Diminishing Return

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In response to this comment on another heat treating thread, I think this might be worth talking about:

“It is a matter of whether you are one of us neurotic individuals who are kept awake a night over that last 5% that you could get or your conscience won't allow you to look a customer in the face and say "eh, good enough! next..." (left anonymous)

In context with heat treating:

I can definitely relate to that (and I‘m sure a lot of other makers can too), and have spent my share of sleepless nights over things that seem trivial now.

However as a professional of well over 30 years now,… generally, if it isn‘t worth charging for, it isn‘t really worth doing. The idea is to give the customer the most bang for their buck. Along with being efficient, professionalism is really more of an attitude than a process, or specific method. It means you stand behind your word and your product.

On the one hand you want to give your customer, the “best” possible knife you can. However, chasing after an elusive 5% improvement in overall performance, that in all likelihood will never be a significant factor in the field, (and may just be a figment of your imagination),… spending twice as much time/money/energy, the risk involved, and probably charging at least twice as much for, doesn’t really make good business sense, unless you are verbally inclined enough to convince them that it is,... which I would charge them for too, if I could... at least double. :)
 
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I can see the point in trying to catch the 5%. If you start at 95% then anything you do after is only going to degrade your results, you will never gain that 5% back. The real world has this annoying habit of messing up the perfect lab setting results we all want when heat treating.
 
I think it's good to have ideals, principals and goals,... but not to the point of insomnia and neurosis.

It's just not worth it, bro.
 
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One said:
I think it's good to have ideals, principals and goals,... but not to the point of insomnia and neurosis.

It's just not worth it, bro.
Click to expand...

I appreciate your concern, but I am happiest when always striving for better and my comment was self-deprecating humor to illustrate to another why I would bother with a technique that may make a minor difference.

Just to clarify- I approach my craft from the standpoint that every blade I make should be better than the previous and each one must be the best I can do, not perfect, just the best that I can possibly do. I give advice based on that attitude as well, because I assume the most people want to do their best as well, and I also assume that is why I was asked to participate and answer questions here. I try to ascertain what level of equipment people are prepared to work with and then do my best to give them advice on how to get the absolute most with what they got, once again, I assume that is what people would want. If there are folks who want me to tell them how to achieve the bare minimum or mere adequacy, I must regretfully inform them that I will continue to disappoint.

But now aside from being puzzled by the anonymous quote on the same day I wrote it, I find myself once again asking how this latest round of philosophical distraction has anything at all to do with heat treating? The last one was recognized as off topic and recommended for moving, which I did, but if this going to be a daily thing, despite my request to stay on topic, the other forums are going to overflow with our discards.

But since there have been others who have participated in these philosophical forays, which tells me that some folks may want them, I will not merely move it or shut it down. Instead I will start a new thread and title it “The art of heat treating” to at least give it the appearance of being on topic. Please feel free to use that thread to explore your feelings so that others can be free to discuss heat treatments. But keep it friendly and leave people who don’t care to participate out of it, and know that posts that include attacks or sniping will be removed!
 
One thing that is being overlooked is the matter of how one is seeing improvement in their knives. Kevin has the advantage that most of us don't have in the testing equipment that he possesses. Most of us don't even have a hardness tester. I you are getting 100 cuts through 3/4" manilla rope with process A and 125 cuts with process B you may not be seeing a 25% increase in performance. Considering the variables that could influence the test I doubt that the difference is really significant.

That said, I think that one needs of decide what characteristics they feel are important in their knives and strive in that direction while realizing that others may consider other characteristics more important. As in they feel that strength and hardness in a blade is more important than toughness. There is no right or wrong here, just a different point of view. I hope that we can maintain the respect for others that this site is known for. I don't think that baiting others serves any purpose.

Doug
 
I'm glad to hear it was a type of humor. You had me worried there for a sec.

Other than that, striving to make each knife the "best" it can be and/or "better" than the last is subjective and also implies that one has never arrived at a consistent level of proficiency. A subjective decision has to made in order to call any knife "finished" or "the best I can do, short of perfection".

However, being perpetually dedicated to quality and excellence makes perfect sense.
 
Tai, I am not interested in this type of discussion, I am here at the heat treating forum to discuss heat treating. I was more than generous by making a whole new thread to fill with your off topic ramblings, which I didn’t have to do. Please express yourself there, minus the backhanded insults, as my generosity has its limits.
 
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