• The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is ready to order! See this thread for details: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/bladeforums-2024-traditional-knife.2003187/
    Price is $300 $250 ea (shipped within CONUS). If you live outside the US, I will contact you after your order for extra shipping charges.
    Order here: https://www.bladeforums.com/help/2024-traditional/ - Order as many as you like, we have plenty.

  • Today marks the 24th anniversary of 9/11. I pray that this nation does not forget the loss of lives from this horrible event. Yesterday conservative commentator Charlie Kirk was murdered, and I worry about what is to come. Please love one another and your family in these trying times - Spark

"Hard Use". and "Abuse" . . . .What Is The Difference? Opinions Welcome

Status
Not open for further replies.
V

VorpelSword

Gold Member
Joined
Dec 27, 2007
Messages
1,593
These terms come up in threads from time to time. A related or tangent concept is the proper use of tools or respect for the tool.

These terms sometimes appear in connection with Warranty conditions.

What is, in your opinion, legitimate "hard use" vs unacceptably "abusive" use of a knife?
 
VorpelSword said:
These terms come up in threads from time to time. A related or tangent concept is the proper use of tools or respect for the tool.

These terms sometimes appear in connection with Warranty conditions.

What is, in your opinion, legitimate "hard use" vs unacceptably "abusive" use of a knife?
Click to expand...
Mostly meaningless posturing. There are few if any hard use parameters for knives or most other hand tools. We know how much torque your engine can generate, how much weight you tires or a rope can support, how much weight an airplane can safely load, but there is nothing like that for knives. Nor, is there a meaningful way to measure the load that we are applying by hand, there are no torque wrenches in knife use. Even if there were the performance of a knife depends largely on how it is used and maintained, the finer the edge the higher the chance that it chips or breaks. Then there is the experience factor, where someone who is comfortable with their knife can get a lifetime of productive use; while the next guy can snap off a chunk of blade trying to use it as a screwdriver or can see the knife decompose in short order from corrosion.

As with many other implements the users success depends largely on their respect for their tool. You learn how to use to optimize your needs without damaging it and continue to use it like that for best results.

N2s
 
N2s is close to a part of it.

1) If you know the limitations of your knife and you are using it to the fullest that those limitations will allow, that would seem to me "hard use". With a footnote that most of us do not use our knives to anywhere near what they're capable of doing.

2) Abuse is knowing what it is not meant to do, and doing it anyway.
 
For me at least:

Hard use = Can do its job, what it is designed to do, over and over.

Abuse = Using it for what it is not intended to.

Same thing for human, a hard worker means they are good at their job and they don't mind doing it all day long.

An abused worker means they aren't qualified to do, but is forced to, and have to work in harsh conditions that they are way out of comfort.
 
To me, hard use means steady regular use. If you are cutting fibrous materials such as rope and cardboard on your job, or having to do a lot of cutting tough plastics and such that require a lot of force to power through cuts, and using them often like on a construction site, etc. then that would be hard use in my mind. Bending, prying, batonning, striking, etc is pretty much abuse because you are using the tool for something other than what it was designed to do. Of course, the caveat to that is some knives are made to baton, etc. So your mileage may vary.
 
With some amount of gray area, these are the contextual meanings that come to mind for these terms when talking about blades, IME:

Use: slicing, saw cutting, poking materials that could almost as easily be torn; shaving or light scraping; evenly spreading semi-fluid substances onto solids

Hard use: press cutting, chopping, splitting, stabbing hard or durable materials that would be difficult to divide by hand; forceful scraping, coarse material cutting, scraping, spreading

Abuse: prying, twisting of the blade, stabbing or chopping overly hard materials, chiseling, driving fasteners, etc. any of a million tasks where most knives might manage but are not designed to be the specifically optimal tool.
 
Tough to say… Cutting food and Amazon boxes is neither. Using it as a pry bar, electrical conduit or screwdriver is abuse. In between is hard use?
 
When batoning became a "thing" to show off how tuff your knife is... I always wondered why.

Get another stick, cut the front into a wedge, start the cut with your knife, then use the stick to split the wood. If it's your only survival tool, why take the chance of breaking it, when there's better options.

The above can be done with any knife, no need for abusing it. Save it for when the bigfeets show up!

images (12).jpeg
 
Pretty simple:

Hard use: using your tool for what it is designed to do but pushing the boundaries. Think; cutting a ton of abrasive material, if you have a camp fixed blade than it can be processing lots of wood in one sitting

Abuse: using your tool for something its not designed to do. i.e. getting a hammer and driving the edge through a nail. Can some knives survive that? Sure. But don't do that and then pikachu face when the edge gets a nasty half moon chip in it.
 
Hard use is when you beat your 3V folder into a telephone pole with a rock so you can step on it to reach an apple for a picnic but you put a hunk of bark or some such between the butt of the knife and the blows from the rock .

Abuse is when you beat your 3V folder into a telephone pole with a rock so you can step on it to climb a wall to escape and leave the knife behind .
That's not very nice ; abandoning a team member like that .
 
Mk-211 said:
When batoning became a "thing" to show off how tuff your knife is... I always wondered why.

Get another stick, cut the front into a wedge, start the cut with your knife, then use the stick to split the wood. If it's your only survival tool, why take the chance of breaking it, when there's better options.

The above can be done with any knife, no need for abusing it. Save it for when the bigfeets show up!

View attachment 2921491
Click to expand...
Finally !
Some sanity and grace in the world .
Thank you !
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top