Carothers Performance Knives, Use & Abuse

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Nathan the Machinist said:
Poor little BFK was fighting for its life though. Somebody should buy this fellow some Kevlar sleeves and neck protection. Some of those slips were pretty sketchy.
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When I said previously that he truly commits, he really does. I worry every time he gets ready to try to leverage- break blades.

I can only imagine how well the SDFK would do, and how much more chaotic Friday sales are going to get!
 
I should send him some Kevlar sleeves

Yeah, if somebody were to send him an SDFK, I think he might be surprised what one of our indestructible knives can do.

Hell, I should send him a fireman's tool, he'll have a religious experience.
 
Nathan the Machinist said:
Man, you guys had me worried that it was going to be a shit show. I thought that was a very valid test and demonstration.

Like I have said before, the toughness of 3V is pretty much baked in, as long as the maker doesn't screw it up, 3V is going to be difficult to break. Improved edge retention through superior edge stability is the primary purpose of my particular heat treat and is what sets us apart. I think it was on full display here in this fella's test. I like it.

I have sensed there's not a lot of love for this guy here on Bladeforums, for whatever reason. I don't know the background, but from what I've seen, this guy's all right by me. My work got a fair shake and performed in his hands the same as it would have performed in my own.
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He's toned down some of his commentary. He used to make pretty inflammatory statements comparing knives to each other when the "testing" wasn't consistent or unbiased.

Regardless of that, the slightly toned down versions of his videos are better in my opinion.

I think the BFK did great. I know I'd never break that knife unintentionally. The edge held up really well.
 
kod said:
Not enough detail to see up close, but it looks like it broke in the area that has the older style square font signature. I certainly wouldn't send him a new revision BFK or FK3, but it'd be interesting to see the difference.
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I think it was just a freak break

Maybe the bending or spine damage, honestly I'm still impressed on the edge holding up

He seemed to be impressed by it , and I know I'll never hang my fat ass off a cliff using it as leverage similar to some of his tests lol
 
I did move the block lettering of the Basic knives from the blade and onto the tang to remove an unnecessary potential stress riser. I'm glad it did not break across one of the straight sections of the signature such as the T or the H because that would have indicated a break due to a design flaw. That would have been bad.

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To me that's a pretty good break. That's where the break should have occurred and what it should have looked like.

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The edge had taken significant damage in one of the earlier cuts creating compromised area with a stress riser which is where it broke. That's about right.

After reviewing his destructive test, I see nothing that I wish I would have done differently on this knife. His destructive tests closely parallels my own.

Could I have made it more difficult to break? Obviously. But that's not the point of the knife. It withstood everything I wanted it to and then some, with a large margin, and it cuts well and holds an edge well. Those were my goals and I have achieved them. I honestly believe we are the best in the world at what we're doing and I'm glad this knife received some scrutiny. An opportunity to shine.
 
Nathan the Machinist said:
I did move the block lettering of the Basic knives from the blade and onto the tang to remove an unnecessary potential stress riser. I'm glad it did not break across one of the straight sections of the signature such as the T or the H because that would have indicated a break due to a design flaw. That would have been bad.

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To me that's a pretty good break. That's where the break should have occurred and what it should have looked like.

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The edge had taken significant damage in one of the earlier cuts creating compromised area with a stress riser which is where it broke. That's about right.

After reviewing his destructive test, I see nothing that I wish I would have done differently on this knife. His destructive tests closely parallels my own.

Could I have made it more difficult to break? Obviously. But that's not the point of the knife. It withstood everything I wanted it to and then some, with a large margin, and it cuts well and holds an edge well. Those were my goals and I have achieved them. I honestly believe we are the best in the world at what we're doing and I'm glad this knife received some scrutiny. An opportunity to shine.
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Well....my photo, edited on my phone, is just a useless maggot riddled turd....just say it Nathan!
 
Nathan the Machinist said:
I should send him some Kevlar sleeves

Yeah, if somebody were to send him an SDFK, I think he might be surprised what one of our indestructible knives can do.

Hell, I should send him a fireman's tool, he'll have a religious experience.
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I think he is really starting to like 3V, as the steel seems to have a good balance between toughness and edge retention. I knew after he put up a poll on creating a prototype knife, listing 4 knife steels and including 3V, but before the vid aired, that there were some good things that happened in the test. If you really do want to send him some other stuff, his email can be on his youtube page to get in contact w/ him.
 
I hope you guys liked the video. I'm glad I sent it to him. It was fun and pretty informative for me, since I carry the knife on jobs. I'll keep carrying it, I like it. I would also be interested in any future CPK knives that are even more durable, since what I do sort of demands a lot of toughness from a knife.

Because CPK falls into the 'hard use' knife niche, it would be good to see more knives get tested.

In watching some of the other videos of knives that survived the test, a few come to mind:

1. Creely Folklore Beast
2. Work Tuff Gear Ares
3. Messerfieber Survival Bushcraft Cavusch
4. Mora Pro Robust and Hultafors GK

Each one had some reasons to survive the test. The obtuse-angled tips are tougher, because they tend to work themselves out of stumps at the point that a pointer blade would just snap. The Folklore Beast was a massively thick 1/4" slab of 8670, which is about as tough as you can get. The Ares had a really unusual (tracker?) shape that seemed to help it a lot.

The Bushcraft Cavusch and Mora/Hultafors were stubbier blades that didn't have as much inertia. The scand grind puts more meat into the blade. I don't know if any of them have the edge retention of the 3V, although the Bushcraft Cavusch was surprising to me, because it fully survived, fully intact, and I think it is made of N690? It has a stubbier blade with a more blunt tip angle, but I was really impressed by that one.

One kind of odd thing I've observed is that strong transitions on the spines of some of these knives have tended to help, not hurt them. The Ares, the Cavusch, each had a non-flat spine and I'm wondering how or if that could have mitigated impact on the spine to disperse stress. Just a thought.

I hope we see future CPK blades in his tests! Cheers guys!
 
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Just wondering Nathan, what is the disadvantage of putting more meat behind/around the tip to help its toughness?

Many of your models are relatively thin at the tip and while I dont think i'll ever break one unless I tried, I do wonder if the added strength would be worth the slight loss in sliceyness
 
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