A Flaw in the Heat Treat? Or something else?

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NothingCoherent

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I took my production Recluse camping last week, and used it to make a bowdrill set. The knife appeared to perform as well as it always has, slicing through the wood beautifully. But eventually, something went wrong. I was pushing the blade through a small knot in my bow piece, evening the handle area out, when the blade got caught in the knot. I had to use a bit of force to get it to slice the rest of the way through, but it did manage to go through nicely. No biggie, right?

Wrong. Looking at the blade revealed that things weren't right. On the area of the knife where I had pushed through the knot, the edge and about 2-3 millimeters of steel behind it had been bent off to one side. It's not chipped or rolled; the steel itself has bent and looks like a sort of bubble on the otherwise straight edge. One side is bent outwards, the opposite side bent inwards. Like a little dome.

This is not something I can sharpen out. The damage is too far behind the edge. The shape of the blade is changed.

I'm really disappointed right now. This is not something that should be happening to a knife made of A2 during light wood working. What went wrong? What can I do to fix this? I'll try to get a pic of the damage, but my camera and lighting isn't cooperating...
 
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Okay, I took some pics...

First. Notice how the light is reflecting. You can see some of the "bent" area, but it does extend beyond that. It's just damn near impossible to get an accurate image of it.

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Second, the other side. You can see how it bends upwards. It's like a little lip or something.

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These images don't really do it justice, but it's the best I can do right now.

What do you guys think caused this?
 
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This can happen in a blade from time to time with A2 (it's why there is a different criteria for toughness and wear resistance).

The production recluses are made by Bark River Knives which all carry an unconditional lifetime warranty (unless you were wearing a hockey mask and making a YouTube video in your den when it happened) :D
I would recommend contacting Mike Stewart by pm on here and letting him know nicely what happened. He'll take it back and either repair it or replace it.
 
I've seen this happen to other Bark River knives before and IIRC, Mike Stewart said the edges were ground too thin.

They'll take care of you.

You can contact him on knifeforums - he is not on bladeforums.

Alternatively, you might try sharpening it to a thicker edge.
 
Hah, lucky for me I have an account at knifeforums from back when I was asking when this very knife would ship out! Kind of ironic, my reason for going back over there! :P

I'll definitely try to contact Mike. I've spoken to him in the past, and he's pretty awesome.
 
This has occurred with the Bravo 1s in A2 as well as the BRKT golok in 1095. Yet another BRKT model that is showing HT problems. I wonder how many more?
 
I've already seen this kind of damage happen, on a hollow ground knife made by a friend and poorly heat treated. To me, the reason is the edge is too thin, but it's really a flaw that it bends for such a ligth job. You weren't even batonning! Never had any A2 knife, so I don't know how this steel behave, but it's supposed to be a tool steel, so I'm a bit surprised this happens, even if the edge is thin. It would be interesting to precisely determine the exact cross section of the blade, to compare with other knives. Cause Moras also have thin edges, but I've never read or heard of such an edge failure. It chips sometimes, rolls a bit, but it holds its shape, and that's the least we can ask from A2 which have 1%C, 5%Cr, 1%Mo, and some Va, while Moras are just plain 12C27 or 1095. They should get more carefull about their grinding or heat treat, cause it's okay to pay for a quality knife, but they'll lose customers if a knife one tenth the price performs better at the most basic tasks. It's just disappointing!
 
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Madnumforce said:
it's okay to pay for a quality knife, but they'll lose customers if a knife one tenth the price performs better at the most basic tasks. It's just disappointing!
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This is the truth, really. And I hate to say that, as I love BRKT... but I'm just really put off right now. I spent something like $220 on that knife. I expected better performance than my $12 Mora's give me.
 
I know things like this are really disappointing...but in my "lessons" in heat treating I was told that the process of heat treating is closer kin to voo doo than it is to an exact science, especially when large batches of knives are being heat treated. Also...knots are just really hard...sometimes hard as glass. I've seen knots chip $200.00 shaper bits before. At this point customer service would be a more important issue to me. In a survival situation I'd much rather have a knife edge ripple or bend than chip out.
 
Personnaly, in a survival situation, I'd rather have a knife with a thicker and tougher edge, even if it implies a loss in cutting performance, and not have neither bending nor chipping. Knots can be hard it's a fact, but personnaly, if in return of a very sharp edge (and no doubt BRKT are) you expose yourself to have edge failures, even on handheld knife work, I prefer less sharpness and more strenght and toughness. My philosophy is to have a ligth, "small" (3-4") pocket knife with zero edge if I need razor sharpness, what obviously I don't really need when whittling wood. Cause it's not easy to make a knife razor sharp, holding his edge, and tough in the same time, this thread is a proof.
 
Raining said:
I've seen this happen to other Bark River knives before and IIRC, Mike Stewart said the edges were ground too thin.

They'll take care of you.

You can contact him on knifeforums - he is not on bladeforums.

Alternatively, you might try sharpening it to a thicker edge.
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Raining,

What Mike referring to the production Recluse specifically or just BRKT knives which exhibited edge damage?
 
I hope he was refering only to the defective ones! Qualify your own production of having been ground "too thin" would really be a problem! Admitting you've let go on the market knives with a "flaw" than can be checked visually at the factory, even during the manufacturing process (don't need to finish a knife if the blank is not acceptable) is already a problem, in fact. It's honnest from Mike Stewart, but it owes to be fixed quickly.
 
Since this seems to be the exact same failure that happened in the batoning part of the destruction test of the Bravo 1, I'd say something is afoot here. Is it just me, or did this crop up just recently? Maybe a change in the heat treatment by BRKT?
 
penetrator said:
Since this seems to be the exact same failure that happened in the batoning part of the destruction test of the Bravo 1, I'd say something is afoot here. Is it just me, or did this crop up just recently? Maybe a change in the heat treatment by BRKT?
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100% correct but the mod closed down the thread here in BF - for whatever reason - the same thing happened in KF too. Apparently free speech is not so free, even though no rules have been broken.

Also, why should the OP speak 'nicely' to Mike Stewart, I would be mad. That's three models so far where BRKT's HT has failed, all in less than a month. How many more are out there? How many of these sub-standard knives are being used by the men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan? Should there not be some type of warning sent to these people at least?

I'd say that there is something afoot. But I guess the 'friends of Mark Stewart' mod will close this down rather quickly like he did with the Bravo 1 tests.

The sad part is that most people outside the knife forums don't know that the Fiddleback Recluse is not being made by Fiddleback...
 
RyanS said:
Raining,

What Mike referring to the production Recluse specifically or just BRKT knives which exhibited edge damage?
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He was responding to damages reported on other knives - you can try to find the threads on KF. Off the top of my head, I remember seeing this on a golok, a Bravo1 and a gunny. Keep in mind, the vast majority of BRKT knives don't exhibit this kind of damage. I have owned 20+ and have never had an issue, even in hard use.

I'm not defending BRKT, just stating my experience with their knives.
 
I've seen this before as well, on my Ratweiler in SR101 steel. I had a convex edge put on it that was too thin.

The fact that it bent and didn't chip out is a sign of a good heat treat...
 
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Falcor said:
The sad part is that most people outside the knife forums don't know that the Fiddleback Recluse is not being made by Fiddleback...
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I suppose I'll be doing my best to remedy that little bit once I get mine in hand :)
 
GregS said:
The fact that it bent and didn't chip out is a sign of a good heat treat...
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I don't know... I've never seen an edge chip from some basic wood carving. There's something wrong with the steel in this knife if ANY kind of damage is happening while going through such a small knot.

Anyway, I contacted Mike Stewart with a link to this thread so I wouldn't need to explain what had happened again, and he said he doesn't read bladeforums. Um... he couldn't click a link to Fiddleback's forum, even though he built a knife for the guy? What???

I think this is the last BRKT knife I will own.
 
NothingCoherent said:
I don't know... I've never seen an edge chip from some basic wood carving. There's something wrong with the steel in this knife if ANY kind of damage is happening while going through such a small knot.

Anyway, I contacted Mike Stewart with a link to this thread so I wouldn't need to explain what had happened again, and he said he doesn't read bladeforums. Um... he couldn't click a link to Fiddleback's forum, even though he built a knife for the guy? What???

I think this is the last BRKT knife I will own.
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Is that all he said! What did he say about the knife? Is he going to fix or replace it?
 
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