I often talk about " knives " with enthusiasts and it's always the eternal debate.
So here is the dilemma: “mirror” finish, “rough forge”, “hammered forge look”, “brushed” or “satin”?
I will illustrate this debate for you:
The “mirror” finish:
the “raw forge” finish
the “raw hammered forged” finish
the brushed / satin finish (there are plenty of nuances)
Technically the best finish would be "mirror" as it would increase "oxidation resistance" not to mention other benefits (some of which are questionable and non-essential).
Tactical knife enthusiasts will tell me that I am making a serious mistake here with this shortcut because a mirror finish is not very discreet, not to mention the fact that when you have a mirror blade, you often hesitate to use it (tactically or not 😊), because it is very easy to scratch it.
Result of the races, we end up with a beautiful knife that will almost never be used.
The fact is that the craftsmen who forge the blades rarely offer mirror-polished blades.
Indeed, obtaining a beautiful mirror effect requires long hours of boring polishing work to add nothing essential to the value of the knife.
Personally, in the value chain, I gladly place the mirror effect well behind the other values such as: the quality of the steel, its origin, the solidity and the grip, the rigidity of the blade, the ability to sharpening, the cutting edge, the grind and many other aspects.
Thus, when you find yourself in the middle of nature, you have perfect confidence in your knife and no qualms about making intense use of it.
Unfortunately, nowadays, marketing and industrial production have accustomed us to spending much more on knives with designs and finishes straight out of action movies on Netflix.
The result is quite unfortunate because in the end, many people spend their money on design boosted by advertisements, on blades that have undergone differential tempering, on sophisticated steels, on "ergonomic" handles made of multi-technical and synthetic materials... to finish (in all originality) with copy N° 195 800.
The least funny is that if the model is very successful, it will be really in demand. As a result, workshops located on the other side of the world will be running at full speed to flood the market with more or less successful copies... Moreover, aesthetically they will make fairly credible copies... that being said, functionally it is a another story.
So the question (meaningly materialistic) is: should we pay more for a blade that costs less in production because it is "rough forge" or "roughly finished"?
Well yes and no.
To slice, you must take into consideration several elements: the quality of the steel, the dimensions of the blade, its rigidity, the edge, the grind, the tang (see the article that I devote to it on the blog), the forge work, the quality of the production, the overall integration, the originality of the line...
Creatively, yours…