Do you have a knife you keep to seriously abuse?

A few Brown Mule Sodbusters, an SAK Farmer, a v1.0 CS AK47, a Blackjack Anaconda III, a Kershaw Lahar, various Opinels...all on the same project.
 
I have a Buck Nighthawk that I keep in my truck. Funny thing is I don't even consider it part of my knife collection yet it gets used easily as much as any other I own. I guess I would call it my "Go to war" knife(If you can call landscaping war). I have pried, baton, thumped and even stoked the fire with it. It looks beat up but it still is in perfect working order. As a bit of a snob I have to give credit where due. It has served me well and shows no sign of giving up.
 
I can't really call it abuse nor can I say that I keep it to abuse it, but I reserve the tougher jobs for my CS SRK and Spyderco Tenacious. I use them regularly for yard work and household maintenance. I try not to abuse my knives, i.e. only use them for cutting tasks, but I do put them through some hard use.
 
I have respect for my knives, or for knives in general, so can not bring myself to abusing any knife - even a crappy one. So I can not actually recall doing it ever. Probably I just was lucky and have never got into a situation when I did not have a choice.
As for the hard use - I have got a few knives. One of my Moras, Endura 4 with VG-10, Griptilian, Buck Vantage - that is probably the top of the list.
 
XM-18 3.5". Been EDCing and doing some hard work with it. It's the only folding knife I use hard other than fixed, such as one my Izulas, a Junglas and an old machete that flat out get wailed on. :thumbup: :D
 
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I use two of my Busse blades kind of hard, game warden and a sjtac. They are not so nice and pretty anymore.
 
My old Friedrich Herder, an Opinel #8 en an EKA Swede 60 are my beater knives when it comes to single blade folding knives. I mainly use them for jobs around the house or when I need to help my father on his farm. Other than that, I use the SAK in my pocket for everything in daily life that requires support of a SAK. It's not really abusing, but just using knives for what they were made for, I think.
 
i tend to keep a mora clipper 860 around for those times when i know i might need to do something i'd rather not do to a blade i really like.


like lending it to someone.
 
First knife I ever bought; Ka-Bar USMC. It's been through hell and back. The blade on it is bent both forwards and to the side at the tang. It looks completely f***ed. The coating is mostly gone and the edge has some weird damage that I don't fully understand. It still presses on through all my neglect and abuse.

Now it lives in my trunk and comes out whenever I'm in an unexpected camping situation. Which is almost on a weekly basis. Let's have a camp fire at the ranch? Sure, just let me go to my trunk for a second...

Soon to be replaced by my BK-7. I can't seem to find a specific use for knives in the 7" range so I guess I just put them in the "smash it around, who cares if it dies; you don't need it for anything anyways" category. I end up having all the fun with those knives...
 
My old Buck 186.

I keep it razor sharp, and it's always right there on the table as I walk into my house, ready to cut cardboard boxes, price tags, plastic wrapping, etc. :D It's held up really well, but it's a cheap knife and thus I don't mind beating it up. That said, I don't abuse *any* knives, cheap or otherwise. I've got a prybar to pry, a hammer to hammer, a staple puller to pull staples, etc.
 
Right now I use a Persistence as a work beater. The Persistence is used for things like cutting and shaving drywall, breaking down (gritty) cardboard, stripping wire, de-burring, and other knife-damaging tasks. I have proper tools for most jobs, but in a pinch, the Persistence is ready to get scarred, scratched and chipped before any of my other knives will.
 
Moved into a new place and just found this guy in a corner. I've read that Outdoor Edge builds a decent Chinese-made knife for the price(free!), and it's AUS8. Seems to be fairly solid and perfect for a beater knife.

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Also have had a Buck Nighthawk for the past decade. Awesome knife, has stood up to anything.
 
I use my Kabar USMC for all the hard core, dirty jobs around the house, in the garden, at the beach and in the woods. I've batoned 5" logs into kindling, scraped dried flaking paint from the barn before repainting, pried up nails and then hammered in new ones, dug garden holes, sliced up an old steel belted tire, cut wire, and even hammered it into a tree to use as an emergency step. During the last big snow storm we had here in New Jersey I even used it o help carve out the kids' snow fort, then chipped away the ice from my van's tires that had frozen solid to the ground over night. I've dulled it to butter knife sharp so many times I've lost count. Break out the daimond hones for few minutes then back to business. Probably the reason the geniune Kabar is the most commonly carried belt knife by survival practiciners in the world.
 
I have verbally abused almost every material object imaginable, especially cars, ie. working in a body shop.
I have abused a few knives, they aren't with me anymore, broken only two knives in half, throwing one, prying another. One of those was a very cheap kitchen knife, the other an Ontario RD-4, I knew I shouldn't have thrown it, but felt like I needed to at the time.

I have my hard use knives, but to me abuse= chips or breaking, so I go get the right tool. In an emergency, use whatever to save life.
 
Oh yes, I do have a few. And when you continue to use them and beat them up, you eventually discover how much you like them :)
I have an old custom Wally Hayes one off he made for me to abuse instead of a custom camp knife he wanted me to treat nicely.
I have an old Cold Steel Carbon V Trailmaster that didn't fare very well on a trip to the Arctic whose terrible kraton handle I rewrapped.
For folders, I have an old Lightfoot Predator backup that absolutely refuses to die, although it has seen better days.
Those are the best of my beaters.
I think I like them now even more than when they were in pristine condition.
 
The need to heat a knife up with a torch actually comes up, in my shop. For this I have a $9 Pakistani Tanto that was actually my carry piece 16 years ago.
 
I have an old Outdoor Edge Wedge that lives on the work bench and does yeoman work. I've beat the hell out of it. Broke the molded on zytel handle scales off, so I dipped the handle in plasti dip. It cuts just about everything. Being 420J2 stainless, it doesn't hold an edge that well, but it touchs up very quickly on my Work Sharp and it's been tough as nails. I can't complain about it at all.
 
cziv said:
XM-18 3.5". Been EDCing and doing some hard work with it. It's the only folding knife I use hard other than fixed, such as one my Izulas, a Junglas and an old machete that flat out get wailed on. :thumbup: :D
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This thread has made me rethink my priorities. I had my CS Recon-1 out last night, preparing to sell it and I though "why beat on your XM-18 when you have this lovely beater right in your hands?"

After a thorough inpspection of my XM-18 - it was found to be flawless (other than it's been sharpened) and w/o a mark, scratch or blemish of any kind on it. It's going back on my "cool knives to carry" list along with my XM-24 and a couple of Sebenzas. I'll get more use out of it than beating on it and bringing about a possible early demise, due to beating the crap out of it. At least I can say "I did." (at one time :))

Thanks to the OP for this moment of clarity. :thumbup: ;) :D
 
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