The "Ask Nathan a question" thread

Fixed

 

Masterpiece by a master craftsman! Both are in short supply these days- thank you Nathan! You don't have to own a Van Gough to truly enjoy and appreciate one.

 

Couldn’t you Hard face the cutting edges with a welder ? I know a lot of guys that weld a hard face in a grid pattern on cutting area. They do it to extend the the life of the cutting teeth.
Just a thought but what do I know lol I still use a shovel I call them for times I need a machine.

 

Hey Bill! Yeah, things like that could be done, and would be on a larger machine that spends more time in adverse conditions. This little rig is only about 4800 pounds, it is the smallest full cab machine that you can get A/C in. The buckets and teeth are so small and inexpensive relative to what would be on a 30 ton excavator, that it just isn’t a concern. That bucket in the picture is a 24 incher. It will take a long time to wear the bucket out to the point it needs to be rebuilt or replaced. The teeth are due for a change, and they only cost about $100 for the set, I have two sets on hand. That much rock is kind of on the extreme end of things as far as what is normally asked of it. Usually I am making stuff like this......



This is what the teeth look like when new vs the old ones. You can see there is quite a bit missing!

 

Definitely this, and Uncle Matty is definitely

 

^ My favorite actor! Still can't get over Training Day.

 

Just saw that the OP was on the old INTEGRAL dagger. My bad. Yeah, I could see how that would be a lot more expensive than $600. LOL.

 

Hey Nathan, am I correct that the short screw should have been red loctited into the barrel? Think that's what I remember from the UF/DEF. When I switched the scales on my DEK1, the short screw is the one that came out of the rear set. I thought maybe the red was applied to the wrong screw, but I was able to easily remove the long screw and it seems it only had the blue.

 

I was hoping that with all of Nathan's experience and skill, and new equipment to date, this would be like slap chop and its done, or set it and forget it type deal.

I was wrong.

 

Ever thought about doing rubber liners on a handle?

 

Nathan, that Integral Dagger is just beautiful in every way. As a machinist and tool and die maker with over 20 yeas experience I have nothing but full admiration and respect for the time, labor and passion involved in producing such a stunning piece of work. Amazing !!

 

Yes, the short screw gets the red loctite. Sometimes it comes loose first anyways because it has less thread engagement. Particularly if you're turning from that side because the barrel can be pretty snug. If you look up into the barrel you should see some loctite still in there and it will be red on that side.

 

Thanks! Didn't see any residue on the screw or in the barrel, so maybe it got missed on this one. No biggie...I used the rear hardware that came with the ECAM scales to put it back together. I don't have red, but I do have blue, so used that for now to put the short screw back into the barrel.

 

QUESTION: I know your Delta 3V is awesome especially for field use knives with its high toughness, but do you think at some point you might go back and use Elmax again for some future EDC knife (or a stiff horn! ), or maybe even something more stainless like CTS-XHP or M390?

 

I don't think CTS-XHP is more stainless than Elmax.

 

These guys think it is.

But who knows what they know?

This may be the same guys.

The Nerds however agree with you.

Regardless, it seems they all beat 3V, and I guess what I am really asking about is if we can expect to see a more stainless steel in fuiture knives (altough AEB may (?) already qualify).

Could throw Vanax and S110 into that mix.

 

Elmax is not as stainless as you might think. It has a ton of chrome, but it has a bunch of carbon too so that chrome is not all free chrome. It will rust.

Elmax is a good steel. It combines pretty good edge stability and toughness (for a highly complex high carbide steel) with good wear resistance and corrosion resistance. All the things that S30V tried to be and failed, Elmax did it.

But along comes S35VN. <--- that's a good steel. It's under rated because there are folks who don't do the best HT and also the association with S30V might not help it.

I'm not sure what high carbide stainless I would choose today. Elmax would still be near the top of the list.

I'm pretty excited to see what NSM and Larrin are working on. There is a new stainless steel in the works.

 

Kinda like Benchmade and 154cm. That particular lack of decent HT has kinda soured me on the steel. Love my mini grip for edc at work but it’s so soft it loses the edge after one or two boxes of parts to open.
I see another folder I like, but see the 154 and pull back every time. So I resign myself to the fact I’ll sharpen it till it disappears.

 

I don't have any way to objectively measure it but, subjectively, the S35VN in my CRK Large Inkosi feels.....soft. It's hard to describe but it doesn't really hold* an edge as well as I'd like for a knife in its price bracket.

Edit *typo

 

this is a good example of what I'm talking about when I say that it doesn't always get the best heat treat. As much as I like CRK, their heat treat is pretty soft. Nowhere near optimized for a folding knife, in my opinion.