Broke my all time favorite knife (whimper)

Sorry to hear about the broken blade on a much enjoyed tool. I always liked that model, but never purchased one. And since I know I am prone to doing non knife things with knives, I have a couple of Cold Steels for most such occasions, a 4-Max Scout (heavier than the Rukus, with a quarter-inch shorter blade), and an SR1 Lite (a little lighter than the Rukus, with a slightly shorter blade).

Meanwhile, good to see that you have backups, particularly since that's a discontinued model.

Perhaps Santa Claus will remedy this come Christmas?
 
Twindog said:
Yes, that's the way I'm looking at it now. I was lucky to have a knife this good for so long and that served me so well.

Hard to quantify how lightly the leverage force was. I was being careful not to use too much force. Seemed to break awfully easily, especially at the thick part of the blade. I've intentionally broken blades before just to see how much force it takes. Those blades took a whole lot more force to break. I remember an old video that Deadbox did of prying and abusing a Benchmade (Proper?), which was much smaller and and thinner and took far more force than I put on my Rukus.

I'm kind of fixed on the appearance of the grain at the break point. It doesn't look right. Maybe someone like @Larrin or BluntCut MetalWorks BluntCut MetalWorks could say more.
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Looks like - a light pry then with a slight wrist twist and tug clockwise = cascaded failure. Ruptured corner lead to cascade 1, cascade 2 is almost vertical. Pic doesn't has clarity+res to see grain but bright & dull appearance due to fracture type.
twindog_rukusvanax.jpg
 
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BluntCut MetalWorks said:
Looks like - a light pry then with a slight wrist twist and tug clockwise = cascaded failure. Ruptured corner lead to cascade 1, cascade 2 is almost vertical. Pic doesn't has clarity+res to see grain but bright & dull appearance due to fracture type.
View attachment 3043975
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Thank you, Luong. Does the two-tone coloration of the grain mean anything to you? Is that the bright/dull difference you see?
 
Twindog said:
Thank you, Luong. Does the two-tone coloration of the grain mean anything to you? Is that the bright/dull difference you see?
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Intragrainular(across grain) has flatter surface thus brighter vs intergranular(between grain, grain boundaries) rougher surface hence dimmer/duller. Pic doesn't has sufficient resolution to see grain size... nevertheless looks fine (per std ht 60rc).
 
Normally a folding knife will break mechanically before the steel itself breaks or is used down to the spine, used "normally" the original owner will likely pass before a single decent blade is used/sharpened to the spine, example of this would be my dads leatherman micra blade, decades of backpacking use later and unfortunately outlasted him, that said ---
im impressed the mechanics of the knife held up to your brand of use.
 
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I'm late to the party here, but sorry to hear that your favorite knife broke, T Twindog . I've wanted a Rukus for years and just pulled the trigger on one over at AZCK at a pretty decent price, considering the market. I found this thread searching BF for takes on the knife I just bought. I'm glad you've got a number of others to back up your custom bladed user. Will you be having Josh do another blade for you or just put another Rukus into use?
 
ChazzyP said:
I'm late to the party here, but sorry to hear that your favorite knife broke, T Twindog . I've wanted a Rukus for years and just pulled the trigger on one over at AZCK at a pretty decent price, considering the market. I found this thread searching BF for takes on the knife I just bought. I'm glad you've got a number of others to back up your custom bladed user. Will you be having Josh do another blade for you or just put another Rukus into use?
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Congratulations on getting a Rukus. It's still my all-time favorite knife. I'm using the same knife, just with the original S30V blade. Josh doesn't do that kind of one-off custom work anymore, but S30V will be fine.

You can fine tune your Rukus to fly open and still have a rock solid lockup. After 20 years of hard homestead work, my Rukus still feels brand new.

For anyone interested, I sent in the blade and asked Peters to take a quick look at the break and offer an opinion. They were nice enough to do so:

It can be very difficult to determine the root cause of failures like this. Many factors come into play that could be the cause or contribution to a fracture. Geometry being a big one. The crack starts at 2 features that I would consider to be stress risers. Hard/sharp corners are always where cracks will initiate. Grind lines can even be considered stress risers. In this case, the fracture stretches from a hard corner to the plunge, which is also the narrowest part of the blade. Not that the particular design or manufacturing is to blame, but more so the overall design of a knife, in general. Knives, by definition, are a tool steels worst nightmare. Basically, every feature of a knife can contribute to its demise. [My boldface] Nitrogen-based stainless steels are not noted for their superior toughness characteristics. The grain structure visually looks very good. I can't rule out inclusions/discoloration without lab testing, so there is a possibility that something is trapped in that area. Although not very common, it does happen. At this point, I would determine all of this to be inconclusive. It could be any one of these, or even a combination off all proposed circumstances. This blade would need to be thoroughly examined by a lab for chemical analysis, micro-structure, and presence of impurities if you wanted a real scientific explanation of what is actually going on.
 
Twindog said:
Congratulations on getting a Rukus. It's still my all-time favorite knife. I'm using the same knife, just with the original S30V blade. Josh doesn't do that kind of one-off custom work anymore, but S30V will be fine.

You can fine tune your Rukus to fly open and still have a rock solid lockup. After 20 years of hard homestead work, my Rukus still feels brand new.
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Thanks, Twindog. I'm really looking forward to getting that Rukus in hand. I've got a lot of high-end, mid-tech knives by domestic and foreign makers, but have always had a great love for classic Benchmade designs from 710's and 705's, to AFCKs, to Strykers, and any number of others. The AXIS lock and the easy action it affords is a real favorite and I'm sure the Rukus will tune up to be a great user alongside its couple dozen BMK brethren.

And, yeah, I've got lots of different, excellent, both older and newer steels, but S30V is just fine too.
 
I guess I am not crazy for having a 3v Demko AD20 and AD20.5. I don't pry, but if I had to, it should be fine and nice to know I can.
 
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