BAS tang tested!

SkagSig40

SkagSig40

Joined
Feb 1, 2001
Messages
2,671
I just got my BAS today and I had to test her out to see if the tang/blade would fail because it was made so close to the holiday and you know how the kami's can get in a hurry! This khuk has a very good finnish on it and after inspecting it I found a crack in the blade. It is not in the cho which seems to be a common place for cracks to form. It is on the back/spine of the knife about 1/16 from the bolster. It is about 3/4 across the spine and can be seen about 1/16 down the side of the blade befor it appears to "dissapear" behind the bolster. I thought that because the crack was so close to the blade/handle junture it would surley snap in half. I first started to hit the back of the blade on a log as hard as I could and then on the flat as hard as I could! It didn't budge! I then finnished cutting through the log and still no problem! I thought if the blade is weak then the tang should snap if it was flexed in a vice so I went and tried it. I pushed and pulled with all my weight(170lbs) and was able to get at most 5-10 degrees of flex out of her. I pushed so hard I thought it was going to break for sure but she just returned to true!!! I gave it my all and got to that point where it just wouldn't flex anymore! I think this knife did get tempered well and I don't think it will ever give me problems in the future. If it was going to break it would have done it in the pressure of the vice. what do you guys think?
 
I don't think it's going to break. I didn't notice the crack but I can't see without my maginifiers. Generally, as you discovered, cracks such as the one you discovered are cosmetic.
 
Exactly what you should do and none less unless one doesn't have access to a good vise on an extra sturdy, unmoveable bench.:)
However a narrow fork in a fairly large tree will work about as well.
And forgeing cracks usually don't mean anything.
I have a couple with small forgeing flaws that you're just going to get in a forged blade from time to time.
I like to look at them as character marks and proof it's a hand made knife.:)
 
Hey, Dave, I have a "beautiful" '88 Lincoln Town Car you can have, cheap. You'll prolly have to tow her, though...
 
Who knows? We may get lucky and have only one or two tang failures this year. God forbid that the kamis would listen to anything I tell them about past failures.
 
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