a couple 2x4’s parallel to a machete taped to the edge of your benchtop it would make a good angle guide for a diamond plate with a rod or dowel taped to it. Just a thought.
I hope you were using those negative comments for content because I would not take them personal. You have the most informative content about knives that I’ve come across and you are very transparent. Ty
Good job finding out the cause and explaining it in a way everyone should be able to understand. I bought two of them, one is still new in the package and the other has been my work knife for a few weeks. Note that I only do knife things with my work knife. So far it's still sharp and for $10 I have no complaints. Also, I bought an orange Vosteed Raccoon which has become my EDC when not working. Great knife and I love the blade shape.
Appreciate you for always going above and beyond for your community, even if they are skeptical/cynical at first. Thats what makes you and your channel my favorite since the day I came across it!!
I have heard it said, the manufacturer's hardening and tempering of a knife is far more important to its performance than the type of steel it's made of, within reason. So I think its worth considering blades made of humble "inferior steels" like 440c over chasing the lastest "super alloy." And this knife is a prime case study. Super-duper D2 steel, and the burnt edge rendered it with the same edge retention as as discount store low carbon steel butter knife. Which brings around the bottom line. The quality of the manufacturing process is JUST, if not more, important than the material choice when it comes to knife quality. I would love to see a follow up were like 3-4 of these knives were tested to see if maybe you got a bad one. Because if their Chinese manufacturing "partner" is using unskilled labor to do hand-grinding, well then its very easy to introduce wild variation of quality in the knives depending on what employee is doing the grinding, and how they day is going. I think there is a reason the big name brands either use very well trained employees, or machines to do the grinds on their knives.
@@nordoceltic7225 that used to be true a long time ago when there were few steels used in knife making, and while the heat treat is extremely important, the type of steel used matters a whole lot as well, some steel has a very large amount of carbides that are so hard that they will give a knife good edge retention even at smoothly lower hrc, but the point is that with all the different types of steel out there, you absolutely need to pick the steel best suited for it's intended end use, but heat treat absolutely matters, spyderco is the best in the business, they typically run there steel harder than everyone else for edge retention, Benchmade runs there's a little softer for added strength, the point is with all the steel out today, it all matters now, Mack on the day everybody was running the same steel, the only difference was the heat treat, but I promise d2 steel with the best heat treat has nothing on maxamet with a mediocre heat treat
That's the thing, though. The steel was fine and the heat treatment was fine; the issue was how the knife was handled _after_ that. Also, this might be nit picking, but I object to calling D2 a "latest super alloy" in comparison to the "humble inferior" 440c. D2's patent was issued in 1928 and people started using it for knives in the late 60s; it didn't catch on widely for some time after that, but that's not the steel's fault. On top of that, it's not really much newer than the 440 series steels, of which, the oldest-440a-got its patent in 1927.
@jamesruth100 D2 was the super steel of it's day, but your right that day has passed, and while I enjoy a budget knife in D2 if it's done right, there are newer steels that are way better even in the extreme budget range, I'd rather have nitro v, 14c or 12c, and to be honest if I'm going that cheap I'd rather have the ultra extreme strength and toughness of 440hc, with corrosion resistance, because might have a little better edge retention but your still sharpening almost as often as 440hc, so I'll take the extreme strength in a big knife, the D2 I'm a small knife, all knife steel is purpose driven,
It's definitely a quality issue. I bought one of these online and it was the newer version and it feels like everyone expects a $10 knife to be like. However, when I was in the store about a week ago, they had one in their display case that was the older version and it felt completely different to me. It actually felt like a really decent knife and definitely worth more than the $10 price. I would not have any worries at all about one if it happens to be a well-made one like that. So of course I bought a $60 one instead of that one that day, as that really confirmed to me what I suspected the deal was with this knife. Some are going to be really great knives, and some are going to be complete junk like mine is. Since it's still a really hot item and people definitely have them on their Christmas lists, I'd rather someone else have gotten the better quality one in the store and be really excited about getting one that definitely is way better than it should be and just keep my first one as a reminder that most of the time things really are too good to be true. I didn't need the better one of these. I've already got more knives than I'll ever need, and I already have one of that model. And it's not even a style that I like the best (I've got like 10 hollow ground drop point blades still, and although they're definitely great for all-purpose, I prefer clip points for my uses. And I already have a bugout styled knife with axis lock in a clip point that was only $20. And I like it enough to use it.) If people really want one of these, just prepare yourself for the possibility that you might not be one of the lucky ones to get one with the great quality and possibly might be getting one of the worthless ones. If it's one of the good ones, it easily feels like a $30+ quality knife. But I can tell with the one I have that it'll probably break if I ever use it. It's just going to be dependent on the luck of the draw with these ones. And since I'm happy with the other knife I bought there that day, I'm glad I did leave that good one there in the store for someone else to get and enjoy. Maybe a responsible kid will open it up for Christmas and it'll be their first ever knife. That one in the store definitely could handle being used a lot, and the only negative I was able to find while looking it over was that it was one of the ones that had one scale a different shade of orange than the other side. Aside from that, it looked and felt like a really great knife that was made extremely well for that price. It's not the most amazing knife ever made, but it's worth many times more than it is priced at if it's one of the good quality ones. The bad ones are just any other $10 knife and you'll be wishing you spent another $20 for any of the thousands of other knives that you'll have a better chance of having more reliable and consistent chances of getting good use out of
@@DABinCHRIST Yeah, I'm not trying to diminish the qualities of D2; it's still an amazing steel in this day and age, even if it no longer has the same unmatched, illustrious standing that it did back in the day. I was mostly just saying that D2 is a poor example to demonstrate the knife community's trend of chasing new steels because, quality aside, it's _far_ from new.
Great test! It's not uncommon for a production knife even from well know manufactures to have to put a half dozen edges on the blade before it performs at it's best for edge retention.
Well made. Thank you. I've started into the social media sphere and I am at a new level of respect for content creators and the effort they put into the production and craft of media. Thank you for a quality video.
Great video! I learned a lot, I was aware of a burnt edge but thought you could get into good steel after removing a couple sharpenings worth of steel like you did in the first video. I had no idea how far the heat could travel
To be fair, there are a lot of shills on youtube, to the point it's pretty rare to find someone who isn't a shill. But I'm pretty sure this guy is not a shill.
Sherlock Holmes, 221B Baker St, London, famously relied on logic to solve his cases, beginning with the principle that "once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”.
I would have never thought a burnt edge would go that deep into the steel. I guess because of the amount of these they r pumping out and the fact that they r running the belt at an excessive speed this is the result u end up with. Crazy. Thanks for all the work u put into figuring out y this happened.
I had a M4 bailout that took 13 to sharpening before I started to feel the steel get harder and the performance starting to begin to increase. Most edges I'm getting in to good consistent steel at edge 2 or 3 in most cases but I've definitely had some outliers from major US brands over the years. I've had a pretty badly cooked 20cv sheep's foot grip that took around 10 edges before I could feel I was getting in better steel and the performance started to be acceptable. I had a s90v penguin from qsp that was burn enough that could see color up over an 8th of an inch above the edge bevel. How that knife got past QC I'll never understand, it probably would have taken 30 edges to start to find good steel but I sent that one straight back and got a refund. Those are oddities but on average 2 to 3 edges to get in to "good steel" is what I find to be the norm.
@@Edcreviewer 13 is crazy, I think I'd just file off all the soft stuff until it feels like you're hitting hard steel, the difference should be noticeable.
@@Edcreviewer yeah I have around the same results by my 3rd edge it’s a pretty big jump in how long I can go before I need to touch up the edge. I’ve had a few knives with what I would consider a burnt edge but unless it was a knife I love it just ends up in the case not getting carried. I’ve only had that happen twice one was an ameight the other was a knock off supposedly d2 demko 20.5 from Amazon lol big surprise on that one right. D2 when done right is a fantastic steel imo. I can’t wait till we see real dlc coatings done on cheap d2 titanium folders I feel like the first company to offer that around the $100 mark or under with a good design will have a huge home run. As the only thing that holds d2 back is it’s stainless properties imo.
I have been watching your channel for quite some time now and am always impressed with the effort you put into each video. Your opinions have panned out for me, and I have learned much about knife sharpening and care from you. I purchased the Sharpal two-sided diamond stone after watching your video and have been able to put a better edge on my knives in a shorter amount of time than ever before. Thanks for all you do and don't ever let the trolls get to you!
I've been watching you pretty much since the start of your channel. You have always been transparent. I've learned more from you than any other channel on UA-cam keep up the good work.
D2 is one of the hardest tool steels to correctly heat treat. It's a 24 hour soak at consistent temperatures, and air hardening for blade stock, more or less. Annealing is pretty much similar. You've got the specs on it, so I'm guessing you know that. I bought a bunch of D2 plate without really looking into it first, and then went and read up on the heat treating process and realized it was pretty much impossible to do without a kiln, so all my stock would need to be sent out for heat treating, as I lack that kind of capability. Good steel, but I'm not sure it's really worth the effort or the potential for failure if it's done incorrectly. D2 also has a toughness to hardness variation which actually puts it closer to 54 HRC to retain toughness if I recall. 59 to 60 HRC is I think on the drop-off, where the toughness of the material deteriorates rapidly, so what tends to be done, is a very controlled soak, then hardening in air, or pressed between aluminum plates, and then tempering to bring it down to around 54 HRC to take advantage of the potential toughness, for greater blade strength. D2s specific properties do not lend to very hard knives, but rather durable ones.
I know you already figured this out, but you could have also used a scratch test for hardness on just the apex. With your hardness tester, you could probably even make some of your own scribes at specific hardnesses. It's not the most accurate, but it should show a difference from the rest of the blade. Alternatively, get 2, and make a scribe out of the spine of whichever is a little softer. It shouldn't scratch the harder one except at the burnt apex.
Funny, I finally got my hands on one of these after them being sold out of EVERY Wal-Mart I've been to for months and decided to carry it today. I break down anywhere from 10 to 50 cardboard boxes a day, five days a week. EDC a plain-Jane S30V Sage 5 LW, I can usually get away with a 5 minute touch up on the Lansky rods once a week and it's back to shaving sharp. Sometimes it will start to "push" through the inside layer of cardboard by the end of the week if I use it on a lot of plastic or 2-3 layer heavy boxes, but I'm plenty happy with it. That said, I have broken down maybe 15 boxes today, and I can already tell this little Great Value Benchmade is dulling rapidly. I got it more as a treasure hunt than something to use, so it'll probably live in the car after I resharpen it. Spyderco ain't leaving my pocket any time soon.
Used mine about 6 weeks now, sharpened 3 times (touch up) still best $10 knife I ever bought. Thanks for the "clarification" . I also love my $50. + ones. Don't think I'll ever spend over $100.
If you can get a spyderco paramilitary 2 in CRU-WEAR, snag it! It's literally the only knife you need lol. I have yet to have to sharpen mine, and I've beat the hell out of it for 2 years
@@1947froggy never say never. I used to think it was crazy to spend more than $125 on a knife and now I own multiple Medfords, Spydercos a Spartan, and a Sebenza. I own plenty of Chinese knives too but the American made knives are special.
ok, I'm at 5:41 in and want to take a guess. I'm guessing they got the blade too hot when sharpening it ruining the temper and causing the poor edge retention.
Man. I love your no nonsense and simplistic approach to sharpening. So much so, i bought a bottle of 4 micron jende and a sharpal to try out my luck on the hobby. Wish me luck😅
Nice test methodology and results! That means there is, effectively, a manufacturing problem with their sharpening process. Better to find a blade for 2-3x the cost and avoid having to remove the annealed edge.
It's good to see this thing tested again. I would have bet good money that the heat treatment itself was terrible, but apparently not. It would have been fascinating to see what that edge looked like fresh off the grinder before it got cleaned up. Blue the whole length. I wouldn't have thought to take the edge back that far to get past burned spots, but I also am not yet equipped to test the HRC and determine whether or not that there's an issue there.
They definitely didn't have burned edges. I'm still a bit gobsmacked at how all 3 of my Ozark Trail Dropouts did basically double the work every single other D2 knife I tested did.
There are some people that just like to talk trash, your videos have shown nothing but honesty and integrity. And the information you provide is greatly appreciated. Not to mention, you just did troubleshooting for a problem at this other company producing these knives would have completely missed in their extreme mass production process . All I have to do is keep the blades cool while their profiling and sharpening and apparently they're not doing that.
I’ve been subscribed to your channel and watching you for over five years and I know that you’re not a shill for anything but the truth. That’s what your channel is all about-finding the truth and giving honest reviews and advice. I happened to guess what the problem was before you even disclosed the HRC, but after you said that the HRC was, in fact, 59-60, I knew exactly what it was about and you proved me right. It’s a very common problem with those who don’t understand about tempering and losing the temper. Once again you proved why you’re the pro, and not a shill! Good job, Alex!! Thanks for keeping your viewers informed!!!!
Edge annealing during sharpening was my first thought during the intro. I'm aghast that some people would turn against you so quickly. Truly we live in a civilization informed by confirmation bias alone
All in the grind, they cooked it after a good heat treatment too long on the grinder and annealed the working edge to the point it’s soft at the cutting edge hard on the spine is my guess at @2:35
The grind error would also explain the wildly inconsistent experiences from people who bought the knife, some are good some are bad it’s luck of the draw
Thanks for going through all that testing. It is well beyond what most people would do and I love the added info. It really teaches you more about steel and knife making. Thank you. Also, how is your health doing?
CS has had some of the same inconsistency issues for a while now. Generally good products but there must be somebody that shows up to work drunk or with a bad hangover regularly.
Great video! Would a knife that dulls relatively quickly but gets hair-popping sharp after just stropping be a sign of a burned edge? I have a knife in cruwear like that.
Thank you for proving what I knew the whole time. There's nothing wrong with the knife if you sharpen it! In your previous video I said I have zero issues with edge retention after I sharpened to 14dps. I must of taken the burnt edge off. Good video man! 👏👏👏
I'd say a bad knife would usually be sub 20 bucks. But you can get good to great knives from anywhere between 25-100 bucks. I collect budget knives, and I'd say the grand majority of them are good to great knives, and that's with most of them being around 25 to 60 bucks.
You can find a great knife for $10 and a terrible knife for $300. But generally $0-$15 = Bad $20-$35 = Okay $40-$65 = Good $70+ = Great Personal opinion
IMHO, it's not worth paying anything for a bad knife, especially not when a perfectly reasonable knife is only about $20. I think Alex did a video showing that with the right sharpening you can get great performance out of a dollar store kitchen knife. Most of my knives are probably in the $50-$150 price range. I think the most I've paid was around $400 for a custom made specialty knife. Unless you count the $1,600 damascus Viking axe I purchased just because it's pretty and I could afford it (and of course I've used it to fell a few trees). The price tag doesn't reflect the performance but the time and artistry that went into making it. I could have spent about 1/10th the price on a Granfors Bruks or Hults Bruk for likely the same or better performance. But in my subjective opinion, it wouldn't be as pretty or feel as special.
I've had terrible $500 custom knives and great $15-$30 knives. Though the quality has gone up a lot in the last 5 years or so. I have a $30 petrified fish 719 in 12c27 that I've been using for quite a while and I love it (Thin blade, great blade shape, great action and comfortable in hand). I use it more than a lot of knives that cost 10-20 as much. But I also carry and use my Assassin Knives Argo custom in m398 at 64hrc that was $500 at least 3-4 days a week for the same reasons (plus it's ground thinner, cuts better, feels even better in hand, has a pocket clip and looks incredible) as that $30 petrified fish. It just depends. Buy from a known brand and typically the more you spend, the more you get to a certain point. I recommend 14c27n on the low end. A great, simple steel that's easy to HT and most companies do a good to great job with it. Plus it's a brand name steel made by Sandvik, while D2 is a standard of steel that 50+ companies make and you don't know who's you're getting.
I have access to superficial machines at work and use it to test my knives from time to time. My first thought was whether or not the coating affects testing too. There are some shenanigans you can play to test the slants and things like that too but it's harder with like c scale because of how much weight there is. Something like 15n is a lot easier to do those with and if you are good you'll get solid accurate and confident checks The nice thing about d2 is that you can just heat it up to like 900 or 950 to get it harder again after hitting 600 which normally drops that to around 57 which also still isnt' awful
wow! what a follow up! this is and will be one of the best videos for people to finally understand what really goes into the grinding and shaping of a knife blade! we knives for instance, i can fully understand and accept some of the outrageous prices on their high end blades with insane grinds! class is in session with this video. please no haters... damn good video! thank you. by the way not complicated to understand at all...
Sorry, this is off-topic but just wondering what you might think of putting diamond strop compound on top of green strop compound? After drying, the diamonds could be pressed into the wax to create more holding power to keep the diamonds in place?
As a machinist that has in the past used a lot of hand-sharpened high-speed steel cutting tools, i.e. lathe tool points and twist drills, I am quite familiar with the need to not overheat the cutting edges when resharpening. Hopefully one never heats a cutting tool edge past a very light pale yellow straw color. Once you get into the "blue ranges" of color, you've screwed your resharpening job.
Haha I love the term “shill”, it’s way overused. I never really understood the hype on this knife. Ozark Trail knives in general are hit or miss. I’ve had some I carried and loved when I was in construction, held an edge for a darn long time (for a cheapo). Then I’ve had some that were duds, but were only a couple bucks so they were throwaways anyway. Love that you took the time to do this.
How do you keep your knife cool when working on the 2x72 belt grinder? I vaguely remember you just move it quickly and let it cool between strokes, ya?
Wow I can’t believe the comments were so crazy for that video. Love your videos! I watch only a few knife channels for various reasons. Yours are great! Thank you!
Ok, great content and assessment! My question would be on a burnt edge ( particularly D2 ) would it be possible to retemper the blade as delivered or is the D2 steel at the edge ruined after burning it? Myself, I would like to try and make a silk purse out of this one. Love this channel😊
You are one of my favorite channels on UA-cam at the moment man. I really enjoy your determination and the depth of review. I am kind of the same minus all the tools you use. 🤣 keep going brother. Greetings from Germany. Btw. Manic 2 my fav too
You can also buy a set of hardness testing files. These are files treated to certain hardness; they would allow you to test the edge as well, I believe (you can examine if a certain file scratches the edge and that will allow you to estimate the range of hardness the edge falls into).
I can’t believe people are attacking your credibility due to a review. I’ve always found you straight-forward and honest. Clearly this was before you went all Hollywood, with the ridiculous purchases and gear porn and rating everything 26 out of 10 and telling us we need to buy it right stat now. And the layaway program and affiliate credit card offers you push relentlessly. I kid, of course. I believe you when you say you don’t have skin in the game [or when you disclose the skin you have in the game], not 100% on why someone would take one of your reviews personally. *Shrug* They know they can still buy the garbage knife even if ‘55 says no, right? Weird worldview to think you’re the gatekeeper for edged commerce. Keep being awesome Cheers!
Thanks Alex, Anything you have to say about knives is as always spot on. Anybody calling you a "shill" has not watched any of your videos. And most likely don't even carry a knife daily.
You are careful to be as informative and useful to your audience as possible even if goes against popular opinions. Thanks for that, and I appreciate the entertainment as well
The criticism in the original video made me chuckle. You are one of, if not the least brand-motivated person I've watched. You clearly demarcate when you've received an item from a company- even years later when it's only tangentially related to that item. You and Larrin are probably my top trusted guys when it comes to steel on knives. You say there's a problem with a knife or stone (e.g. the ebay damascus knife), then there's probably a problem. Maybe a bad batch, maybe systemic, maybe a mistake. If you messed up in some way, I expect and trust that you would own up and go through it in a follow up. Shill for big steel/knife? 😆 Thanks again for all your work, it's appreciated.
Could be also the old overheated the blade when it was power sharpened. This is the old Cliff Stamp issue of you need to water cool blades when grinding them the edge . As you can ruin the heat treat , trying distressing the edge draw it across a file or coarse stone. Then resharpen the apex , you may need to do it a number of times till you get to the steel where the heat treatment is in effected .
Awesome video, LOTS of work put into it and it is appreciated. Glad you solved the mystery! Just bad luck to get a knife from Comrade Model Worker Blade Grinder # 7, instead of from Comrade Model Worker Blade Grinder # 901...
Could you have used hardness test files to scratch the actual apex, thereby revealing that it was softer than it should have been? Seems like a simple way to reveal a burnt edge.
I respect this review. There's a lot of other reviewers that shilled the hell out of this knife. And while, yes, the main selling point was the 10 dollar price. The line began to get ridiculous when people started to compare this to other knives. Anyway a classic example of you get what you pay for. Pay more for quality, this ain't it.
Still think these are better knives worth saving for⬇ (Affiliate) Go ahead h8 me😛
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My friend, MAKE THAT MONEY.
Is there a video or link to the $5 knife ?
11:10 So to be clear, Bigger Pile Gooder, Smaller Pile Bad.
Very transparent and intuitive, anyone who's had to breakdown boxes should get it.
Thanks for the extended detective work, much appreciated.
Anyone giving you grief in the comments isn't a subscriber, so you can simply ignore them !!
Where's the link to the $5 knife?
The best demonstration of how burned edges ruin temper I'm aware of. Thank you.
Who are these loons calling you a "shill"? Your channel has always been truthful to us the viewers.
100% the most direct and truthful knife tuber. People calling him a shill really annoys me be aude pretty much he's the only larger channel that is honest and not shilling.
@Edcreviewer exactly!
Absolutely-Alex has always been straight with us. He’s the last person I’d ever accuse of shilling products.
Ha! You are both a couple of shillers. You can't fool me. Your scheme is so transparent.
His secret is he shills for a different company every week ;)
The fact that your doing such intense testing for a ten dollar knife makes me love this video.
It's like the guys who do car reviews, and then having them review a Yugo.
"You're totally bought out by the Big Knife Industry, not like little ol' Walmart, the small mom and pop company that flies it's regional managers back to the company town each and every night, who looks out for the little guy!"
Yeah I don't think you're dealing with a crowd who can do the "which box pile is bigger" challenge here...
Down with "Big Knife"! lmao🎉
Ahh, so THAT'S the 'small business' the 'it'll hurt small businesses' people are always referring to!
For the prices Benchmade charges and gets, I believe in Big Knife, lol.
LOL! I laughed and I cried. The cardboard with putty sandwich was the best metaphor ever. And the very last recommendation to buy a $5 knife priceless. I've successfully sharpened my own knives in the past two months, and reshaped two broken tips, thanks in big part to your videos. Your dry, witty, clever and poignant humor is appreciated.
I love the amount of education this channel puts out
I have been a fan of your channel for years. When I met you at Blade Show 2024, I told you that you are the Galileo of sharpening. This video is a fine testament to that assessment. Excellent work!
Nice to meet you! Blade show was a blast! Already looking forward to next year!👊
Completely unrelated: I dated a young lady we all called Gillette. She was the best a man can get.
And she would cut you if crossed.
Do with that what you will.
Cheers!
I have only been watching your UA-cam content for about 2 months now, and I have decided 2 things. First, you are most definitely NOT a shill. Second, you have the very admirable quality of wanting to present the most accurate information possible. I truly appreciate the effort you put into helping everyone who watches your videos understand process... even if they don't.
Also composition, his videos are more entertaining than 80% of knife/steel/edc creators out there. He has great narrative skills and a knack for breaking up monotony.
This explains why some people are getting good results with this knife. They have a meathead at one of their grind stations hogging off material.
Aka slaves that don't know any better... 😞
Honestly that's probably it. They almost certainly have little to no QC on the knives coming out, which is why the knives can be made of D2 while also being 10 dollars. Kind of a shame, if they spent maybe another 5-ish dollars per knife on QC/hiring someone that actually knows how to use a belt sander, they'd actually have a really solid budget knife.
Was thinking the same thing, however the edges on the Walmart knives aren’t discolored or burnt. If this is the reason for the poor performance, why wouldn’t the edge be ‘burnt’ like the knife he demos? Honest question.
@@overbuiltlimited Yes, you're absolutely right. It's encouraging that some people see.
@@overbuiltlimitedthe color is an ultra thin oxide layer, the steel doesn't change color where the oxygen is not present. it would be super easy to just grind the oxide off to hide your crime of doing a very bad job. Whoever profiles the knife has no patience when there's a lot of material to remove and only slows down for the last pass or two, but the damage is already done.
Alex is most definitely a shill the most truthful and best content shill on the tube!
HE IS GETTING PAID BY BIG KNIFE LOLOL
My mailbox was still empty today. Oh well maybe tomorrow.😉
TBC...
A Looooooot of people are straight clowns 🤡- like bad clowns 🙄
- this guy is the most honest content creator I’ve ever seen regarding knife sharpening, etc.
The presenter must've sold his soul and his integrity for a roast beef sandwich, and ate the evidence. He sure the hell didn't get enough money from BigKnife to even get another zippered hoodie or watchcap. Dang.. He's the worst sellout ever!! 😂
If you work for Big Knife, how come we never see you sharpening any big knives? I wouldn’t mind seeing you figure how to sharpen a BIG knife, like a sword or machete. 🙂
I think if you stack a couple 2x4’s parallel to a machete taped to the edge of your benchtop it would make a good angle guide for a diamond plate with a rod or dowel taped to it. Just a thought.
I hope you were using those negative comments for content because I would not take them personal. You have the most informative content about knives that I’ve come across and you are very transparent. Ty
Good job finding out the cause and explaining it in a way everyone should be able to understand. I bought two of them, one is still new in the package and the other has been my work knife for a few weeks. Note that I only do knife things with my work knife. So far it's still sharp and for $10 I have no complaints. Also, I bought an orange Vosteed Raccoon which has become my EDC when not working. Great knife and I love the blade shape.
🤣 my complicated broad spectrum analysis data point collection system. Oh my god, this had rolling
Appreciate you for always going above and beyond for your community, even if they are skeptical/cynical at first. Thats what makes you and your channel my favorite since the day I came across it!!
I have heard it said, the manufacturer's hardening and tempering of a knife is far more important to its performance than the type of steel it's made of, within reason. So I think its worth considering blades made of humble "inferior steels" like 440c over chasing the lastest "super alloy."
And this knife is a prime case study. Super-duper D2 steel, and the burnt edge rendered it with the same edge retention as as discount store low carbon steel butter knife.
Which brings around the bottom line. The quality of the manufacturing process is JUST, if not more, important than the material choice when it comes to knife quality.
I would love to see a follow up were like 3-4 of these knives were tested to see if maybe you got a bad one. Because if their Chinese manufacturing "partner" is using unskilled labor to do hand-grinding, well then its very easy to introduce wild variation of quality in the knives depending on what employee is doing the grinding, and how they day is going. I think there is a reason the big name brands either use very well trained employees, or machines to do the grinds on their knives.
@@nordoceltic7225 that used to be true a long time ago when there were few steels used in knife making, and while the heat treat is extremely important, the type of steel used matters a whole lot as well, some steel has a very large amount of carbides that are so hard that they will give a knife good edge retention even at smoothly lower hrc, but the point is that with all the different types of steel out there, you absolutely need to pick the steel best suited for it's intended end use, but heat treat absolutely matters, spyderco is the best in the business, they typically run there steel harder than everyone else for edge retention, Benchmade runs there's a little softer for added strength, the point is with all the steel out today, it all matters now, Mack on the day everybody was running the same steel, the only difference was the heat treat, but I promise d2 steel with the best heat treat has nothing on maxamet with a mediocre heat treat
That's the thing, though. The steel was fine and the heat treatment was fine; the issue was how the knife was handled _after_ that.
Also, this might be nit picking, but I object to calling D2 a "latest super alloy" in comparison to the "humble inferior" 440c. D2's patent was issued in 1928 and people started using it for knives in the late 60s; it didn't catch on widely for some time after that, but that's not the steel's fault. On top of that, it's not really much newer than the 440 series steels, of which, the oldest-440a-got its patent in 1927.
@jamesruth100 D2 was the super steel of it's day, but your right that day has passed, and while I enjoy a budget knife in D2 if it's done right, there are newer steels that are way better even in the extreme budget range, I'd rather have nitro v, 14c or 12c, and to be honest if I'm going that cheap I'd rather have the ultra extreme strength and toughness of 440hc, with corrosion resistance, because might have a little better edge retention but your still sharpening almost as often as 440hc, so I'll take the extreme strength in a big knife, the D2 I'm a small knife, all knife steel is purpose driven,
It's definitely a quality issue. I bought one of these online and it was the newer version and it feels like everyone expects a $10 knife to be like. However, when I was in the store about a week ago, they had one in their display case that was the older version and it felt completely different to me. It actually felt like a really decent knife and definitely worth more than the $10 price. I would not have any worries at all about one if it happens to be a well-made one like that. So of course I bought a $60 one instead of that one that day, as that really confirmed to me what I suspected the deal was with this knife. Some are going to be really great knives, and some are going to be complete junk like mine is. Since it's still a really hot item and people definitely have them on their Christmas lists, I'd rather someone else have gotten the better quality one in the store and be really excited about getting one that definitely is way better than it should be and just keep my first one as a reminder that most of the time things really are too good to be true. I didn't need the better one of these. I've already got more knives than I'll ever need, and I already have one of that model. And it's not even a style that I like the best (I've got like 10 hollow ground drop point blades still, and although they're definitely great for all-purpose, I prefer clip points for my uses. And I already have a bugout styled knife with axis lock in a clip point that was only $20. And I like it enough to use it.)
If people really want one of these, just prepare yourself for the possibility that you might not be one of the lucky ones to get one with the great quality and possibly might be getting one of the worthless ones. If it's one of the good ones, it easily feels like a $30+ quality knife. But I can tell with the one I have that it'll probably break if I ever use it. It's just going to be dependent on the luck of the draw with these ones. And since I'm happy with the other knife I bought there that day, I'm glad I did leave that good one there in the store for someone else to get and enjoy. Maybe a responsible kid will open it up for Christmas and it'll be their first ever knife. That one in the store definitely could handle being used a lot, and the only negative I was able to find while looking it over was that it was one of the ones that had one scale a different shade of orange than the other side. Aside from that, it looked and felt like a really great knife that was made extremely well for that price. It's not the most amazing knife ever made, but it's worth many times more than it is priced at if it's one of the good quality ones. The bad ones are just any other $10 knife and you'll be wishing you spent another $20 for any of the thousands of other knives that you'll have a better chance of having more reliable and consistent chances of getting good use out of
@@DABinCHRIST Yeah, I'm not trying to diminish the qualities of D2; it's still an amazing steel in this day and age, even if it no longer has the same unmatched, illustrious standing that it did back in the day. I was mostly just saying that D2 is a poor example to demonstrate the knife community's trend of chasing new steels because, quality aside, it's _far_ from new.
Great test! It's not uncommon for a production knife even from well know manufactures to have to put a half dozen edges on the blade before it performs at it's best for edge retention.
Yeah I agree, a little isnt too bad. But to grind off an 1/8" of blade to get into the good stuff isn't good😂👍
Well made. Thank you. I've started into the social media sphere and I am at a new level of respect for content creators and the effort they put into the production and craft of media. Thank you for a quality video.
Great video! I learned a lot, I was aware of a burnt edge but thought you could get into good steel after removing a couple sharpenings worth of steel like you did in the first video. I had no idea how far the heat could travel
It seems like people always default to 'oh they must be a shill' if an opinion differs from theirs. It's like their default defensive mechanism.
To be fair, there are a lot of shills on youtube, to the point it's pretty rare to find someone who isn't a shill. But I'm pretty sure this guy is not a shill.
Ad hominem attack of course. A great one once said "when the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser"
They've got nothing.
Sherlock Holmes, 221B Baker St, London, famously relied on logic to solve his cases, beginning with the principle that "once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”.
Lol. Watching you turn that tip blue on the belt was painful. But , for science !
Only $10 painful! LOL!
I would have never thought a burnt edge would go that deep into the steel. I guess because of the amount of these they r pumping out and the fact that they r running the belt at an excessive speed this is the result u end up with. Crazy. Thanks for all the work u put into figuring out y this happened.
I had a M4 bailout that took 13 to sharpening before I started to feel the steel get harder and the performance starting to begin to increase. Most edges I'm getting in to good consistent steel at edge 2 or 3 in most cases but I've definitely had some outliers from major US brands over the years. I've had a pretty badly cooked 20cv sheep's foot grip that took around 10 edges before I could feel I was getting in better steel and the performance started to be acceptable. I had a s90v penguin from qsp that was burn enough that could see color up over an 8th of an inch above the edge bevel. How that knife got past QC I'll never understand, it probably would have taken 30 edges to start to find good steel but I sent that one straight back and got a refund. Those are oddities but on average 2 to 3 edges to get in to "good steel" is what I find to be the norm.
@@Edcreviewer 13 is crazy, I think I'd just file off all the soft stuff until it feels like you're hitting hard steel, the difference should be noticeable.
Oh yes, you can easily ruin an entire blade if your not careful 🙂
@@Edcreviewer yeah I have around the same results by my 3rd edge it’s a pretty big jump in how long I can go before I need to touch up the edge. I’ve had a few knives with what I would consider a burnt edge but unless it was a knife I love it just ends up in the case not getting carried. I’ve only had that happen twice one was an ameight the other was a knock off supposedly d2 demko 20.5 from Amazon lol big surprise on that one right. D2 when done right is a fantastic steel imo. I can’t wait till we see real dlc coatings done on cheap d2 titanium folders I feel like the first company to offer that around the $100 mark or under with a good design will have a huge home run. As the only thing that holds d2 back is it’s stainless properties imo.
You’ve never ground a $1 knife with a bench grinder and it shows
I have been watching your channel for quite some time now and am always impressed with the effort you put into each video. Your opinions have panned out for me, and I have learned much about knife sharpening and care from you. I purchased the Sharpal two-sided diamond stone after watching your video and have been able to put a better edge on my knives in a shorter amount of time than ever before. Thanks for all you do and don't ever let the trolls get to you!
And that's why I like your content, man. No BS. Just test without biases. D2 seems like a excellent steel.
I have several D2 knives and they are my favorites apart from my S90V. Edge lasts a long time and diamond stones sharpen them pretty quick.
Everyone is biased, I ever stated i was biased in my original video 😉😂👍
Messaging to say keep well dude and that I dig you and your content. Thanks for your effort! Cheers!!
Omg please do the same thing with the $5 knife. That would be awesome.
Tbh i have the $5 one and do enjoy it just as much
@@ertsecsame!
I've been watching you pretty much since the start of your channel. You have always been transparent. I've learned more from you than any other channel on UA-cam keep up the good work.
D2 is one of the hardest tool steels to correctly heat treat. It's a 24 hour soak at consistent temperatures, and air hardening for blade stock, more or less. Annealing is pretty much similar. You've got the specs on it, so I'm guessing you know that. I bought a bunch of D2 plate without really looking into it first, and then went and read up on the heat treating process and realized it was pretty much impossible to do without a kiln, so all my stock would need to be sent out for heat treating, as I lack that kind of capability. Good steel, but I'm not sure it's really worth the effort or the potential for failure if it's done incorrectly.
D2 also has a toughness to hardness variation which actually puts it closer to 54 HRC to retain toughness if I recall. 59 to 60 HRC is I think on the drop-off, where the toughness of the material deteriorates rapidly, so what tends to be done, is a very controlled soak, then hardening in air, or pressed between aluminum plates, and then tempering to bring it down to around 54 HRC to take advantage of the potential toughness, for greater blade strength. D2s specific properties do not lend to very hard knives, but rather durable ones.
These videos are so niche and yet... I recommend them to friends and they're chuffed to bits! Great Channel man.
Love.
I know you already figured this out, but you could have also used a scratch test for hardness on just the apex. With your hardness tester, you could probably even make some of your own scribes at specific hardnesses. It's not the most accurate, but it should show a difference from the rest of the blade. Alternatively, get 2, and make a scribe out of the spine of whichever is a little softer. It shouldn't scratch the harder one except at the burnt apex.
Funny, I finally got my hands on one of these after them being sold out of EVERY Wal-Mart I've been to for months and decided to carry it today.
I break down anywhere from 10 to 50 cardboard boxes a day, five days a week. EDC a plain-Jane S30V Sage 5 LW, I can usually get away with a 5 minute touch up on the Lansky rods once a week and it's back to shaving sharp. Sometimes it will start to "push" through the inside layer of cardboard by the end of the week if I use it on a lot of plastic or 2-3 layer heavy boxes, but I'm plenty happy with it.
That said, I have broken down maybe 15 boxes today, and I can already tell this little Great Value Benchmade is dulling rapidly.
I got it more as a treasure hunt than something to use, so it'll probably live in the car after I resharpen it.
Spyderco ain't leaving my pocket any time soon.
Clearly the most thorough and transparent testing I've seen. I appreciate the time you put into this.
The cinematography on this channel is another level recently, it’s amazing 🤩 top work 👍🇺🇸
I think you nailed it. If you have to buy 2 or 3 in order to get one good one..a mini paxis would have saved you both time and likely money as well.
Used mine about 6 weeks now, sharpened 3 times (touch up) still best $10 knife I ever bought. Thanks for the "clarification" . I also love my $50. + ones. Don't think I'll ever spend over $100.
If you can get a spyderco paramilitary 2 in CRU-WEAR, snag it! It's literally the only knife you need lol. I have yet to have to sharpen mine, and I've beat the hell out of it for 2 years
@@1947froggy never say never. I used to think it was crazy to spend more than $125 on a knife and now I own multiple Medfords, Spydercos a Spartan, and a Sebenza. I own plenty of Chinese knives too but the American made knives are special.
@@TheManic.5-OH Just ordered the Tenacious plain black handle to "dip my toe" in the Spyderco pool. :)
ok, I'm at 5:41 in and want to take a guess. I'm guessing they got the blade too hot when sharpening it ruining the temper and causing the poor edge retention.
Man. I love your no nonsense and simplistic approach to sharpening.
So much so, i bought a bottle of 4 micron jende and a sharpal to try out my luck on the hobby. Wish me luck😅
How can a pile of cardboard be transparent? Any cardboard I’ve seen has been opaque!
Sorry, forgot the link to the good vs bad heat treating video so here it is ⬇
ua-cam.com/video/v8xK69vWITk/v-deo.html
Comment sections are usually full of room temp IQs....I include myself in that, my brain is basically mirror polished at this point...
@@paullmight42 Hey 😸 ✨😼
We're all room temperature iqs conversing over a $10 knife on UA-cam. Meanwhile the overlords are eating caviar on hundred million dollar yachts.
Same, not a single cortical gyrus to be found... but I can parrot what YTers say with skilllllll... and do :)
Nice test methodology and results! That means there is, effectively, a manufacturing problem with their sharpening process. Better to find a blade for 2-3x the cost and avoid having to remove the annealed edge.
It's good to see this thing tested again. I would have bet good money that the heat treatment itself was terrible, but apparently not. It would have been fascinating to see what that edge looked like fresh off the grinder before it got cleaned up. Blue the whole length. I wouldn't have thought to take the edge back that far to get past burned spots, but I also am not yet equipped to test the HRC and determine whether or not that there's an issue there.
The knives you tested must not of had a burnt edge. I guess there's no way of knowing the ratio of good to bad
They definitely didn't have burned edges. I'm still a bit gobsmacked at how all 3 of my Ozark Trail Dropouts did basically double the work every single other D2 knife I tested did.
There are some people that just like to talk trash, your videos have shown nothing but honesty and integrity. And the information you provide is greatly appreciated.
Not to mention, you just did troubleshooting for a problem at this other company producing these knives would have completely missed in their extreme mass production process . All I have to do is keep the blades cool while their profiling and sharpening and apparently they're not doing that.
I’ve been subscribed to your channel and watching you for over five years and I know that you’re not a shill for anything but the truth. That’s what your channel is all about-finding the truth and giving honest reviews and advice.
I happened to guess what the problem was before you even disclosed the HRC, but after you said that the HRC was, in fact, 59-60, I knew exactly what it was about and you proved me right. It’s a very common problem with those who don’t understand about tempering and losing the temper. Once again you proved why you’re the pro, and not a shill! Good job, Alex!! Thanks for keeping your viewers informed!!!!
Edge annealing during sharpening was my first thought during the intro. I'm aghast that some people would turn against you so quickly. Truly we live in a civilization informed by confirmation bias alone
Love the cardboard pile
analysis. Man, I’m so glad I found your channel. Amazing stuff!
All in the grind, they cooked it after a good heat treatment too long on the grinder and annealed the working edge to the point it’s soft at the cutting edge hard on the spine is my guess at @2:35
The grind error would also explain the wildly inconsistent experiences from people who bought the knife, some are good some are bad it’s luck of the draw
4:30 But that's just a theory. A knife theory
I miss matpat
This has been super informative. Thanks for the follow up video!
Thanks for going through all that testing. It is well beyond what most people would do and I love the added info. It really teaches you more about steel and knife making.
Thank you.
Also, how is your health doing?
Excellent stuff young Sir. Much appreciated 👍
Ive recently had the opppsite problem with aus10a from coldsteel. Factory edge chipped on a pencil.used my spydero sharpmaker. Seemed to solve it.
CS has had some of the same inconsistency issues for a while now. Generally good products but there must be somebody that shows up to work drunk or with a bad hangover regularly.
@TCK-9 good point. I hope that's not the case.
This was good forensic work 👏🏻
Great video! Would a knife that dulls relatively quickly but gets hair-popping sharp after just stropping be a sign of a burned edge? I have a knife in cruwear like that.
Thank you for proving what I knew the whole time. There's nothing wrong with the knife if you sharpen it! In your previous video I said I have zero issues with edge retention after I sharpened to 14dps. I must of taken the burnt edge off. Good video man! 👏👏👏
So nice to see you sticking up for the Ozark Trail mom and pop. Just so tough in this economy for these startups to break through.
Your videos are consistently informative, visually interesting, and you are funny.
I was hoping you were gonna post this. Thanks . I get alot out of your channel.
What about if the new blade was re-heat treated would that fix it?
Genuine question for everyone, in your opinion how much should a "bad" knife, a "good" knife and a "great" knife cost?
I'd say a bad knife would usually be sub 20 bucks. But you can get good to great knives from anywhere between 25-100 bucks. I collect budget knives, and I'd say the grand majority of them are good to great knives, and that's with most of them being around 25 to 60 bucks.
You can find a great knife for $10 and a terrible knife for $300.
But generally
$0-$15 = Bad
$20-$35 = Okay
$40-$65 = Good
$70+ = Great
Personal opinion
IMHO, it's not worth paying anything for a bad knife, especially not when a perfectly reasonable knife is only about $20. I think Alex did a video showing that with the right sharpening you can get great performance out of a dollar store kitchen knife. Most of my knives are probably in the $50-$150 price range. I think the most I've paid was around $400 for a custom made specialty knife. Unless you count the $1,600 damascus Viking axe I purchased just because it's pretty and I could afford it (and of course I've used it to fell a few trees). The price tag doesn't reflect the performance but the time and artistry that went into making it. I could have spent about 1/10th the price on a Granfors Bruks or Hults Bruk for likely the same or better performance. But in my subjective opinion, it wouldn't be as pretty or feel as special.
I've had terrible $500 custom knives and great $15-$30 knives. Though the quality has gone up a lot in the last 5 years or so. I have a $30 petrified fish 719 in 12c27 that I've been using for quite a while and I love it (Thin blade, great blade shape, great action and comfortable in hand). I use it more than a lot of knives that cost 10-20 as much. But I also carry and use my Assassin Knives Argo custom in m398 at 64hrc that was $500 at least 3-4 days a week for the same reasons (plus it's ground thinner, cuts better, feels even better in hand, has a pocket clip and looks incredible) as that $30 petrified fish.
It just depends. Buy from a known brand and typically the more you spend, the more you get to a certain point. I recommend 14c27n on the low end. A great, simple steel that's easy to HT and most companies do a good to great job with it. Plus it's a brand name steel made by Sandvik, while D2 is a standard of steel that 50+ companies make and you don't know who's you're getting.
@@MFD00MTR33
"I've had terrible $500 custom knives..."
I've also had a Curtiss!
It cracks me up that someone could flip out about an honest review of a $10 knife😂
Its all in good fun 👍
Excellent testing to find the problem. Thanks for sharing!
I'm so glad you did this video. You always get to the bottom of things.
I have access to superficial machines at work and use it to test my knives from time to time. My first thought was whether or not the coating affects testing too. There are some shenanigans you can play to test the slants and things like that too but it's harder with like c scale because of how much weight there is. Something like 15n is a lot easier to do those with and if you are good you'll get solid accurate and confident checks
The nice thing about d2 is that you can just heat it up to like 900 or 950 to get it harder again after hitting 600 which normally drops that to around 57 which also still isnt' awful
I believe it was heated beyond 900+ right at the apex. 👍😬
wow! what a follow up! this is and will be one of the best videos for people to finally understand what really goes into the grinding and shaping of a knife blade! we knives for instance, i can fully understand and accept some of the outrageous prices on their high end blades with insane grinds! class is in session with this video. please no haters... damn good video! thank you. by the way not complicated to understand at all...
Sorry, this is off-topic but just wondering what you might think of putting diamond strop compound on top of green strop compound? After drying, the diamonds could be pressed into the wax to create more holding power to keep the diamonds in place?
This has been a great saga to follow in real time. Thanks for the great experiments.
As a machinist that has in the past used a lot of hand-sharpened high-speed steel cutting tools, i.e. lathe tool points and twist drills, I am quite familiar with the need to not overheat the cutting edges when resharpening. Hopefully one never heats a cutting tool edge past a very light pale yellow straw color. Once you get into the "blue ranges" of color, you've screwed your resharpening job.
Love the transparency
Oh man, the end was hilarious x 100 :) Yeah, $5 knife should fix the dilemma for sure lol.
Haha I love the term “shill”, it’s way overused. I never really understood the hype on this knife. Ozark Trail knives in general are hit or miss. I’ve had some I carried and loved when I was in construction, held an edge for a darn long time (for a cheapo). Then I’ve had some that were duds, but were only a couple bucks so they were throwaways anyway. Love that you took the time to do this.
I don’t use that word because it’s been made useless by overuse
Could you harden it easily somehow? Heat the edge and quench?
How do you keep your knife cool when working on the 2x72 belt grinder? I vaguely remember you just move it quickly and let it cool between strokes, ya?
Light pressure, frequent water dipping, and fresh new belts.👍
Wow I can’t believe the comments were so crazy for that video. Love your videos! I watch only a few knife channels for various reasons. Yours are great! Thank you!
Ok, great content and assessment! My question would be on a burnt edge ( particularly D2 ) would it be possible to retemper the blade as delivered or is the D2 steel at the edge ruined after burning it? Myself, I would like to try and make a silk purse out of this one. Love this channel😊
You are one of my favorite channels on UA-cam at the moment man. I really enjoy your determination and the depth of review. I am kind of the same minus all the tools you use. 🤣 keep going brother. Greetings from Germany. Btw. Manic 2 my fav too
This is a great description of the problem. Thank you for the good content!!
The EdgeLord strikes back! Great video.
You can also buy a set of hardness testing files. These are files treated to certain hardness; they would allow you to test the edge as well, I believe (you can examine if a certain file scratches the edge and that will allow you to estimate the range of hardness the edge falls into).
This was genuinely riveting content, I did not think there could be this much nuance behind the D2 in this $10 knife 🤯
Wow bro , giving us an early Christmas gift 🎁 🙏
- And the ending of the video with the “Dark Knight” (like) music 🎶
Was absolutely epic 👏
best thing watched today. the dripping sarcasm is 10/10
Great deep dive into this mystery ! Who else would grind a blade down to test the core hardness ?
All in the search for knowledge.
Not the first time that's happened 🫤😂👍
I can’t believe people are attacking your credibility due to a review. I’ve always found you straight-forward and honest.
Clearly this was before you went all Hollywood, with the ridiculous purchases and gear porn and rating everything 26 out of 10 and telling us we need to buy it right stat now. And the layaway program and affiliate credit card offers you push relentlessly.
I kid, of course. I believe you when you say you don’t have skin in the game [or when you disclose the skin you have in the game], not 100% on why someone would take one of your reviews personally. *Shrug* They know they can still buy the garbage knife even if ‘55 says no, right?
Weird worldview to think you’re the gatekeeper for edged commerce.
Keep being awesome
Cheers!
Thanks Alex, Anything you have to say about knives is as always spot on. Anybody calling you a "shill" has not watched any of your videos. And most likely don't even carry a knife daily.
you've taught me a new skill .. and I'm sure I'm not the only one who's learning from you
I don't expect a 10 dollar knife to cut as well as as a forty dollar knife in the first place. I think you did an excellent job of pointing that out.
You are careful to be as informative and useful to your audience as possible even if goes against popular opinions. Thanks for that, and I appreciate the entertainment as well
The criticism in the original video made me chuckle. You are one of, if not the least brand-motivated person I've watched. You clearly demarcate when you've received an item from a company- even years later when it's only tangentially related to that item.
You and Larrin are probably my top trusted guys when it comes to steel on knives. You say there's a problem with a knife or stone (e.g. the ebay damascus knife), then there's probably a problem. Maybe a bad batch, maybe systemic, maybe a mistake. If you messed up in some way, I expect and trust that you would own up and go through it in a follow up.
Shill for big steel/knife? 😆
Thanks again for all your work, it's appreciated.
Why dont you use a scratch type HRC tester, like the HRC files. I think that would allow you to test the bevel itself (or close to it)
They aren't accurate enough🫤
Good analysis. Useful in the future. Thanks.
Another awesome and funny video! Thank you for the great content!
Could be also the old overheated the blade when it was power sharpened. This is the old Cliff Stamp issue of you need to water cool blades when grinding them the edge . As you can ruin the heat treat , trying distressing the edge draw it across a file or coarse stone. Then resharpen the apex , you may need to do it a number of times till you get to the steel where the heat treatment is in effected .
I always learn from you - thanks!
Awesome video, LOTS of work put into it and it is appreciated. Glad you solved the mystery! Just bad luck to get a knife from Comrade Model Worker Blade Grinder # 7, instead of from Comrade Model Worker Blade Grinder # 901...
How many grinds does it take to get to the gooey center of a wally world blade?
Could you have used hardness test files to scratch the actual apex, thereby revealing that it was softer than it should have been? Seems like a simple way to reveal a burnt edge.
I respect this review. There's a lot of other reviewers that shilled the hell out of this knife. And while, yes, the main selling point was the 10 dollar price. The line began to get ridiculous when people started to compare this to other knives. Anyway a classic example of you get what you pay for. Pay more for quality, this ain't it.