A2 spine & ferro rod not mixing well?

M

MRH23

Joined
Jan 1, 2018
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16
Anyone had an issue w/ ferro rod damaging the spine? Took my new Hiking Buddy for a spin and after a few ferro rod strikes I went to clean it off & noticed that it had deformed the spine edge. Same ferro rod with other knives previously and no issue. *** Edit & spoiler alert... thanks to member suggestions it was ferro residue & able to scrap it off ( took Lots of elbow grease ) ****

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Not sure about damaging the spine, but all Fiddlebacks have rounded spines which aren't conducive to ferro rod use.

Edit: hard to say from those photos. I'd imagine that their heat treat should easily stand up to a ferro rod though. Someone from the shop should chime in soon .
 
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It might just be the rod that rubbed off on the chamfer. I’m going to grind my pro-Kephart’s spine square really soon.
 
that should scrape off it doesn't look like the spine deformed and it shouldn't, that looks like the rod just melted to or scraped off on the spine. try scraping it off with your thumb nail or something something slightly abrasive.
 
Thanks all for your advice, all good now - no issue. It took some Serious elbow grease but the residue came off. Simple thumbnail did nothing. Went with some hard plastic to eventually start getting it removed. My guess is that slight chamfer really hung onto the ferro material. No more ferro rod in this knife's future.
 
MRH23 said:
Thanks all for your advice, all good now - no issue. It took some Serious elbow grease but the residue came off. Simple thumbnail did nothing. Went with some hard plastic to eventually start getting it removed. My guess is that slight chamfer really hung onto the ferro material. No more ferro rod in this knife's future.
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Yeah, I get that the squared spines can serve a purpose or two. But any sharp corners on steel are a stress riser. Granted squared inside corners are much worse than squared outside corners but the outside corners are still a stress riser susceptible to damage from harmonic vibrations from impacts such as batonning whilst the steel is very cold in a frigid environment, or even worse when prying...as in trying to split off a piece of fatwood or tinder from a partially split stick to make kindling. Besides that there is hand comfort if using the knife in a pinch grip to scrape hides, and thumb comfort when using thumb pushes to control the cuts in detail work. I use this technique a lot and have actually cut my thumb on some squared spines after repeated pushes onto the sharply squared edges. Also, as a survival instructor, I advocate carrying a dedicated striker for ferro rods. Partly because it gives you another tool to scrape stuff with, and partly because practicing using a knife spine to spark a ferro rod under normal conditions can lead to dangerous situations later. It's one thing to spark a rod with a knife spine under good circumstances, but another to do it under stress in the cold whilst shivering and experiencing a reduction in motor skills.

This is a piece I wrote on non squared spines for the Fiddleback Forge blog a few years ago

http://fiddlebackforge.com/index.cfm/fiddleback-news-information/no-squared-spines/



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I don't think the outside corners being square make any difference on structural integrity of the blade. If it were a part for the space shuttle, then yes. When I designed machine parts and tooling it was more cosmetics and to help with assembly. Inside corners of a slot or pocket is more important.
 
Thanks for the article mistwalker, lots of good insights. Something just cool about the knife ferro rod combo. I agree that the chamfered edge is more comfortable when using, one of the pro's/con's to my Mora bushcraft. That and the effort it took to scrape the ferro residue off & have it looking respectable again won't be something I want to repeat.
 
Bmurray said:
I don't think the outside corners being square make any difference on structural integrity of the blade. If it were a part for the space shuttle, then yes. When I designed machine parts and tooling it was more cosmetics and to help with assembly. Inside corners of a slot or pocket is more important.
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I've watched the pre-manufacture stress tests on a LOT of knives and tomahawks in Solid Works over the years. I don't make parts for space shuttles, but I've helped design a LOT of tools. Tools for rescue, for breaching buildings and vehicles...and sadly some more for people disassemble each other with... The importance of that stress level and location is subjective and a matter of opinion. The fact that it exists is irrefutable. In a tool where batonning is not only endorsed by the maker but even at times encouraged as well, their opinion of its importance is going to carry more weight than anyone else's... other than possibly a majority of their market...
 
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I'm with Mist on the use of a separate striker. If you want to do a test, then fill a big bowl with ice and water and put your hands in it until you can't stand it any more, then use your kit with a butter knife and see if you can make a spark. IMO, the best striker by far is one of those carbide shovel sharpeners. Slip, or miss, and you won't do too much damage to the meaty part of the thumb on the palm of your hand. A couple of holes and some file work and it even looks cool.


To steal Mists' picture of an awesome striker and fire rod:

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Yea, I agree with the ice bowl challenge. See which one you can use better while your fingers are frozen. My money is on the full grip of the knife. 99.9% of us aren't going to use the knife in a survival situation anyway, however I can control the sparks better with a knife, I can scrape bark or other tender better with the back of a knife. Also a small striker is one more thing to carry, one more thing to drop, one more thing to loose. A sharpened spine outshines a tiny striker for about every possibility. I can see chamfering the fancy customs you put in a fancy sheath because of astetics, but a user blade needs to be versatile. Look at LT's knives. Almost every model has a square spine because guys use them and want them that way.
 
Bmurray said:
Yea, I agree with the ice bowl challenge. See which one you can use better while your fingers are frozen. My money is on the full grip of the knife. 99.9% of us aren't going to use the knife in a survival situation anyway, however I can control the sparks better with a knife, I can scrape bark or other tender better with the back of a knife. Also a small striker is one more thing to carry, one more thing to drop, one more thing to loose. A sharpened spine outshines a tiny striker for about every possibility. I can see chamfering the fancy customs you put in a fancy sheath because of astetics, but a user blade needs to be versatile. Look at LT's knives. Almost every model has a square spine because guys use them and want them that way.
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That's legit. By all means, if you want to square the spine on a Fiddleback, then go for it-- its a tool after all. I've toyed with the idea of putting a small piece of carbide in the spine kinda like the sharpener. Not sure how it would work, but it's interested me to the point of trying to figure out how to braze it on and then do the HT. I also thought about using a carbide tool insert.
 
swonut said:
That's legit. By all means, if you want to square the spine on a Fiddleback, then go for it-- its a tool after all. I've toyed with the idea of putting a small piece of carbide in the spine kinda like the sharpener. Not sure how it would work, but it's interested me to the point of trying to figure out how to braze it on and then do the HT. I also thought about using a carbide tool insert.
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If you figure it out, please share.
 
I used a tool and cutter grinder at work and ground a radius notch in all of our Esee blades, including all of my friend's blades as well. Kinda like what Survive Knives offers. It worked really well for the firsteel, but I still missed the tender scraping aspect.
 
Good to know this worked out.

I’m a huge fan of rounded spines. They’re just so much more comfortable to work with. For me, it’s totally worth having to carry a separate striker to have a rounded spine on my primary knife. But I do see how reasonable minds could differ.
 
Y'all keep in mind there are ferro rods, and also common mishmetal available under the same branding all over the net. The mishmetal is goobery melty kinda. Dirty.

Glad you got this worked out.
 
Fiddleback said:
Y'all keep in mind there are ferro rods, and also common mishmetal available under the same branding all over the net. The mishmetal is goobery melty kinda. Dirty.

Glad you got this worked out.
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Yeah, some manufacturers get the iron content so low that it will barely even create the pyrophoric reaction. I had some from Fire Steel dot com like that about 10 years ago, then the owner was a jerk during the discussion so I've never bought any more from that company. Lol, I could forgive the messed up product pretty easy. Never got past the narcissistic sociopath in the responses. The thing is that all ferrocerium is made in China. They are the only ones with active cerium mines, because they are the only ones who don't really care about employee safety concerns. Extracting cerium hasn't gotten cost effective enough yet for the western countries, where health concerns for miners is a thing, to get in on it. Quality controls in China aren't the same as here.

pertinux said:
Bumper sticker? Secret code? Band name?

So much potential!

Mishmetal is my new favorite word. o_O

(OP, so glad you got your knife concerns sorted out. :thumbsup:)

~ P.
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LOLOL I love the way you think!!!

The story of Mischmetal itself goes back to the turn of the century and an Austrian scientist named Carl Auer von Welsbach

This is a piece I wrote on it for the Fiddleback Forge blog a couple of days ago

http://fiddlebackforge.com/index.cfm/fiddleback-news-information/mischmetal/

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