Help with a home made choil

A

anewguy

Joined
May 8, 2003
Messages
165
After reading (I think it was) rok jok’s review of the bk7 I have decided to try and duplicate the choil of my battle rat on my forthcoming bk7. however, I often time find myself prying with my “big” knives and I am wondering how much weaker this is going to make my knife. i assume that if my blade does snap, it would be at this point, but I am wondering if I can still expect similar “toughness” when compared to the un-modified version.

Any help you can give will be appreciated
-damon
 
Well first of all, I'd do my prying with a Prybaby. ;)

I think it depends on how big you make the choil, and how you are prying with it. If the tip is a bit thin, I'd expect it to break there(given your are prying with the load being at the tip). If you are prying from the spine somewhere along the middle of the blade the weaker part would be the choil.
Unless you apply pressure, on the blade it self, past the choil. If I were to do that, at first I'd treat it like a folder. No chopping, go easy on things you cut, then work it up from there.
 
If you give your choil a nice round contour, round the edges, and blend it smoothly into the other knife contours you will only reduce the strength of the knife in proportion to the reduction of the cross-section of the blade. For bending stresses you are actually better off than this if your choil is cut out of the thin edge material. This is because most of the stress is supported by the thicker part of the blade (something like a thickness-squared function). What you don't want to do is create anything that looks like a sharp cornered notch or crack in the blade. That will cause stress concentration which can weaken the blade dramatically. So if your blade has a ricasso with sharp corners don't have your choil end right at the edge of the ricasso. You might want to cut partially across the ricasso and you also might want to regrind the ricasso to blend more smoothly into the blade.
 
when i say prying i mean prying while splitting wood and other such "outdoor" uses. i appreciate your response underaged, but do the rest of you concur that i should not chop with it w/ the choil? i mean, i'd sooner throw this thing away before i treat a 7" blade like a folder.
 
thanks for the reply Jeff, Although it sounds a bit complicated, that was what I was looking for!
 
After thinking about it a bit more, I think that as long as you do as Jeff says (knows way more than me obviously,) it should be OK. I still would'nt recommend heavy chopping, but moderate chopping should be ok, if you where to use it like a prybar, then I'd have some doubts. Seeing as how the direction of force applyed to the knife as it hits material while chopping, is in line of the way in which the blade is strongest (spine to edge, as opposed to left to right side of blade. As in more steel supporting the structure) I guess it will be ok.

(I may not know what I'm talking about. ;) ) :footinmou
 
Do it and have fun with it - that's what really matters. ;)
 
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