Posts made by DougNg

New Nick Mankey strap while I was out of town. Seems to work pretty good

Sorry, I thought when you said you two were best friends I thought you were "just friends"

@adam313

Dude, you fucked up. She's GORGEOUS

@louisbosco:

does anyone here watch blindspot?

Yup. The newest season is better than the last two.

Weird seeing Sullivan Stapleton playing an uptight character after playing Damien Scott in Strike Back

I still step over the spot at night where hex used to sleep a year after we lost him

I’m jealous. I was looking at that watch but when I tried it on it looked like I zip tied an instrument cluster to my 6.75” wrist. My wrists are just too small for it.

I stuck a karambit half an inch into the meaty part of my hand and had to superglue the tip of my ring finger back on on another occasion

Tourniquet, Woundseal and superglue
Works every time.

@neph93:

This issue has raised some uncomfortable questions in the education sector in Norway. At my level (16-19 yo) the Norwegian government has pushed through a very unpopular policy regarding attendance. If you miss more the 10% of scheduled teaching in a class you lose your grade completely. The students hated it, but it was extremely effective. It has helped massively in lowering the drop-out rate and improving the attainment of the bottom 50% of students.

When corona hit all that went out the window. While teachers were able to use net based tech to teach effectively the students who needed it the most vanished and we had no recourse to track absentee-ism, or routines for getting them assessed. The ability to audit the participation and engagement  of weak or unmotivated students that you get from seeing them three times a week was suddenly gone.

Any move towards devolving schooling at this level to digital platforms and away from physical places of work is going to need a small revolution.

We’re encountering the same problem in the govt training sector. We have limited mechanisms to measure engagement, the few we do have are questionable in effectiveness, and exam security is out the window.

On the flip side of that my productivity has gone through the roof (I work on the administrative side of our training organization). The fact I don’t have to deal with people wandering into my office complaining about random shit has opened up a lot of time in my day.

Why has nobody told me how good Strike Back is?!?

Most people can't tell the difference between steels until they need to sharpen them or they need to use a knife for an extended period of time. For your average day to day user, any steel will do. I've been into knives for a while, and ultimately carry a Swiss army knife after being immersed in the knife world for 25 years.
How immersed am I into knives? The Rick Hinderer XM-18 that's held in high regards around here: I used to own the very first prototype before I sold it awhile ago. I was helping to cover his table at a knife show years ago in Vegas and he gave it to me as payment.

52100 is ball bearing steel. It might require a belt sander to sharpen it if they made it stupidly hard with the heat treat. I’ve have a few out of 52100, some have been a pain some have been easy. The trick with that steel is to touch it up regularly and you shouldn’t need to reprofile too often.

You can oil it regularly to keep it shiny or you can use it for a couple days in the kitchen, let it form a natural patina and keep it clean. The patina is a natural protective layer. Checking it for mild rust regularly will save you from a lot of headaches later.

Don’t force a patina by sticking it in a potato or covering it in mustard. It always comes out looking weird.

The nice thing is that the work sharp fits in a shoebox so I can come to you. You’re not getting a 30+ foot airstream down my narrow curved street. All I need is a 110v outlet

@Matt

20CV isn't too bad to sharpen if you don't think S30v isn't a pain.

Good luck with the S90v, S110 or M4 without power tools…you can always swing by Bowie and I'll touch them up on my Work Sharp...

I honestly thought the knife industry would have given up on M4 after people found out what a pain in the ass it is to sharpen.

The US, Taiwan and Japan made Spydercos are all pretty good quality. The US made knives are generally the most expensive, the Taiwan made knives have excellent build quality, the Japan made knives are generally one step above Spyderco's Chinese made budget line. I would say the Taiwan made knives are a higher quality than the Japanese made knives.

VG10 is a decent steel that is easy to sharpen. They are usually used for the Japanese made line.
S30v and S35v is used in their US made line. These steels can be a pain in the ass to sharpen if you're not patient or are willing to use power tools.
They use BD1 once in awhile, it's a nice steel for the kitchen because it doesn't rust easily.
There are some other steels that they use, but it's not all that common. M390 will hold an edge for a long time but it's a nightmare to sharpen without power tools. N390 on the other hand is basically CPM154, which is my all time favorite steel. CPM154 isn't in vogue anymore, but it is a really nice balance of edge retention and ease of sharpening.

In general, blades made of CPM154 are excellent bang for the buck.

@neph93:

@DougNg:

Bestech seems like they’re one of several knife companies out of China that are using some impressive levels of machining to make knives out of okay flavored steels.

I’m a noob in this particular area. What you’re saying is that the high quality of machining, of average metals gives a decent blade at a lower price? Or is the steel going to start out well but lose degrade?

VG10 is the steel they used in the Pebble. It’s a good steel, will hold its edge for a reasonable amount of time and will sharpen easily. “Super steels” cost more, hold an edge for a much longer time but are a pain in the ass to sharpen.

I would use a super steel for a knife I carried every day and went home where I could get to my belt sander to touch up the edge and an okay steel for traveling or camping. I can sharpen an ok steel with a rock or a coffee cup when it gets dull.

In your price range I’d also look at kershaw, zero tolerance, Benchmade, lion steel and fallkniven

Bestech seems like they’re one of several knife companies out of China that are using some impressive levels of machining to make knives out of okay flavored steels.

I'm a little bitter at the flashlight industry

@Giles

I didn't think you were being an asshole. Building a flashlight out of high strength materials like zirconium which is used in "industrial, aerospace, nuclear, blah blah blah" applications is pretentious bullshit. Like I said before, they're catering to suckers.

I've had a Surefire X300UB attached to the rail of my rifle for a couple years now. Basically it's clamped to the end of a baseball bat and gets whacked against wood, rocks, and dirt. When my rifle falls over it crashes on the flashlight into concrete. Not to mention the recoil and vibration it has to deal with.

Still works fine, and the flashlight is made out of 6061 aluminum, not even 7075 aluminum which is stronger.
The electronics on a flashlight will crap out long before you damage the body.

@Anesthetist

You also forgot your shoes