Broke my BK2

stvpourciau said:
Mine is solid ;)

And you guys are nuts , skelonizing a knife does not make it weak, having a stick tang does not make it weak. It's about how the tang is transitioned that makes it strong. How it Carries stress throughout the knife. When it hit it and it vibrates, how that vibration is distributed.

Yours just had a problem, maybe because that's an area of the blade that had been cut on it had a little micro crack or something that when hardened spread further; idk? Just an uneducated guess
Click to expand...

Everything about this post is dead on accurate. Cut outs don't make a knife weaker if they are done correctly, by this there should be no sharp transitions. Squared off transitions lead to breaks. Rounded off, smooth, and slow transitions are almost as strong as a solid tang. They will by design be slightly weaker but they are strong enough to not see a difference in over all durability.

My BK16 has sharp transitions which is why I wont be batoning much with this knife any longer. After the recent BK16 bend thread I ripped mine apart and did a really good inspection of the knife. The design of the knife is flawless the execution of the design does leave something to be desired imo. If I want to baton some hard nasty wood I will grab one of my ESEEs or Swamp Rats. If I want a knife I can do detailed wood working for long periods of time I will grab my 16 because the handle is just that comfortable.
 
so, here's my opinion. i've made the same point a few times :)

OP says he was holding the knife, and batoning on the spine, 2 inches from the tip. in theory, that's the correct batoning position.

though in actual practice, the knife can get twists, or off balance, or buried too deep, or ... i just prefer an axe for that.

the breakage area is classic for what i'd like to think of as a stress induced fracture. all that energy has to go somewhere, and oddly enough, my thinking is that holding the knife the wrong way (too tightly?) is possibly a culprit. a LOT knives tend to break between where they are held, and where they are bound in the wood. not where they are hit.

also, the biggest culprit: hammering an edge tool through a knot. cedar isn't particularly tough wood, but it can get really stringy and take some effort if you don't have clean "shingle grade", eh? but the worst part: a lot of evergreens, cedars and such in particular, can have rock/metal hard knots - the lignin can bind with silica nicely, those things don't split well, and can deflect a relatively thin blade, usually what we see are semi-circular divots popped out of blades like someone was making a flint knife. i've bent an axe head this way once.

the lesson i learned was: do not ever chop on knots in trees with a tool that can't take it, esp evergreens/cedars.

there can also be sand/rocks in the trees, even old nails? i've seen a few knives pop from that.

well, i'm going to put on my boots, and go split a ton of logs. build up that wood pile. my current favorite tools are a selection of Fiskars Splitting Axes (in three sizes), and a "Helko Tomahawk" i found recently - it's a modern made german splitting axe. weird.

hey, wanna see weird? look this up: "eccentric axe". that's weird. purpose built though.
 
a ceder knot is a tough cookie i've broken an axe when I hit one as a youth lucky for me the head stuck in the knot the handle broke a few inches up the shaft from the head of the axe the vibration stung my hands really good!
 
i've had an axe throw sparks off knots in cedars. thought that was weird/cool. then i chipped an edge. fixed it. years later i bent an axe. mostly managed to fix that, but it's still a "bit off". might work it more someday, but for now, it's good enough.
 
Bladite said:
i've had an axe throw sparks off knots in cedars. thought that was weird/cool. then i chipped an edge. fixed it. years later i bent an axe. mostly managed to fix that, but it's still a "bit off". might work it more someday, but for now, it's good enough.
Click to expand...

Sparks off of cedar? That's pretty wild, and very cool.
 
Bladite said:
i've had an axe throw sparks off knots in cedars. thought that was weird/cool. then i chipped an edge. fixed it. years later i bent an axe. mostly managed to fix that, but it's still a "bit off". might work it more someday, but for now, it's good enough.
Click to expand...

A lot of of trees have nails and wire in them. For this reason a lot of mills will not make lumber that comes off of unknown property. I wonder if this is what happened in this case?
 
Greebe said:
A lot of of trees have nails and wire in them. For this reason a lot of mills will not make lumber that comes off of unknown property. I wonder if this is what happened in this case?
Click to expand...
I doubt it, the 2 eats nails for breakfast. Unless you're talking about a railroad spike but I'm pretty sure if the tree had a railroad spike in it, the OP would have noticed that before the knife broke.
 
stvpourciau said:
Mine is solid ;)

And you guys are nuts , skelonizing a knife does not make it weak, having a stick tang does not make it weak. It's about how the tang is transitioned that makes it strong. How it Carries stress throughout the knife. When it hit it and it vibrates, how that vibration is distributed.

Yours just had a problem, maybe because that's an area of the blade that had been cut on it had a little micro crack or something that when hardened spread further; idk? Just an uneducated guess
Click to expand...

Yes. A stress riser, or moment of inertia can develop from very small origins. There are two separate breaks, but after the first, the second break was inevitable. Nothing is impervious to breakage.
 
I'm glad I saw this thread. I've been using my BK2 for roots, and lifting with side pressure and such while metal detecting. Nothing but bends and twists in a hole. I'll need to quit this. I bought the knife for this purpose and now I see I made a poor choice in knives. (Please people, I said 'I' made a poor choice; not denigrating the knife at all). It is reviewed as a beast. Well then it's a beast with a weak spot. A skeletal tang is as strong a a full tang????? Never let empirical evedence get in the way of a good theory! Any suggestions for a replacement for my purposes?
 
Le Fermier said:
I'm glad I saw this thread. I've been using my BK2 for roots, and lifting with side pressure and such while metal detecting. Nothing but bends and twists in a hole. I'll need to quit this. I bought the knife for this purpose and now I see I made a poor choice in knives. (Please people, I said 'I' made a poor choice; not denigrating the knife at all). It is reviewed as a beast. Well then it's a beast with a weak spot. A skeletal tang is as strong a a full tang????? Never let empirical evedence get in the way of a good theory! Any suggestions for a replacement for my purposes?
Click to expand...

Think about how much more force is created from a sudden impact like a baton strike rather than prying. Not the same thing.
 
Le Fermier said:
I'm glad I saw this thread. I've been using my BK2 for roots, and lifting with side pressure and such while metal detecting. Nothing but bends and twists in a hole. I'll need to quit this. I bought the knife for this purpose and now I see I made a poor choice in knives. (Please people, I said 'I' made a poor choice; not denigrating the knife at all). It is reviewed as a beast. Well then it's a beast with a weak spot. A skeletal tang is as strong a a full tang????? Never let empirical evedence get in the way of a good theory! Any suggestions for a replacement for my purposes?
Click to expand...

BK3 is a great dirt knife, longer too
 
Hey Fritz......

First off....You get a new knife.......

What follows, as I do not have the knife in hand, is speculation not science........ It appears to me that the break occurred at the transition zone between the hardened area of the blade and the softer handle area.....Sooooooo, I speculate that there was a problem with the heat treat........ We sell many thousands of Twos every year and we get maybe one or two back......

The only way to find flaws in metal other than visually checking for surface flaws that might be crack propagators is XRay and or magnafluxing..........This is prohibitively expensive.......

When I manufactured mountain climbing equipment finding potentially life threatening flaws was a bit of an obsession with me as I climbed on the equipment I sold......... I came up with a rule of thumb for perfection in manufacturing......90% of perfection costs very little more than 50% of perfection......past the 90% mark the cost curve starts an exponential climb until the last percent and even Uncle Sugar can not afford the last half percent ........Assuming a low 5,000 number per year and a bad showing of two per year not perfect gives us a .004 error rate....... Not as good as I would like but..........

Fritz.......

May I prevail upon you to give me a call at 423 295 2500....... I will be in this evening and tomorrow evening.....I want to make sure that all goes smoothly........ Thanks........

Ethan
 
Ethan Becker said:
Hey Fritz......

First off....You get a new knife.......

What follows, as I do not have the knife in hand, is speculation not science........ It appears to me that the break occurred at the transition zone between the hardened area of the blade and the softer handle area.....Sooooooo, I speculate that there was a problem with the heat treat........ We sell many thousands of Twos every year and we get maybe one or two back......

The only way to find flaws in metal other than visually checking for surface flaws that might be crack propagators is XRay and or magnafluxing..........This is prohibitively expensive.......

When I manufactured mountain climbing equipment finding potentially life threatening flaws was a bit of an obsession with me as I climbed on the equipment I sold......... I came up with a rule of thumb for perfection in manufacturing......90% of perfection costs very little more than 50% of perfection......past the 90% mark the cost curve starts an exponential climb until the last percent and even Uncle Sugar can not afford the last half percent ........Assuming a low 5,000 number per year and a bad showing of two per year not perfect gives us a .004 error rate....... Not as good as I would like but..........

Fritz.......

May I prevail upon you to give me a call at 423 295 2500....... I will be in this evening and tomorrow evening.....I want to make sure that all goes smoothly........ Thanks........

Ethan
Click to expand...

This is why I am obsessed with Becker knives.

Jeremy
 
Bladite. Thankyou for the direction. The BK3 looks like an interesting experiment. I just ordered it so I'll have it for the season. Fielder, the esee looks like a good 2nd choice. I'll probably order one later. Probably a good rooter. I usually hunt around older homesteads. Overgrown and such and it's tough on equipment and you can forget shovels.
 
Le Fermier said:
Bladite. Thankyou for the direction. The BK3 looks like an interesting experiment. I just ordered it so I'll have it for the season. Fielder, the esee looks like a good 2nd choice. I'll probably order one later. Probably a good rooter. I usually hunt around older homesteads. Overgrown and such and it's tough on equipment and you can forget shovels.
Click to expand...

i do some metal detective work (minelabs!) and what i crave more often than not is "digging stick", though, a metal one. there's a type of pry bar that's about 1.5 inches wide, maybe 1/4 inch thick and somewhere around 2.5 feet long? you can hammer that into the ground, and then PRY the dirt out. sometimes, if you do it right, you can get just behind your target, and it pops right up. no digging. then stomp the dirt back, nobody the wiser.

oh, big hint: if you find a mason jar of gold coins, don't tell nobody. this local guy did, and it got squashed on the forum he's on fast enough, but imagine that then everyone who ever owned that land, or thinks they have a claim, including "uncle sugar", is going to come for their "fair share" (which usually means all of it ;>)

good luck
 
Ethan Becker said:
Hey Fritz......

First off....You get a new knife.......

What follows, as I do not have the knife in hand, is speculation not science........ It appears to me that the break occurred at the transition zone between the hardened area of the blade and the softer handle area.....Sooooooo, I speculate that there was a problem with the heat treat........ We sell many thousands of Twos every year and we get maybe one or two back......

The only way to find flaws in metal other than visually checking for surface flaws that might be crack propagators is XRay and or magnafluxing..........This is prohibitively expensive.......

When I manufactured mountain climbing equipment finding potentially life threatening flaws was a bit of an obsession with me as I climbed on the equipment I sold......... I came up with a rule of thumb for perfection in manufacturing......90% of perfection costs very little more than 50% of perfection......past the 90% mark the cost curve starts an exponential climb until the last percent and even Uncle Sugar can not afford the last half percent ........Assuming a low 5,000 number per year and a bad showing of two per year not perfect gives us a .004 error rate....... Not as good as I would like but..........

Fritz.......

May I prevail upon you to give me a call at 423 295 2500....... I will be in this evening and tomorrow evening.....I want to make sure that all goes smoothly........ Thanks........

Ethan
Click to expand...

now theres a good point and a new knife see why so many love becker knives!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top