how strong are the blades on the 42s?

Joined
Jun 19, 2001
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125
im guessing the handles are tuff because there titanium but how about the blade? is it nice and stable?
 
I think that the Sandvik steel is pretty tough (not that I'm a steel expert or something)
My 42 has landed on it's needle-like point a couple of times (on my nice wooden floor :D), and when I thought it would've snapped off or bent, it was scratchfree.
It passed my clumsyness test a couple of times:rolleyes:
 
No prob's with the blade, but I was just manipulating mine like mad (I'm upping my speed) when all of a sudden my safe handle torx screw went flying! I was like "whoa". I thought it was tight too...huh.
 
Dropped mine on wood, on asphalt, on cement. No problems. Only mark i found was on the latch, makes me wonder if the latch is titanium.
 
I've dropped mine on concrete, asphalt, rocks, steel, it's even fallen 2 stories onto asphalt, and the blade is pretty much unaffected.
I did stain it when I got too close to some HCL acid. :)
I have many scratches and dings and dents to both my handles and latch.
I must hang around some pretty abrasive stuff.:D

I have taken a regular mill bastard file to the latch, and rounded it out a little. The titanium files pretty easy, actually. When I took the same file to the spine of the blade, it was much harder going. I don't know if it has to do with the tempering, but the file didn't want to dig into the blade spine, but it's hard to keep a good edge on the blade, too.

Breakage? Probably not.
 
It would take some serious impact to break the blade, as far as I know the sandvik steel is not as brittle as 440 or ATS-34 so chances are that it would bend before breaking. The handles are great. Ti 6/4 has an ultimate tensil strength of approximately 150,000 psi. In laymans terms, you could take a small rod of 6/4 titanium no larger than a pencil in diameter and hang a chevy suburban from it.

"twist the wrist and a butterfly emerges"
 
The Sandvik is a great blade steel but, like most all stainless hardened to the upper 50's on the Rockwell C scale, is tempered more for cutting than lateral forces on the blade. That's why, especially on straight knives, the thickness given to the blade helps make up for the toughness that is lost at high hardness levels. That's one of the reasons I really enjoy using the early 'stuff' with the 3/16" blade stock; peace of mind......;)
 
While the edge has help up on mine, a slight mishandeling lead to it falling sidways on the blade. A small chip broke out n the high center line were the primary grinds of the edge and swedge for the center ridge. Never seen it before on any other blade. Small chip, but compared to hell I've put them through, my 42's are standing up quite well.
 
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