Broke my GOV-TAC

Apocaly

Apocaly

Joined
Aug 28, 2008
Messages
96
I just bought new gov-tac a couple weeks ago. The knife fell off my workbench at home (about 4 feet) onto a concrete floor and the pommel broke completely off. I was shocked at the fact that it broke that easily but was more shocked on how thin the tang is at the pommel.
 
The thickness of the tang is not a problem.
With sticktang knives it is allways thin at the end.
The strength does not come from the tang alone but is in combination with the rest of the handle.
It forms a sort of wraparound composite construction.
Just take a look at medieval swords, same construction and very strong.
In a more oldfashioned way of using a sticktang, the end of the tang is rivited, so it has to be a lot softer.

That seems to be the real problem here, the hardness of the tang, not its size.
The build quality of the knife shown looks very good to me so I think it is a real SOG.
 
Did you buy it first hand from a "real" store? I hope its fake.
TC
Not for your sake but SOG's
 
tomcrx said:
Yours looks like one made in Japan. Is it?
Click to expand...

Yeah, but it belongs to another member of the forum.

Something about the broken one that doesn't look right for some reason. I must be looking at upside down or something.:)
 
That does not look right to me either. Can you send it in for us to look at. Please send it to my attention at the address below and I'll see what I can do for you. Please include a note too as I may forget why you are sending me the knife.

Chris Cashbaugh
SOG Knives
6521 212th St SW
Lynnwood WA 98036
 
There is such a thing as "resonance" which can cause even the strongest materials to break when they hit certain materials at the right angle, speed, and temperature. I've seen case-hardened knives shatter when dropped from arm's length-heighth. On the other hand- i've seen crap knives survive falling a xcouple thousand feet from an aircraft and hitting concrete.

Basically, resonance is an acoustical response that creates sounds waves trhat can be intense enough to shatter steel and stone. The sound waves can create vibrations that literally shake the atoms loose in an object, changing it's chemical structure. Or, it coulda just been a bad batch of tempering. Or a fake.

Certainly, the "steel" inside that pommel-threading looks strangely like plastic....

I'm very curious to see what Chris@SOG says when/if he gets it.
 
Twodogknight said:
Certainly, the "steel" inside that pommel-threading looks strangely like plastic....
Click to expand...

IMO That "plastic" look is actually the crystalline structure of a steel that was over hardened. Perhaps a bad heat treat + harmonic resonance = shattered tang. A lot of times when steel is too hard (and brittle) the end grain will look like a gray sand. These things happen, I'm sure the guys @ SOG will gladly oblige.
 
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