- Joined
- Feb 24, 2011
- Messages
- 1,340
Hey everyone!
First off let me say I have already emailed Renee at Scrapyard about this, and am posting only because I think you guys might take interest in my story. I'm not worried about the warranty issue and am not posting this with any negativity.
Second, it's nice to be posting a thread here - since moving south of the border last October, my internet time has been slim to none, and I haven't spent nearly enough time on bladeforums since then and definitely not enough time here with all my fellow infi addicts
I miss you guys!
Well, it happened - I have directly experienced (almost mythical) bussekin breakage:
I was working on a community garden project with some friends, chopping bamboo and tree limbs to use as fenceposts and as usual, the 1311 was performing like a champion. As we were wrapping up work, I decided to swing into a fallen coconut and ended up getting the 1311 jammed deep into the coconut - being fatigued, hot, and a little lazy at that point, I thought I could just swing the coconut into the ground in hopes of shaking it loose off the 1311 and upon impact with the ground, the blade snapped in two! Looking at some edge damage on the blade, it looks like I may have it the ground with the sweet spot of the blade, rather than the coconut but even with that mistake, I can't imagine that being enough of a force to shear the knife into two pieces.
While I like to think my brute strength was too much even for mighty SR-101, I have a feeling that this failure might be heat related, as the blade was ridiculously hot when i went to pick up the piece that broke off - shortly before this incident I had placed the 1311 on my truck. It was a real hot, intense sunny day and it seems like between the black coating on the knife, the sun's heat, and my truck's black paint job, I may have let the knife warm up to the point of compromising the heat treat...that's my guess at least. I didn't think it could be possible to generate such high temperatures in such a scenario (which is why I didn't question setting the knife down on my truck, but I can't imagine how else such a beefy blade made of sr-101 could just snap like that.
What are your theories?
I will borrow a friends camera and post up some better pics in the next couple of days but in the meanwhile here's what I shot with my phone:
the 1311 was sitting on top of my toyota kinda like this for what couldn't have been more than 15-20 minutes before the accident happened:
do you think sitting on a black hood under the hot sun could generate enough heat to compromise the heat treatment?
I love this knife - it had been serving me very well up until the point of failure. It has helped start and maintain countless all night fires on the beach, it has helped clear gardens and overgrown bamboo patches, it has opened up lots of coconuts for me and friends, it has even helped with fire duties at a Huichol ceremony where tribe members and the shaman were beyond impressed with how well it would hack through the local hardwood...since picking it up and bringing back down to Mexico with me around Thanksgiving time, it has left my house and has been in my pack with me almost every single day! And now less than 48 hours after breakage, I find myself feeling very uncomfortably naked without its companionship!
So now I'm down to my Pork Shank (at least until I get my 1311 situation figured out) and am grateful to at least have this piece of INFI to depend on.
Mexico has been amazing. I'm learning lots, healing even more, and find myself getting to use at least one of my blades multiple times a day....the place is beautiful, the community in this magickal little town continues to blow my mind - as much as I miss certain elements of life back home and the luxury of blazing-fast-internet available all the time, I know this time in Mexico has been real good for me. There is now wifi at the house that I work at so I'm hoping to be able to check in with you guys more regularly and rejoin this group (and maybe time for some new INFI too!)...
I'm cutting this off before I really start to ramble - I look forward to hearing your thoughts and theories about this 1311 breakage and will get some better pics up ASAP!
Good vibes to you all from Mexican sub-tropical paradise
habib
First off let me say I have already emailed Renee at Scrapyard about this, and am posting only because I think you guys might take interest in my story. I'm not worried about the warranty issue and am not posting this with any negativity.
Second, it's nice to be posting a thread here - since moving south of the border last October, my internet time has been slim to none, and I haven't spent nearly enough time on bladeforums since then and definitely not enough time here with all my fellow infi addicts
I miss you guys! Well, it happened - I have directly experienced (almost mythical) bussekin breakage:
I was working on a community garden project with some friends, chopping bamboo and tree limbs to use as fenceposts and as usual, the 1311 was performing like a champion. As we were wrapping up work, I decided to swing into a fallen coconut and ended up getting the 1311 jammed deep into the coconut - being fatigued, hot, and a little lazy at that point, I thought I could just swing the coconut into the ground in hopes of shaking it loose off the 1311 and upon impact with the ground, the blade snapped in two! Looking at some edge damage on the blade, it looks like I may have it the ground with the sweet spot of the blade, rather than the coconut but even with that mistake, I can't imagine that being enough of a force to shear the knife into two pieces.
While I like to think my brute strength was too much even for mighty SR-101, I have a feeling that this failure might be heat related, as the blade was ridiculously hot when i went to pick up the piece that broke off - shortly before this incident I had placed the 1311 on my truck. It was a real hot, intense sunny day and it seems like between the black coating on the knife, the sun's heat, and my truck's black paint job, I may have let the knife warm up to the point of compromising the heat treat...that's my guess at least. I didn't think it could be possible to generate such high temperatures in such a scenario (which is why I didn't question setting the knife down on my truck, but I can't imagine how else such a beefy blade made of sr-101 could just snap like that.
What are your theories?
I will borrow a friends camera and post up some better pics in the next couple of days but in the meanwhile here's what I shot with my phone:
the 1311 was sitting on top of my toyota kinda like this for what couldn't have been more than 15-20 minutes before the accident happened:
do you think sitting on a black hood under the hot sun could generate enough heat to compromise the heat treatment?
I love this knife - it had been serving me very well up until the point of failure. It has helped start and maintain countless all night fires on the beach, it has helped clear gardens and overgrown bamboo patches, it has opened up lots of coconuts for me and friends, it has even helped with fire duties at a Huichol ceremony where tribe members and the shaman were beyond impressed with how well it would hack through the local hardwood...since picking it up and bringing back down to Mexico with me around Thanksgiving time, it has left my house and has been in my pack with me almost every single day! And now less than 48 hours after breakage, I find myself feeling very uncomfortably naked without its companionship!
So now I'm down to my Pork Shank (at least until I get my 1311 situation figured out) and am grateful to at least have this piece of INFI to depend on.
Mexico has been amazing. I'm learning lots, healing even more, and find myself getting to use at least one of my blades multiple times a day....the place is beautiful, the community in this magickal little town continues to blow my mind - as much as I miss certain elements of life back home and the luxury of blazing-fast-internet available all the time, I know this time in Mexico has been real good for me. There is now wifi at the house that I work at so I'm hoping to be able to check in with you guys more regularly and rejoin this group (and maybe time for some new INFI too!)...
I'm cutting this off before I really start to ramble - I look forward to hearing your thoughts and theories about this 1311 breakage and will get some better pics up ASAP!
Good vibes to you all from Mexican sub-tropical paradise
habib
Sorry to hear about that, but I'm sure that Dan will make it right. :thumbup:
