David Hare-Scott wrote:
Not all stainless steel is especially hard. Most chefs' knives
(including the better ones) in the specialty equipment shops around here
are stainless steel and this does not stop them being polished on a

Actually, the better chef's knives are not stainless steel.

--
Victor M. Martinez

http://www.che.utexas.edu/~martiv

"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message
u...


More important, stainless steel is very hard, which is why better
kitchen
knives are NOT stainless. The material is almost impossible to sharpen
without a machine, and chefs need to touch up knives constantly, using
a
steel. This relates to spades because they get dull quickly, and
should be
touched up with a flat file kept in the garage. The performance
difference
is amazing, in case you've never tried this. It takes about a minute
to put
the spade in shape to cut through soil like butter (almost).



You use a soft material so that it can be easily sharpened but loses its
edge quickly?

You use a "soft enough" material so it can be resharpened quickly. The
reason is speed: When chefs are working, they don't head for a sharpening
machine or a stone. They grab the steel (the rod-shaped abrasive tool) to
touch up their blades in under 5 seconds so they can go back to work. Trying
this with stainless steel is like ****ing into the wind. This is why carbon
steel knives like Wusthof and Henckel are found in the hands of most
professional chefs.

And you don't use a hard material that keeps its edge longer than a soft
one because it is too hard to sharpen?

When knives (or spades) lose their edge in a major way, it's usually because
of accidental contact with items which damage them, like rocks (for spades),
or metal objects like sink edges or cooking pans (for knives). This will
happen just as easily to stainless steel as it will to normal steel spades.
What matters at that point is speed. Is the average busy gardener going to
go find the drill, the abrasive wheel (if he/she even has one), or haul the
shovel into the basement to the bench grinder (which most folks don't own)?
No. You want a soft material that you can sharpen quickly with a file, which
is hanging next to the garden tools, and requires to extension cord or setup
time.


Not all stainless steel is especially hard. Most chefs' knives
(including the better ones) in the specialty equipment shops around here
are stainless steel and this does not stop them being polished on a
steel or sharpened with a stone. If fact some of the "better" chefs'
knives are ceramic which is so hard that they cannot be sharpened at all
except in the factory. All of whcih probably has nothing to do with
spades.

Well, everyone eventually mangles the edge of their spade. And as I said,
not everyone has a grinding wheel (the garden equivalent of the chef's
sharpening machine or stone). Based on my experience, the ability to sharpen
a spade quickly is important, especially when trying to cut clean lines to
remove turf, while creating or expanding garden beds. Otherwise, you end up
shoving the grass down into the earth, rather than slicing cleanly through
it. And, a sharper spade allows you to slice UNDER portions of turf, leaving
more soil in place.

On Wed, 18 Jun 2003 06:12:56 +1000, "David Hare-Scott"
wrote:


You use a soft material so that it can be easily sharpened but loses its
edge quickly?
And you don't use a hard material that keeps its edge longer than a soft
one because it is too hard to sharpen?

By this logic there would be no use for hard steel at all.

Not all stainless steel is especially hard. Most chefs' knives
(including the better ones) in the specialty equipment shops around here
are stainless steel and this does not stop them being polished on a
steel or sharpened with a stone. If fact some of the "better" chefs'
knives are ceramic which is so hard that they cannot be sharpened at all
except in the factory. All of whcih probably has nothing to do with
spades.

David


In my experience having used stainless steel tools before, including our chef
knife set, it takes quite a while before it loses it's edge. The whole trick of
using any sharp edged tool in clay is to be sure it is properly irrigated and
not too dry or wet. My rusty spade cuts like budduh! I have a steel, to
sharpen my knives and a electric grinder which has many different type tools to
sharpen many different materials.

More important, stainless steel is very hard, which is why better kitchen
knives are NOT stainless. The material is almost impossible to sharpen
without a machine, and chefs need to touch up knives constantly, using a
steel.

Bullshit, you just have to bear down a little harder.

"Doug Kanter" wrote in message
et...

You use a "soft enough" material so it can be resharpened quickly. The
reason is speed: When chefs are working, they don't head for a
sharpening
machine or a stone. They grab the steel (the rod-shaped abrasive tool)
to
touch up their blades in under 5 seconds so they can go back to work.
Trying
this with stainless steel is like ****ing into the wind. This is why
carbon
steel knives like Wusthof and Henckel are found in the hands of most
professional chefs.


I know this is getting somewhat off topic but I am interested to know
why we have this difference of view, this is not just to be
argumentative, I am trying to understand your position as I am in the
market for some new tools (spades and knives) of my own. According to
the manufacturers' web sites

http://www.wuesthof.de/EN/default2.htm

http://www.zwilling.com/tg/usa/index.html

the knives that you mention are "The Steel: X 50 Cr Mo 15 Select alloy
of high carbon no-stain steel" and "Blades made from stainless, special
recipe steel" respectively.

Isn't that stainless steel? It sure sounds like it to me. Whether you
want to call these knives "stainless steel" or not the manufacturers
seem to be trying to produce (and advertise as such) products that hold
an edge well (ie they are hard steel). They also sell "steels" (both
traditional steel and ceramic) to maintain these edges, why would they
do that if using one was ineffective?

To me having a blade that is made deliberately soft so to allow quick
sharpening is rather self defeating as you will need to sharpen it much
more often. The side effect is that your blade will not last well as it
will also require more trips to the sharpening stone.

In the case of a spade (getting back on topic for a second) you would
want avoid brittle alloys that would break or get gaps through hitting
stones etc as the ability to hold an edge is useless if the edge is
gapped or the blade breaks. Having said that I have no idea if the
alloy used in stainless steel spades would be brittle or not. Do you
have any information on the sort of SS used in spades?

David

David

Handles are bubinga wood
http://www.postwish.com/viewproduct.asp?iProductID=2885
Guibourtia demeusei
http://www.worldagroforestrycentre.o...sp?SpecID=1680
http://www.bunnybass.com/wood/bubinga/bubinga.shtml
Janka Hardness is a test which measures the pounds of force it takes
to drive a .44" diameter steel ball 1/2 its depth into wood. These
numbers are taken from various publications but principally are from
the U.S. Forest Products lab. The higher the number the harder the
species.

Bubinga Guibourtia, demeusei 1980
Ash, White Fraxinus, excelsior 1320
Cherry, N. American Prunus, serotina 950
Maple, N. American Acer, saccharum 1450
Oak, Red Quercus, rubra 1260
Oak, White Quercus, alba 1360
Walnut, N. American Juglans, nigra 1010


http://www.drumsolo.cc/snare_drums/s...a/bubinga.html
Growing Region: Central to North Africa.

Availability: Currently listed as vulnerable to EXTINCT in parts of
its native Uganda.

Weight/Hardness/Density: Compared to Sugar Maple, Bubinga is 18%
heavier, 88% harder, 28% stronger.

Cost: Twice the cost of Maple.

Comments: The World Conservation Monitoring Center lists Bubinga as
"vulnerable to extinct" in Uganda, but lacks sufficient data to give
more than an "unknown" status in Central African Republic, Gabon,
Liberia, Nigeria, and Democratic Republic of Congo (ex Zaire). After
our current stock runs out, Drum Solo will no longer be using Bubinga,
due to this status.






On Tue, 17 Jun 2003 13:52:06 GMT, animaux wrote:

I wanted to share with any of the gardeners here that I just bought two of the
most beautiful tools from www.marthastewart.com

The URL is:

http://www.marthastewart.com/page.jh...duct2071&site=

There is an additional 10% CODE which is:

MEF0803

I bought the border spade and fork, both stainless steel with beautiful wood
handles. Both, which included tax and shipping came to $51.50. I have no idea
where I could buy these tools for less that fifty dollars each, on a good day.
Certainly not with the bubinga wood (hardwood) handles.

Victoria

Not affiliated, but have never bought a thing from this line which was not
beautiful and above and beyond satisfied.

"As crude a weapon as a cave man's club the chemical barrage has been hurled at the fabric of life."
Rachel Carson



tomj

In article ,
Beecrofter wrote:

More important, stainless steel is very hard, which is why better kitchen
knives are NOT stainless. The material is almost impossible to sharpen
without a machine, and chefs need to touch up knives constantly, using a
steel.

Bullshit, you just have to bear down a little harder.

That's why I use a hammer. Don't have to sharpen it at all, and it's a
tenderizer, too ! Gives my meat an interesting fractal look. Anything worth
incising is worth lacerating, as my daddy always used to say.


billo

On Wed, 18 Jun 2003 10:35:06 +1000, "David Hare-Scott"
wrote:

(...)

In the case of a spade (getting back on topic for a second) you would
want avoid brittle alloys that would break or get gaps through hitting
stones etc as the ability to hold an edge is useless if the edge is
gapped or the blade breaks. Having said that I have no idea if the
alloy used in stainless steel spades would be brittle or not. Do you
have any information on the sort of SS used in spades?

David

David, there are different grades and alloys of stainless. I am certainly not
an expert, but 18/10 is the stainless people desire for cookware. I have a full
set of mirror polish stainless steel cookware and knives.

The reason why I believe stainless steel is such a good material for garden
tools is the ability to glide into any substance without attracting the
particulate and when it stays relatively clean, it can cut better. Stainless is
also much heavier and helps a little by having superior strength and weight.

All of this is not scientific, but I will report back about these tools in
question and give my opinion on them.

So, am I the devil now?


On Tue, 17 Jun 2003 19:06:21 -0700, des weges wrote:


Handles are bubinga wood
http://www.postwish.com/viewproduct.asp?iProductID=2885
Guibourtia demeusei
http://www.worldagroforestrycentre.o...sp?SpecID=1680
http://www.bunnybass.com/wood/bubinga/bubinga.shtml
Janka Hardness is a test which measures the pounds of force it takes
to drive a .44" diameter steel ball 1/2 its depth into wood. These
numbers are taken from various publications but principally are from
the U.S. Forest Products lab. The higher the number the harder the
species.

Bubinga Guibourtia, demeusei 1980
Ash, White Fraxinus, excelsior 1320
Cherry, N. American Prunus, serotina 950
Maple, N. American Acer, saccharum 1450
Oak, Red Quercus, rubra 1260
Oak, White Quercus, alba 1360
Walnut, N. American Juglans, nigra 1010


http://www.drumsolo.cc/snare_drums/s...a/bubinga.html
Growing Region: Central to North Africa.

Availability: Currently listed as vulnerable to EXTINCT in parts of
its native Uganda.

Weight/Hardness/Density: Compared to Sugar Maple, Bubinga is 18%
heavier, 88% harder, 28% stronger.

Cost: Twice the cost of Maple.

Comments: The World Conservation Monitoring Center lists Bubinga as
"vulnerable to extinct" in Uganda, but lacks sufficient data to give
more than an "unknown" status in Central African Republic, Gabon,
Liberia, Nigeria, and Democratic Republic of Congo (ex Zaire). After
our current stock runs out, Drum Solo will no longer be using Bubinga,
due to this status.






On Tue, 17 Jun 2003 13:52:06 GMT, animaux wrote:

I wanted to share with any of the gardeners here that I just bought two of the
most beautiful tools from www.marthastewart.com

The URL is:

http://www.marthastewart.com/page.jh...duct2071&site=

There is an additional 10% CODE which is:

MEF0803

I bought the border spade and fork, both stainless steel with beautiful wood
handles. Both, which included tax and shipping came to $51.50. I have no idea
where I could buy these tools for less that fifty dollars each, on a good day.
Certainly not with the bubinga wood (hardwood) handles.

Victoria

Not affiliated, but have never bought a thing from this line which was not
beautiful and above and beyond satisfied.

"As crude a weapon as a cave man's club the chemical barrage has been hurled at the fabric of life."
Rachel Carson



tomj

"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message
u...


I know this is getting somewhat off topic but I am interested to know
why we have this difference of view, this is not just to be
argumentative, I am trying to understand your position as I am in the
market for some new tools (spades and knives) of my own. According to
the manufacturers' web sites

http://www.wuesthof.de/EN/default2.htm

http://www.zwilling.com/tg/usa/index.html

the knives that you mention are "The Steel: X 50 Cr Mo 15 Select alloy
of high carbon no-stain steel" and "Blades made from stainless, special
recipe steel" respectively.

Isn't that stainless steel? It sure sounds like it to me. Whether you
want to call these knives "stainless steel" or not the manufacturers
seem to be trying to produce (and advertise as such) products that hold
an edge well (ie they are hard steel). They also sell "steels" (both
traditional steel and ceramic) to maintain these edges, why would they
do that if using one was ineffective?

To me having a blade that is made deliberately soft so to allow quick
sharpening is rather self defeating as you will need to sharpen it much
more often. The side effect is that your blade will not last well as it
will also require more trips to the sharpening stone.

They make two types of knives for two different types of users. Home users
may need the kind of sharpness or precision that chefs need, but they won't
need that sort of quality 300 times in 4 hours on a busy night. If they need
to spend 10 minutes restoring the edge, it's not a big deal. A busy chef
hasn't got the time to screw around with stainless.

What I'm saying here is based on having spent time (frustrating time trying
to learn tricks, but interesting nonetheless) with a half dozen friends who
are graduates of the Culinary Institute, and two of their teachers. None of
them use stainless.

This is an interesting link, in terms of understanding different types of
metal. Click on "technical information", and then look down at the link
"About Stainless Steel".

http://www.bssa.org.uk/nsindex.htm



In the case of a spade (getting back on topic for a second) you would
want avoid brittle alloys that would break or get gaps through hitting
stones etc as the ability to hold an edge is useless if the edge is
gapped or the blade breaks. Having said that I have no idea if the
alloy used in stainless steel spades would be brittle or not. Do you
have any information on the sort of SS used in spades?


Let's not discuss extremes. The fact that a metal is "not that hard" doesn't
mean it's as soft as a lead fishing sinker. I've been using Bulldog spade &
fork for 20-ish years. These used to be sold by Smith & Hawken before it
became a fashion vendor for yuppies. I've hit plenty of rocks with the
spade. I've never actually dented the tool, but it clearly becomes dull
after a while. If I'm re-edging an existing bed, the dullness isn't
noticable or important, at least not in my soil. For other jobs, it is. And,
in some peoples' soil, it might be important.

When the sun's going down, your wife's telling to to get ready for Aunt
Nellie's barbeque (which you really don't want to attend anyway), your
spade's dull and you really want to finish what you're doing before heading
for the shower, the last thing you'll want is to fool around with a blade
that's too hard to sharpen quickly.

The web site I provided makes it clear that there's a wide range of formulae
for "stainless", and I'm not a metallurgist. I can only base my opinions on
experience, and experience indicates that stainless steel is harder to
sharpen than other metals. And, I have not found rust to be an issue at all
for some reason.

On Tue, 17 Jun 2003 19:52:53 GMT, animaux wrote:

On Tue, 17 Jun 2003 14:06:34 -0500, B.Server wrote:


They are very handsome. The possible tradeoff between the higher
polish and difficulty in sharpening is an interesting question. Maybe
you will let us know how it turns out. Personally, I would prefer to
see hickory or ash handles from sustainable N. American hardwoods
rather than an African hardwood that was very likely poached and all
but certain to have helped the bushmeat trade. If hickory works well
enough for blacksmiths, it would probably do for the garden.

I had no idea the wood poaching supported the bush meat trade. Now I feel
awful. I do have other stainless tools and they maintain their edge as long as
I keep them cleaned up and not use them to go through rocks...which I don't
have.

You could feel worse. I am a parttime cabinet maker who loves fine
wood. The arguments about "plantation grown", sustained yield, ad
nauseum finally convinced me that today thereare no responsibly
managed forests outside of the northern hemisphere temperate zone and
very few there. My stock of tropical hardwoods dwindles. I will miss
them when they are gone, but there are some very nice woods closer to
home.

The problem noted is that one must feed the loggers and one must be
able to get out the logs, thus roads.. (I have seen filches of
bubinga in Boston that were 5 1/2 FEET wide, 16' long and 8 inches
thick) Once the roads are in place, it is much easier to penetrate
the forests to hunt and easier to bring out the kill to local markets.

And yes, I know that there will be some libertarian who will hector me
that unless there is a way to sell something, it is without value. No
doubt they say the same thing about their grandmother. Its a personal
choice.

On Tue, 17 Jun 2003 19:06:21 -0700, des weges
wrote:


[..]

Bubinga Guibourtia, demeusei 1980
Ash, White Fraxinus, excelsior 1320
Cherry, N. American Prunus, serotina 950
Maple, N. American Acer, saccharum 1450
Oak, Red Quercus, rubra 1260
Oak, White Quercus, alba 1360
Walnut, N. American Juglans, nigra 1010


[...]


I think we are talking handles rather than dance floors, but I will
testify that it is very hard. Planing it is a real chore.

On Wed, 18 Jun 2003 13:32:23 GMT, animaux wrote:
So, am I the devil now?

No, I am just mad that you have no rocks in your soils to dull your
spades.

The main tool I have is a 25 pound breaker bar that I sharpen by
dragging it up and down my concrete driveway. I have broken two post
hole diggers putting in fence post holes. One of my neighbors got all
the permits and training to use dynamite to get through the rocks and
I thought of doing that too.

Rusty Mase


----== Posted via Newsfeed.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeed.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 100,000 Newsgroups
---= 19 East/West-Coast Specialized Servers - Total Privacy via Encryption =---

Howdy folks,
I'm enjoying this thread on the various woods and the attention to
the endangered woods. Back in the seventies I used to do a lot of wood
sculpture that I would carve from rare woods.
I had a friend from Costa Rica who works with the Botanical
Science center in the National forest come to visit. The guy lives
without electricity in a shack overgrown with tropicals, doesn't speak
english, acts as a guide for pharmacuetical companies, and National
Geographic and travels by horse so trips to the US are really a
culture shock for him. I enjoyed taking a guy from the jungle and
dumping him off at a 7-11.

We had a good time until he started looking closely at some of my
sculptures, carved from Coca Bola and other rare woods. He was very
polite but I could tell he was dismayed to see the end result of the
deforestation of his part of the world. For myself, as much as I was
raised with a western notion of art with a capital 'A' I had to admit
to myself in the scheme of things the wood would have been better off
left in the tree than decorating mine or anyone else's home.

I think that is something to consider when looking at high end
tools using exotic woods as chi chi selling points. Maybe there is
some sort of cosmic connection between Ms.Stewart's problems and rare
woods from Uganda.
Back in 1980 I worked for two years building on a bank building
at 15th anbd Guadelupe. When we got to doing the individual board
members offices on the top floor, the first board member had his
office trimmed out in mahogony, the second not wanting to look the
same, had his done in Walnut, the third wanting to top them both asked
what was a more expensive wood than either of those, and the architect
says, "Well, there's teak ?" And teak it was. Most expensive door I
ever mortised and hung.
Needless to say, the bank went belly up and somewhere down the line us
tax payers in the bailout bought a bunch of rare wood.

As wood sources are being depleted, the free market forces are at
work and at some point in the not too distant future, falling steel
prices will intersect with rising wood prices and a lot of house
framers are going to be learning a new set of skills.
Even the 'renewable' wood sources don't have time to attain any
size of much worth, so we are now replacing solid wooden floor joists
with composite beams made from two by fours and a panel of compressed
wood shavings glued together in a laminate. I was walking through a
house under cosntruction checking out the composite I-Beams over head,
thinking, 'That is a lot of faith to put into glue', time will tell.

Steve Coyle
www.austingardencenter.com

On Wed, 18 Jun 2003 13:32:23 GMT, animaux wrote:

So, am I the devil now?


I think the devil is male...she devil maybe? LOL

I was just curious and posted what I found, anal retentive of me but I
found it interesting. Nothing more!
"As crude a weapon as a cave man's club the chemical barrage has been hurled at the fabric of life."
Rachel Carson



tomj