Have you ever actually broken a knife in use?

Boattale

Boattale

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Nov 27, 2019
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I'll be 70 next month and have been a knife carrier and user since I was a Cub Scout. Used knives outdoors camping, hunting and fishing. Used them at work - occasionally hard use. I have never broken a knife or witnessed anyone else break one. I do carry quality - Case, Buck, KaBar, Schrade USA made, Benchmade and CRK. Most of my friends also carry quality so factor that in.

Has to be a rare thing eh?
 
I’ve broken 2 blades while prying/twisting that were completely my fault.
One tip snapped off when an open knife fell on a ceramic tile floor.
3 liner lock failures under what I consider normal use.

They were Buck, CRKT, and Spyderco.
 
Boattale said:
I'll be 70 next month and have been a knife carrier and user since I was a Cub Scout. Used knives outdoors camping, hunting and fishing. Used them at work - occasionally hard use. I have never broken a knife or witnessed anyone else break one. I do carry quality - Case, Buck, KaBar, Schrade USA made, Benchmade and CRK. Most of my friends also carry quality so factor that in.

Has to be a rare thing eh?
Click to expand...
I’ve broken plenty of knives throwing them, fixed and folding. Broke a couple actual throwing knives. Also broke a Buck Redpoint using it to pry a branch that clogged up a chainsaw, no big surprise there. Bent cheap machetes, again no surprise. Had liner locks fail, if you consider that broken. I do.
 
Boattale said:
I'll be 70 next month and have been a knife carrier and user since I was a Cub Scout. Used knives outdoors camping, hunting and fishing. Used them at work - occasionally hard use. I have never broken a knife or witnessed anyone else break one. I do carry quality - Case, Buck, KaBar, Schrade USA made, Benchmade and CRK. Most of my friends also carry quality so factor that in.

Has to be a rare thing eh?
Click to expand...
Twice, broke a western L66 back in the 80’s using it as a throwing knife and snapped the tip off. Then years later broke the tip off an old Pre-victorinox Wenger Swiss Army knife, trying to pry with it. That was when I learned my lesson about abusing knives and haven’t broken one since
 
jux t said:
I’ve broken plenty of knives throwing them, fixed and folding. Broke a couple actual throwing knives. Also broke a Buck Redpoint using it to pry a branch that clogged up a chainsaw, no big surprise there. Bent cheap machetes, again no surprise. Had liner locks fail, if you consider that broken. I do.
Click to expand...
That's why I don't buy liner lock knives.
 
I never have....outside of snapping a tip by doing something I absolutely shouldn't have been doing.

I think these strength/construction discussions we have are frequently overthougt/overanylized/over obsessed.

Don't get me wrong, I'm just as guilty as the next guy and we all love precision and quality.

But I can't imagine what someone would do to a knife to shear a pivot or stop pin or have a (quality) lock fail by maxing out load on the spine.

Knives at their core are for cutting and slicing. That's it. Anything beyond that and it probably can be done better by another tool.

Look at the SAK. Arguably the most abused, neglected, and disrespected knife out there and look what they'll take. I've never managed to even break those in spite of what I openly admit is flat out abuse.
 
I've broken a Manix 2 Maxamet blade once, while cutting 1/2" rubber conveyor belt. I'd done it a thousand times before with my other Spydercos. It was the first released version and was extremely brittle.
 
I have broken a screwdriver on a Leatherman Supertool one time, and I have also had liner locks fail. I have chipped and rolled blades but I have never broken a knife blade because it is not a prying tool. I had someone else break my knife one time when I lent it out and they pried with it.
 
Yes.. I was throwing a WE knife into the floor of a deck trying to stick it in the wood, and the tip stuck but I watched in horror as the knife fell over and snapped at the tip. The tip was a little thin, but now I carry a Medford… which is a little more forgiving of my jackassery.
 
I’ve broken a few.

One was a crappy Gerber liner lock. No surprise there.

The second is a more interesting story. Y’all know those AC power cables that attach to a wall plug and the to everything else? I took one of those apart as a child and while I was cutting the cable accidentally connected the positive and negative wires with my knife.

It actually blew burnt holes in the knife blade.
 
My very first pocket knife, at about 6 years old, a cheap dime store barlow my dad got for me to learn with. It was butter knife dull with a blunt tip. I tried cutting some rope and it collapsed and folded backwards pinching the side of my index finger. Lesson learned and decided to buy my own real knife a 34OT at age 10. Then at about 20 years old I broke the very tip of a Uncle Henry stockman trying to extract a shell casing from a jammed 22lr rifle. Lesson learned again and got a multi tool to carry for that purpose. I haven’t broken one since.

I still don’t know how a liner lock can fail just cutting unless it’s a destructive test or spine wack. There shouldn’t be any force against the liner while cutting. How’s that happen?
 
2, both Leathermen blades. One my fault completely and one with a flaw in the steel. Both replaced under warranty even thought I fessed up to the first.
 
Like most here, I have only broken one knife by fault of my own.

I was prying with a Buck 118 and it snapped right where the blade meets the handle.

I mailed it back to Buck and they sent me a brand new one.
 
I snapped the jaws on a Leatherman Wave with a combination of grip strength and twisting. No abuse on my part. They fixed it under warranty, but I haven't trusted Leatherman since then.

Also snapped two tips off of knives over the course of 50 years of usage. I didn't have the right tool at the time, but I got the job done. I'd do it again given the same circumstances. Knives are tools, I use them and replace them when needed.
 
As a side note, my dad was pretty strict about knives and guns, he wanted to instill safety into our use. He taught us that games and horseplay with knives or guns was unnecessary and wouldn’t be tolerated. So he very sternly advised us to not throw knives so I didn’t.

He told us about his cousin who was seriously injured when his brother threw a knife at a tree truck. The knife glanced or bounced back somehow and stabbed him just below his sternum. He was standing just beside him. He recovered but it took a long time before he was back to normal.
 
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