Folder locks and science

[Shorttime]

Yeah, I've watched Cold Steel's videos.

I've never watched Noss's, or any of the other "torture test" videos where people break perfectly good knives for no apparent reason.

Without breaking a knife, is there any way to evaluate how much force a locking mechanism will take, based on steel type, heat treat, lock thickness, surface area of bearing surfaces, etc and so on and so forth?

I don't mean just liner locks, either.

 

[yablanowitz]

Short answer, no.

Spyderco breaks knives all the time to determine amount of force required and failure point. They engineer their locks to fail in a particular manner at a particular load, but breaking them is the way they determine if they have acheived their goal.

 

[Goosey]

That reminds me, what happened to Noss and his videos anyways?

 

[Bill1170]

No. Theory is useful when designing but there is no substitute for breaking knives in a controlled fashion to really know how they hold up. This is why Spyderco has a knife breaking machine they use to evaluate folders.

 

[G. Scott H.]

That reminds me, what happened to Noss and his videos anyways?

He "retired" from destruction testing due to personal issues. He's still around, just lower profile these days. Testing site is gone but forum is still up. :thumbup:

 

[gregorio]

I would agree; engineering tests need to result in failure to properly quantify the cliff of the design point. You need to know how much process margin you have such that if things drift a little you still are making a product robust enough to withstand normal use.

 

[yablanowitz]

I probably should have said breaking knives in a controlled, measureable and repeatable manner, is an essential part of the design process. Just beating on a knife with a hammer is none of those things.