Anyone care to define "abuse"

This whole thread has me thinking back about 5 yrs. ago. My twin boys were 7. I was initiating a divorce, and had weekend visitation with my boys. Thier mom's boyfriend bought them a couple of liquor store pocket knives. I was pissed, because I wanted to wait awhile for thier first knives. I took them on a 4 wheel excursion up in the San Gabriel Mtns. called Azusa canyons. My boys wanted to show me how they sharpen their knives. They started scraping those cheapies right on the rocks! I was so glad I did not decide to take away thier pocket knives. I told my boys to be sure to show mom's boyfriend what a fine job they did! Knife abuse at its best, thanks for poking my memory noodle. Now that my boys are 12 and live with me, I jib them a bit about their sharpening skills. I am showing them how to sharpen by hand now.

As far as the op's question, using a blade for a flat screwdriver is abuse, or a pry bar.
 
MVF said:
I expect my knives to do what I need them to do in the moment. I pay good money for them and enjoy seeing how far they can go. I've only once broke the tip off a knife (and at the time I knew it would happen but needed to get the task done, so I was willing to sacrifice it) so I know I'm not being unreasonable.
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Owner expectation is a big factor in the equation. I'd fully expect my larger khukuris to be able to fell a medium sized tree. My folders... no. Likewise, I can except the thicker, stouter khuks to handle some light prying. My pen knives? Not likely. It's nice when a given blade can do more than others... of course there's a great variety of sizes, thicknesses, lengths, et cetera in the knife world, and all are subject to the laws of physics. No matter how much money you spend on a blade, if one's concept of physics is fairly out of touch with reality, the notion of "abuse" may not even exist in their mind... only "inferior knives" that cannot perform feats nobody else would expect them to. Supersteels and heat treaments can give some advantages, as well as designs calculated to minimize damage at the expense of certain tasks, but I'm speaking about a sort of mean of knife limitations.
 
Like C.S. Craves stated, it what the owner thinks. Just last night while batoning with my RAT cutlery RC-6 I encountered the largest knot in the hardest wood I have ever seen. I spent 1 hour hitting it as hard as I could with logs, cinderblocks, and bricks trying to get it through with no luck. The blade was bent probably 25 degrees, it was also twisted laterally. I got fed up, and my determination never quitting...I grabbed a framing hammer and beat the snot out of it :) I got it through ;) The blade was fine. But getting back to the post, i do not consider that abuse. I felt teh knife could do it and it succeeded with flying colors.
 
C.S. Graves said:
Owner expectation is a big factor in the equation.
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I think this is a great point. One of the pleasures of this hobby is how much I have learned about different steels, tempering, etc. One of the benefits of that is being able to make a much more accurate assessment of what any particular knife should be able to handle- oops- that's starting to sound dangerously close to "the right tool for the job" -never mind! :D
 
MVF said:
One of the benefits of that is being able to make a much more accurate assessment of what any particular knife should be able to handle
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Nuttin' wrong with that... though it's at odds with the school of thought that if a given blade doesn't do everything and then some, that it's unworthy. Okay, I exaggerate.

Tough tools are great, certainly. So is planning ahead and using something well suited to the tasks you're going to undertake, or likely to encounter. Best of all is having the know-how to make due with just about anything, be it a sharpened prybar or a slipjoint. :thumbup:
 
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