Buck 119 baton failure

kniferbro said:
Who said anything about an heirloom?

My dad has a shovel that's older than me. Certainly not an heirloom.
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It was his dad's old knife. Heirloom.

Now if you feel shovels and knives have the same value to people, maybe shovelforums.com might be a more appropriate forum for 'ya, 'bro.
 
"Family heirloom." Man people, it's just a thing. You guys act like he murdered a puppy. Lighten up. :D

As to the knife. If it was "light batoning" it shouldn't have broken. Les Stroud has carried what I think is a 119 on his show and batoned it just fine. Could be there's been some other rough use in the knife's history that weakened it.
 
I chuckle at the heirloom thing.... yeah, it's possible. But when I was growing up Dad had a number of "old knives" that he really didn't care about other than he liked them to be available when he wanted them. Heirloom status never entered the picture. Also, it's a Buck. Lighten up. It probably shouldn't have broken. It's gone. Get another.... move on.
 
Shotgun said:
"Family heirloom." Man people, it's just a thing. You guys act like he murdered a puppy. Lighten up. :D
I'm with Shotgun on this!

Send the parts to Buck, keep the old sheath,they will send you a new knife, now put in in the old sheath and voila! you got "heirloom" Ver.2
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Perfect acceptable practice imo. And like mentioned already, there is a method to doing it right.

But, Buck knives are not strong enough for hard use, despite what the fan boys think. The steel is too brittle, the tangs too thin, the grind all wrong and the handles too weak.

When used for their designed purpose though they are alright, still better options out there but not necessarily at the same price.
 
nmorris said:
To answer ocnLogan, this was indeed my first ever time attempting batoning.
Also, it was light batoning , I have no picture of the wood as I burnt it.
It was a very poor decision in hind sight, I'm new to this and tend to learn things the hard way. I immediately regretted what I had done, would have been nice to pass the knife on some day , but I will say this particular knife didn't have much sentimental value to either me or my father. I imagine he will be much less sad about this than I am . I have axes and hatchets that i usually use for this type of thing, but had just "learned" about batoning and figured I'd try it. Curiosity killed the cat this time.
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Well, the good news is that no one seems to be that bent out of shape about the loss :). And yeah, I guess you could try to talk to buck and see if they'll replace it under warranty. Otherwise, they're about $40 to replace.

The term "light" batoning can mean very different things to different people. How large in diameter was the piece you were trying? Was the wood very knotty? Again, just curious.

At risk of being flamed, I actually prefer to use a saw to cut my wood, and a knife to baton it for kindling if I need it. Myself, I find it more controllable than a hatchet/hawk/axe (safer in my mind, as you're swinging something blunt, not something sharp), and since I'm not splitting wood for a cabins winter supply, the inefficiencies don't bother me much. I generally try to baton wood that is somewhere between wrist and forearm sized and that has a pretty straight grain (I try not to hit knots). That, and I use full tang, FFG/Saber ground knives with a much wider chord ("height" of the blade, edge to spine). My current favorite for this task is my BK9 (which also fills the roll of a chopper, if I ever need to cut some wood while my folding saw isn't around), but there are plenty of knives that can baton safely (even used my Mora on some smaller stuff without incident).

Anyway, call this one a learning experience. And so at worst, $40 isn't too bad for "education" these days. Just know that if for some reason you want to try it again in the future, that it can be quite safe for both you and the blade. It just takes a bit of planning, and experience. Myself, I'm glad I learned about it, as its another skill to have in my "toolbelt".

Cheers :D.
 
Just send it back to Buck and say it was like that when you bought it new. ;)

Sorry, just a retail joke around my office. I can't count how many times someone has called with a problem years after buying something, then saying the issue (really caused by heavy usage) had been there since purchase and we should replace it.

But sorry for the breakage. I feel for you. I only have one knife from my Father, and it just keeps a special spot on a shelf in the bedroom.
 
It was a good education, much better to know the limitations of your equipment before you get in a situation where you absolutely have to depend on them.

If you can take a photo of the actual break, it might help to see what went wrong, such as revealing an inclusion that acted as a stress riser.
 
Shotgun said:
"Family heirloom." Man people, it's just a thing. You guys act like he murdered a puppy. Lighten up. :D
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Well, maybe since my old man is gone, I cherish the stuff he cherished more. Seems like the OP assigns some sentimental value to the knife or he wouldn't be upset about it.

Maybe that is me reading too much into it.

If that's the case, then he should just:

1) Buy a new knife; and
2) learn to baton it without breaking it.
 
Mine is gone too. We (the children) didn't save any of his old knives that I am aware of. In fact I never saw any when we were loading up the roll off box prior to sale of the house. I probably would have kept one or two of his knives, but I really don't move such things unless they are valuable in heirloom status. Yeah, I have some stuff that I attach value to that were his. The wicked step mother ruined the whole deal.
 
nmorris said:
It was a very poor decision in hind sight, I'm new to this and tend to learn things the hard way. I immediately regretted what I had done, would have been nice to pass the knife on some day , but I will say this particular knife didn't have much sentimental value to either me or my father.
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I stand corrected. No sentimental value. (and its not an expensive one of a kind custom or mid tech...)

Then, buy a new one. With the proper technique any blade (without a flaw) should stand up to batonning, if you insist on batonning. Keep the point lower than the handle. That's about it.
 
155440 said:
It's somewhere in between rat-tail and full tang, not quite either. Anyway, the point of failure had nothing to do with the tang? I wouldn't expect a Buck or any quality brand to just snap down the middle like that, especially if the poster is honest and was just doing light batoning. I would like to think it's an issue with that specific knife and not the design. I would think Buck would replace this for you under their lifetime warranty as this is most likely a lemon that was simply exposed through abuse. It's at least worth a call or email.
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Pretty sure that batoning with a 119 would be considered abuse, as it's not intended to be used for that purpose. Abuse = not covered under warranty.
 
Not to add fuel to a smoldering fire, but I also snapped a 119 off at the tang while batoning (which I have done for decades with much thinner blades). The knife was an older model... maybe 30 years, and had only been lightly used at the time. I chalked it up to the heat treat as I have used thinner 420, hollow ground blades for harder use. Maybe the older blades are more brittle. The grind on mine is interesting as it was hollow ground with a convex edge (the metal was thicker at the edge and then convexed)
 
Want your knife to stop breaking? then stop batoning.

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Samon said:
But, Buck knives are not strong enough for hard use, despite what the fan boys think. The steel is too brittle, the tangs too thin, the grind all wrong and the handles too weak.
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Oh really?

[video=youtube;lfQ02Cejf_0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfQ02Cejf_0[/video]

[video=youtube;DelZEqBUORs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DelZEqBUORs[/video]
 
mrszeontestpilot said:
Pretty sure that batoning with a 119 would be considered abuse, as it's not intended to be used for that purpose. Abuse = not covered under warranty.
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My point was that it didn't break from said abuse. No knife should just snap like that one did from a couple stick whacks. IMO it broke due do a flaw from the factory whether that be heat treat or something else. Because of that, Buck should be obligated to replace his knife, regardless of what caused it to eventually break.
 
While I agree it's kind of sad to see a knife with a history get destroyed for what seems like not a very good reason, I use to use a Buk Vanguard for dressing deer. My hunting partner used a 119. Both of our knives ended up with tips broken, probably from hitting bone.
Another friend managed to break off the tip of his Buckmaster 184 throwing it at a tree. This would be in around 1988 or thereabouts. I remeber there was talk about Buck blade failure tied to poor heat treat going around back then. I do wonder if that is connected with this blade breakage.
 
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