Comment by MrMember
4 years ago
Really interesting read. It's cool that a company like Crucible was willing to consider a proposal for something as expensive, time consuming, and potentially fruitless as a new steel from essentially someone off the street.
Larrin's father is a famous custom knife maker who worked with making his own Damascus-style steel. Larrin, though his father, is well-known among the knife community.
It is unfair to Larrin to attribute his success and well-knowness to the father.
I wasn't trying to do that so I should clarify. MagnaCut is, so far, a success because of his unique approach. I asked on another forum if MagnaCut is using some new process that makes the balance of properties so much better than other steels on the market. Most cutlery steel dates back decades. I thought maybe what MagnaCut is doing relies on technology that wasn't available back then. Larrin said no. He deserves credit for his fresh approach to making a cutlery steel, and I should not have implied otherwise.
My poorly worded response was more to Crucible taking a chance on somebody off the street. Larrin is not some unknown quantity. He has connections in the knife industry, including Crucible. He's also a metallurgist with accomplishments in his own right. Crucible still took a risk, but it wasn't a huge one.
Not really sure I’d call Larrin “someone off the street.” They guy literally wrote the book on modern knife metallurgy and has a PhD in the science. https://www.amazon.com/Knife-Engineering-Steel-Treating-Geom...
He also has a well known website and is considered one of the worlds leading experts on knife steels and knife craft.
He has a PhD Metallurgical Engineering and works in the steel industry (though on automotive steels, not on knife steels). Not quite the same as someone off the street. From TFA the company was mainly worried that his knife-steel knowledge was purely academic (since he's never worked professionally on high carbon knife steels).