- Joined
- Dec 16, 2012
- Messages
- 4,437
I finally wanted to test my Quartermaster Mr Roper to see if it at least had okay blade steel. I wanted to test another knife at the same time, and both my Mr Roper and my G721 needed to be sharpened at some point, so why not do a test first?
I know cardboard is a good edge retention medium, granted it is not perfectly homogeneous, so this is definitely an unscientific test. The knives also have terribly different geometry, making it even more unscientific. That said, let's get started!
I knew wildly hacking at cardboard shows nothing, and using the whole blade makes the edge retention take a pretty long time, so I kept my cutting to smooth slices within around the same inch on the blade. I found an old medium Amazon box to cut up, and sliced it into two sets of matched pieces of cardboard (so each blade cut roughly the same). I made sure to keep both matched pieces cut into roughly the same number of pieces, following the same pattern. Took about 45 minutes total to cut this little mound, but I have some results.
Both knives were shaving sharp before the test, but not quite hair whittling sharp. The Ganzo cut far more easily due to the thinness of the grind. The coating on the Mr Roper held up phenomenally, it doesn't look to be showing a single mark. The box was cut into the small pieces by a blackwashed Shuffle, which already showed very minor wear. The Ganzo looks to have only suffered a few minor scuffs, mostly only visible in the right light. Visible edge wear shows a different story, with the Quartermaster actually looking very slightly less crisp on the Apex, while the Ganzo just feels dulled. The actual edges left are the opposite, however, with the Ganzo being completely unable to slice receipt paper unless there is already a cut started (it just skids on the edge), while the Quartermaster does slice, just not well. I had to really bear into the knives to some cuts, but neither feels any different afterwards, no developed rock or play.
From my limited experience with edge retention testing, the Ganzo does perform like 440C ought to if not perfectly heat treated, but the Quartermaster does not perform like S35VN, more along the lines of 154CM. Nobody expects perfectly done steel for $20, and it definitely outperforms 8Cr, but for a nearly $200 knife I really expect something close to what I'm paying for. If Quartermaster does use S35VN (which isn't very likely), they blew the HT massively. Take that for what you will.
I know cardboard is a good edge retention medium, granted it is not perfectly homogeneous, so this is definitely an unscientific test. The knives also have terribly different geometry, making it even more unscientific. That said, let's get started!
I knew wildly hacking at cardboard shows nothing, and using the whole blade makes the edge retention take a pretty long time, so I kept my cutting to smooth slices within around the same inch on the blade. I found an old medium Amazon box to cut up, and sliced it into two sets of matched pieces of cardboard (so each blade cut roughly the same). I made sure to keep both matched pieces cut into roughly the same number of pieces, following the same pattern. Took about 45 minutes total to cut this little mound, but I have some results.
Both knives were shaving sharp before the test, but not quite hair whittling sharp. The Ganzo cut far more easily due to the thinness of the grind. The coating on the Mr Roper held up phenomenally, it doesn't look to be showing a single mark. The box was cut into the small pieces by a blackwashed Shuffle, which already showed very minor wear. The Ganzo looks to have only suffered a few minor scuffs, mostly only visible in the right light. Visible edge wear shows a different story, with the Quartermaster actually looking very slightly less crisp on the Apex, while the Ganzo just feels dulled. The actual edges left are the opposite, however, with the Ganzo being completely unable to slice receipt paper unless there is already a cut started (it just skids on the edge), while the Quartermaster does slice, just not well. I had to really bear into the knives to some cuts, but neither feels any different afterwards, no developed rock or play.
From my limited experience with edge retention testing, the Ganzo does perform like 440C ought to if not perfectly heat treated, but the Quartermaster does not perform like S35VN, more along the lines of 154CM. Nobody expects perfectly done steel for $20, and it definitely outperforms 8Cr, but for a nearly $200 knife I really expect something close to what I'm paying for. If Quartermaster does use S35VN (which isn't very likely), they blew the HT massively. Take that for what you will.
