- Pretium
- Victorious
This review consists of :
Knives :
This review consists of : |
|
Maker Webpage : on GearBastion, basic specifications :
Some of the more interesting features :
In general the quality of the build is high :
There are a few issues though from a purely aesthetic points of view :
As noted in the image on the right, the edge is lightly buffed however it was not rounded and thus preserved the slicing aggression.
On 3/8" hemp :
Compared to the #1260 Mora carving 2" points on some 1" dowel with light force (10-30 lbs) :
Making 2" points on some 1x0.5" pine with heavy force (50-70 lbs) :
Ergonomics :
Security :
Durability :
Construction :
The Victorious does not have a lock in the conventional sense and would be more accurately described as a latch or safety catch. There are a few differences between how it operates and common knife locks with the main one being that it is manual.
In general most knife locks such as the liner lock will engage when the knife is opened however on the Victorious the latch has to be moved from the open to secure position to hold the blade from moving. This is similar to how the latch on the end of bali-songs has to be manually closed to prevent the handles from separating.
There are a few interesting things about the latch and one of them is that it can not only be manually closed, it can be manually fixed in the closed position as noted in the video on the right. When the set screw is tightened down as could be done when extended work was necessary with the knife for example, the latch is now closed and can not slip or otherwise come engaged.
This is one of the critical problems with many knife locks. If they are slow loaded they can have very high break points, in excess of 1000 in.lbs of torque is common, however they can easily disengage. This problem is so common that it is a source of contention in the industry and makers/manufacturers will defend impacts or dynamic loads which can act on the lock as abusive.
However as noted in the video on the right, some locks can be so dependent on exact geometry of the mating faces that they can be extremely instable just to less than ideal manufacturing tolerances. That ZT folder is sold and marketed as a "hard use" knife but the lock is defeated by extremely small forces loaded on the spine.
In contrast, the latch on the Victorious when locked fixed can not slip or otherwise released and in order to actually collapse the lock then set screws would need to be sheared completely off. Given the build of the knife this is unlikely simply because it isn't designed for very heavy prying or impact work due to the :
and general ultra light design.
As this steel has very high edge stability and a low carbide content so it takes a high polish easily with little effort. The image at the right is off of a SPS-3k stone just in the shaping stage without burr minimization and the edge still forms very clean.
It can easily form a coarse edge as well, however if coarse finishes are the desired cutting finish then there are more optimal steels such as 19C27 which are designed more for retaining slicing aggression.
One of the strongest attributes of this steel in regard to sharpening is that it is easily worked with even natural stones which are quartz based because the lack of heavy alloy carbides means that those stones can steel fully cut the steel. Those stones will fail to cut well many of the modern high carbide steels but they easily can hone AEB-L with no issues.
The other strong point of the steel is that the high hardness and high resistance to chipping means that in general the amount of metal to be removed when sharpening is minimal which accelerates the work.
On Cardboard it performs as a Class II type steel as expected :
| # runs | Sharpness | 15% | 10% | 5% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| cardboard cut (m) | 5 | 107- 4(29) | 5.4+0.4(0.6) | 12.7+0.0(1.7) | 51- 6( 8) |
The Victorious uses AEB-L at 60 HRC. This is not a recent steel and most steel manufacturers make a version of it as it is what is used in razor blades.
The critical components are :
The carbon and chromium percentage are very carefully balanced so as to obtain the maximum martensite hardness and still allow enough chromium for passivation of the steel. The low carbide levels are necessary to give the steel the highest edge stability.
For knives this means :
Overview :
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and/or the cKc YouTube Playlist.
Most of the pictures in the above are in the PhotoBucket
album.
| Last updated : | |
| Originally written: | 26/08/2013 |