The "Ask Nathan a question" thread

fielder said:
I hope a folder will be stainless, Magnacut would be great.
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Really curious to hear about Nathan's test results for Magnacut. On paper, it looks incredible at ~64Hrc (almost like a stainless 4V?).

If Nate's testing bears that out, I'd LOVE an MC revisit in Magnacut. I'd have to buy 2 to keep a spare nice and safe. Oh heck, who am I kidding? If Magnacut really tests out similar to a stainless 4V, I'd want to add a CPK in Magnacut of every model I've got 😂
 
The original MagnaCut "mani-gawt".

manicotti-4.jpg


(This discussion is making me hungry.)
 
Nathan, is the block lettering going to be just for the Basic line of knives, and the rest will still get the “signature” Carothers lettering? Or are all future knives going to be stamped with the block lettering as on the new Basic Field Knife?
 
Murphjd25 said:
Nathan, is the block lettering going to be just for the Basic line of knives, and the rest will still get the “signature” Carothers lettering? Or are all future knives going to be stamped with the block lettering as on the new Basic Field Knife?
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Nathan had a good explanation of this earlier in the thread.

The block lettering started with the Keffeler comp chopper. It was completely his design work (I added nothing) with my handy work in the finished product. I did not editorialize his design or tweak it to conform to our design standards but made a faithful copy. This is because the knife that I modeled had multiple world championships on it and was developed over time by the best competition cutter in the world. I had nothing to add to that other than to make it properly. It was a real bear to make those knives and to develop the optimized heat treat for the V4E in order to make what I feel was the best competition knife in the world. We put a lot of effort into the low volume project (which is why I was so bent out of shape when we rightly won the world championship with that knife on its first attempt but the win was given to Dwayne Unger due to a scandalous judging error by an inexperienced judge and Dwayne's bizarre inability to recognize what happened and was plainly visible in the videos).

The knife needed our names on it and it was an equal measure his work and mine. It felt right to use the same font. This came up again in the K18. And, if you think about it, the exact same thing with the Kephart. Our Kephart is my work but not my design, so I didn't "sign it" like I would for a normal CPK offering that is both my work and my design. That and it's a relatively basic affordable offering that will fit into the Amazon line.

We're going to try offering some more affordable knives to a wider audience as an experiment. These knives lack some of the finer details we're known for. I wanted a way to differentiate them from our more signature work and the actual signature was a pretty obvious way to do that.
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Nathan,
you have stated that you use a micarta liner under the wood scales. For a better fit and finish ! So my question is could a thin piece of metal be used in place of the micarta ? Say like a thin piece of brass ? And if it is possible would you be interested in using a brass liner on say a nice piece of desert ironwood or cocobolo or osage orange ? Or is there a reason that you use micarta as a liner ? ...thanks for your time !

Frc505
 
frc505 said:
Nathan,
you have stated that you use a micarta liner under the wood scales. For a better fit and finish ! So my question is could a thin piece of metal be used in place of the micarta ? Say like a thin piece of brass ? And if it is possible would you be interested in using a brass liner on say a nice piece of desert ironwood or cocobolo or osage orange ? Or is there a reason that you use micarta as a liner ? ...thanks for your time !

Frc505
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He's mentioned that he used micarta liners because the material is inert and stable (where wood might not be).

While brass might look cool, it requires more care.
 
TRfromMT said:
I'm inclined to agree a bond to a liner might be tricky, but knife makers been gluing scales to tangs for, um, ever. 🤔. Kinda the same thing.


And now it's got me wondering if maybe I should try that....... #sayIwont
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I've never gotten good adhesion to brass without heavy mechanical prep...even then I've had epoxy just pop right off, something about the oxidation process with brass.
 
frc505 said:
Nathan,
you have stated that you use a micarta liner under the wood scales. For a better fit and finish ! So my question is could a thin piece of metal be used in place of the micarta ? Say like a thin piece of brass ? And if it is possible would you be interested in using a brass liner on say a nice piece of desert ironwood or cocobolo or osage orange ? Or is there a reason that you use micarta as a liner ? ...thanks for your time !

Frc505
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Micarta works well for the application and has no real downsides. The purposes of the liner are well served with micarta. Metal is heavy, has less shock resistance, less adhesion and has a much different level of flexibility compared to the scale material we're bonding to. It seems to me the performance characteristics we're looking for with the liner are about ideal with micarta.
 
Nathan the Machinist said:
Micarta works well for the application and has no real downsides. The purposes of the liner are well served with micarta. Metal is heavy, has less shock resistance, less adhesion and has a much different level of flexibility compared to the scale material we're bonding to. It seems to me the performance characteristics we're looking for with the liner are about ideal with micarta.
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I do think that brass could be a pretty liner, but you capture the performance based considerations nicely.

Reading your response made me think:

The "P" in CPK is for performance. It's Carothers Performance Knives, not Carothers Pretty Knives.


(Though your knives are pretty too...)
 
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