Bonecutter warranted for cutting bone?

[Wolf_1989]

As for the Bonecutter, I have heard your opinions on this matter and have recommended to Auntie that she not warrant it for cutting Bone.

So the Bone Cutter will not be intended to... cut... bone.

Well, that's fine and all but it might be a good idea to change the name or there might be a lot of angry emails from customers asking why their damaged Bone Cutters were not covered under the H.I. warranty for actually cutting bones.

 

[Karda]

So the Bone Cutter will not be intended to... cut... bone.

Well, that's fine and all but it might be a good idea to change the name or there might be a lot of angry emails from customers asking why their damaged Bone Cutters were not covered under the H.I. warranty for actually cutting bones.

Then i guess Auntie should change the Boomerang name also...so that customers won't complain when they throw and damage it or complain because it doesnt return. Honestly, anyone using a khukuri without due care should examine wether their expectations of a knife are realistic/reasonable or not, regardless of the name.

 

[Cotherion]

What is there to complain about the Boomerang not returning? If I throw a large chopper I'm sure glad it ain't coming back at me

 

[Wolf_1989]

Then i guess Auntie should change the Boomerang name also...so that customers won't complain when they throw and damage it or complain because it doesnt return. Honestly, anyone using a khukuri without due care should examine wether their expectations of a knife are realistic/reasonable or not, regardless of the name.

I agree, but there are a lot of clowns out there who either do not have realistic expectations of a knife or may intentionally try to take advantage of H.I.

 

[Karda]

I agree, but there are a lot of clowns out there who either do not have realistic expectations of a knife or may intentionally try to take advantage of H.I.

And that is why i recommeded that she not warrant it for cutting bone. Another alternative is to take it off the warranted list altogether. Rest assured anyone practicing such dishonesty will find themselves banned without hesitation.

 

[killa_concept]

Then i guess Auntie should change the Boomerang name also...so that customers won't complain when they throw and damage it or complain because it doesnt return. Honestly, anyone using a khukuri without due care should examine wether their expectations of a knife are realistic/reasonable or not, regardless of the name.

Ha - well said. Made me chuckle

Personally, if I don't think an ax or heavy duty knife would fair any better at a task, I don't consider it covered by the warranty. Denser bone can be as hard as rock, and it's structure tends to be less uniform than wood - more laminated/random. This means it doesn't give way for the edge as well as wood of equal density (hard to explain - but it's sort of like how hacking at particle/fiber board will ding up a knife more-so than hacking at hardwood despite the former feeling softer... it has to to with the grain structure). Here's a neat little post by Uncle Bill if you haven't already read it. That said, the best you can hope for from such a heavy impact against such dense material is a pretty decent roll/dent... if you think a kukri, or any knife for that matter, should be able to shrug off something like that, you'll be hard pressed to find a blade that meets your expectations

Also, I don't believe it was HI who came up with the Bonecutter name - if I recall correctly from my readings, it was originally a model by GK Khukuris that a member wanted HI to adopt and improve upon. I'm sure someone more knowledgeable will verify or refute this

 

[Wolf_1989]

Here's what I do know from experience about chopping a dense bone: back in 1991 one of the guys at the farm decided he was going to try to chop a cow femur with a smaller Tramontina machete. The blade bit in about 1/4" and a good sized section of the edge was snapped right off the blade. This wasn't an old dried up bone either; it was from a freshly slaughtered animal.

Now you could use something like a broad axe for the job, and it could do it too, but you'd end up with a lot of splintery bone fragments, much of which would end up in the meat and everywhere else. Nobody wants that. It's a lot easier to just use a saw.

 

[Karda]

Also, I don't believe it was HI who came up with the Bonecutter name - if I recall correctly from my readings, it was originally a model by GK Khukuris that a member wanted HI to adopt and improve upon. I'm sure someone more knowledgeable will verify or refute this

You are correct, KC. Although it wasnt adopted to be improved upon. It was adopted because no more became available when Praj, the guy who was selling them disappeared.

 

[Ugly Duck]

I dunno, folks... seems like just about any HI khuk would cut bone if you chip away using the sweet spot. There's no law that sez you have to wail away with a mighty swing.

 

[Nicholas]

If memory serves, there was a post a couple of months ago, on this very subject: a user had put his khuk to work on dressing a deer. To summarize, he found it useful for severing the limbs (employing the "cut the joint" approach outlined above), but felt that karda was more useful overall, there being so many smaller tasks. (Makes me glad for my R6!)

 

[Jaymo]

If the Bonecuter is going to be removed from the HI warranty list, then I don't want one. I can get a cheap Atl Cutlery Indian made khuk for cheap and use it until it breaks.
If it's not going to be warranted for chopping heavy bone, I won't chop heavy bone. Pure and simple. I'm not going to try to scam Auntie. I will use it for the same types of chopping that any other HI chopping Khuk will be used for, and I EXPECT it to be warranted as such. The biggest/hardest bones I may actually chop with it would be beaver. Beaver, possum, raccoon, rabbit, squirrel, and turkey bones won't pose a problem to it or any decent chopper. Otherwise I wouldn't pay the money that HI charges for it.

I can build one badass meat cleaver cheaper and better than I can buy one. if it breaks, no biggie since I made it and didn't spend over $200.00 to buy it.
But for $215.00, I expect a damn near unlimited lifetime warranty. I don't abuse any of my knives, except for the ones that are cheap junk, but I don't expect them to last anyway. My cheap Atl Cutlery Khuk has lasted through 25 years of hard use, no abuse, but good hard work. Therefore, I expect my BC will last several lifetimes of hard work. I will not even baton my BC. If I need to baton it to split wood, then I will get a splitting wedge and my 10 pound railroad hammer. Or if I'm feeling lazy, I'll baton my cheap Indo Khuk.


BTW, I never said that I wanted to cut leg bone. Splitting ribcages, yes. beheading game animals, yes.

Yes, meat saws are normally used for cutting bones, splitting ribcages is a great example. Sawing is much slower than chopping. However, meat cleavers are and were used for chopping bones, to an extent. If there's a quicker and more humane, while being safe for the person doing it, way to slaughter rabbits and chickens, I've yet to stumble across it. It kills 2 birds with one stone. Yes they are used for disjointing. However, unless you have perfect aim, and you can make the blade curve to conform to every joint, you WILL hit bone.

JUST KIDDING, YOU KNOW I CAN'T WAIT FOR MY BC TO COME IN.

 

[Jaymo]

Then i guess Auntie should change the Boomerang name also...so that customers won't complain when they throw and damage it or complain because it doesnt return. Honestly, anyone using a khukuri without due care should examine wether their expectations of a knife are realistic/reasonable or not, regardless of the name.

No offense, Karda, but there's no need to get smart about it. The average person knows that a knife won't come back after you throw it. At least, I'd hope it doesn't come back. I wouldn't try to catch it.
However, the name bonecutter implies chopping bones. I don't see why it couldn't safely, and without abuse, be used for small game chopping.

 

[killa_concept]

I dunno, folks... seems like just about any HI khuk would cut bone if you chip away using the sweet spot. There's no law that sez you have to wail away with a mighty swing.

Like I said - bone does not give way to an edge and does not "chip away" as easily as wood does... whereas wood has a simple granular, in-line structure, bone has a very rigid, honeycomb-like three-dimensional one. This structure, combined with the fact that bone is made up of laminated, inorganic minerals, makes it VERY strong - especially if it's the denser sections. Now I don't know nearly enough about fracture mechanics to get very detailed, but I can say this: unless the bone is small, not very dense and predominantly marrow, hitting it with a blade is going to deal the edge more damage than it's worth.

If you need to go through a large, dense bone, use a saw.

 

[Karda]

If the Bonecuter is going to be removed from the HI warranty list, then I don't want one. I can get a cheap Atl Cutlery Indian made khuk for cheap and use it until it breaks.
If it's not going to be warranted for chopping heavy bone, I won't chop heavy bone. Pure and simple. I'm not going to try to scam Auntie. I will use it for the same types of chopping that any other HI chopping Khuk will be used for, and I EXPECT it to be warranted as such. The biggest/hardest bones I may actually chop with it would be beaver. Beaver, possum, raccoon, rabbit, squirrel, and turkey bones won't pose a problem to it or any decent chopper. Otherwise I wouldn't pay the money that HI charges for it.

I posed that as an alternative, the bonecutter is still on the warranty list.
The not chopping heavy bone is what we're discussing, as in most cases it can be as hard as stone. Not all customers have reasonable expectations of knife usage, and that is why this subject is a bit complex.

But for $215.00, I expect a damn near unlimited lifetime warranty. I don't abuse any of my knives, except for the ones that are cheap junk, but I don't expect them to last anyway. My cheap Atl Cutlery Khuk has lasted through 25 years of hard use, no abuse, but good hard work. Therefore, I expect my BC will last several lifetimes of hard work. I will not even baton my BC. If I need to baton it to split wood, then I will get a splitting wedge and my 10 pound railroad hammer. Or if I'm feeling lazy, I'll baton my cheap Indo Khuk.

Unfortunately noone gets a damn near unlimited lifetime warranty anymore. The present warranty is what it is.
As long as you are properly using your khukuri and there are no manufacturers defects, it should last.

 

[Wolf_1989]

For $30K+ you ought to get a lifetime warranty on a new car too but that will never happen.

Even with the limit on the H.I. warranty, it's still one of the best in the cutlery business.

 

[Jaymo]

For $30K+ you ought to get a lifetime warranty on a new car too but that will never happen.

Even with the limit on the H.I. warranty, it's still one of the best in the cutlery business.

Not true. Cars are made up of many components known as wear items. These plus planned obsolescence prevent cars from being much of a durable good. Factory car warranties are for the manufacturer's intended lifetime of the car. You're not expected to buy them and drive the wheels off of them, like I do. You're expected to put 50-100K miles on it and then get rid of it.
Cars are largely not built to last.
Good knives are. My HI kerambit and tamang certainly are built to last.
I keep my knives forever, provided they're not junk.

No doubt, HI has one of the best warranties in the knife business. I would like to see more clarification concerning uses that are and are not covered. If a company can arbitrarily say that a failure was abuse/not intended usage, without specifying what intended usage is, or examples of abusive uses, the warranty isn't worth much.

If the blade on a knife of this size and thickness breaks or chips, it's a failure in material or heat treatment. The steel should not be brittle. It should be hard, but tough. If it chips or breaks resulting from chopping, the steel is too hard.
If my cold chisels break as a result of using them to cut steel nuts or bolts, they get replaced under warranty, as they should.

My question about the warrant-ability of the BC for cutting bone was largely rhetorical, as I have a recip saw that I use on big game legs.

I just want to be sure that HI will stand behind it's products, because I really like them, and I like Yangdu and would hate to have a reason not to buy from her.:thumbup:
Odds are, if there's a problem with material/heat treat, it will rear it's ugly head early on. Let's hope that doesn't happen. It is a real risk that the manufacturer assumes by using scrap leaf springs instead of virgin alloy.
That said, barring microscopic cracks, old leaf/coil springs/torsion bars, broken axles, and forklift forks are my favorite raw materials.

Speaking of which, I have a 19" long piece of 1-3/4" diameter forklift drive axle. Ya reckon the kamis could make a giant cold chisel from it for me?

Now, if my BC would come in so I could start splitting some of my oak and hickory pieces for use in my smoker, I could take the sawzall to this deer leg in my freezer and make some good smoked Bambicue.:thumbup:

Yes, I do want an HI ultimate meat cleaver, but I'm saving up for a Tarwar.
I'll make truly the ultimate meat cleaver from that big truck leaf spring.
It may take 2 or 3 of us to swing it, but by gum, it'll chop bambi femurs or petrified wood.

Now, if it'll split sweetgum it's really accomplished something. That stuff is like trying to chop big blocks of rubber.

 

[Jaymo]

"Unfortunately noone gets a damn near unlimited lifetime warranty anymore. The present warranty is what it is.
As long as you are properly using your khukuri and there are no manufacturers defects, it should last. "

Sears has always warranted my broken Craftsman hand tools, regardless of how they got broken. Provided there aren't any hammer or cheater pipe marks on them, of course.

 

[Wolf_1989]

Not true. Cars are made up of many components known as wear items. These plus planned obsolescence prevent cars from being much of a durable good. Factory car warranties are for the manufacturer's intended lifetime of the car. You're not expected to buy them and drive the wheels off of them, like I do. You're expected to put 50-100K miles on it and then get rid of it.
Cars are largely not built to last.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but thanks for making my point, not about khukuris but the point about cars being NOT made to last but they massively overinflate the price anyway... which is why I will never buy a new car until they sell them for a realistic price. Huge waste of money.

I know this is thread drift so I'll just say that and leave it alone.

 

[scotchleaf]

Idea: change the name to "joint cutter"?

 

[Karda]

Unfortunately noone gets a damn near unlimited lifetime warranty anymore. The present warranty is what it is.
As long as you are properly using your khukuri and there are no manufacturers defects, it should last.

Sears has always warranted my broken Craftsman hand tools, regardless of how they got broken. Provided there aren't any hammer or cheater pipe marks on them, of course.

Using a khukuri is largely common sense. Unfortunately H.I. is not a large corporation such as sears and can no longer afford to provide an unlimited warranty.

No doubt, HI has one of the best warranties in the knife business. I would like to see more clarification concerning uses that are and are not covered. If a company can arbitrarily say that a failure was abuse/not intended usage, without specifying what intended usage is, or examples of abusive uses, the warranty isn't worth much.

The warranty does specify the intended usage, have you actually read it?

Field Use, As defined by Himalayan Imports:
Chopping wood, limbing trees, clearing trails, camp use, properly batonning firewood.

General Use, As defined by Himalayan Imports :
Clearing light brush, light household chores, caping or skinning of game.