i don't understand some of the overly abusive lock testing methods.

The whole point is that they're over the top and well beyond the stress a reasonable person will place on any knife. So you know it absolutely will not fail during normal use.
 
I like stress tests. Whether or not it is stupid, I still learn something.

Go and run full-speed at a wall. Regardless of it's stupidity, you should still be able to learn something from this new experience.
 
Nullity said:
Go and run full-speed at a wall. Regardless of it's stupidity, you should still be able to learn something from this new experience.
Click to expand...

Or just get brain damage, learn nothing and forget everything you ever knew.......
 
For many knives lock strength is not the problem but blade strength or brittleness may be a much more common failure area. Seems like I have read of an awful lot of blade tips breaking on Kershaw Leeks for instance due to prying or dropping instances during use. Proper folding knife use should normally not put much force on a blade lock.

Many of the lock "tests" on the web are sheer abuse and prove nothing about actual field performance with correct use.
 
I don't know either. I true review is someone who uses a knife for that which it was intended. If it fails under normal use then yes, it's a failure. If however, you're REALLY trying to make a lock fail, 99% of the time, you're going to make it fail. I have not seen a lock yet that I could not make fail if a really tried but then again, that's not their intended purpose (to fail under extreme abuse). If you want a knife that doesn't "fail" get a fixed blade.
 
jasonp said:
I don't know either. I true review is someone who uses a knife for that which it was intended. If it fails under normal use then yes, it's a failure. If however, you're REALLY trying to make a lock fail, 99% of the time, you're going to make it fail. I have not seen a lock yet that I could not make fail if a really tried but then again, that's not their intended purpose (to fail under extreme abuse). If you want a knife that doesn't "fail" get a fixed blade.
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We're human beings. Part of our makeup is to find out our limits and the limits of the things around us. For those of us old enough to remember pride in automobiles, remember in high school the guys that had to race their cars out in the country to find out how fast they could go? It has long been a bragging point in my industry to see how much weight a truck could pull or how much it could hold, even if you take a chance on damaging the truck. We test our camping gear to its limits (even when we camp out only 5 times a year) so we can be prepared if the long impending SHTF scenario happens. Folks buy giant knives named "Battle Mistress" and "Hog slayer" and other macho sounding names, only to use them to baton some firewood (while their splitting wedge and sledge or even axe sits idle) once and a while, or to show their buddies that they have the baddest knife on the block.

I am one of those guys that use a large locker all day off and on in my construction work. I buy a quality knife, and the lock doesn't fail. I use the knife as a slicing tool that does light prying sometimes, and the lock doesn't fail.

With 40 years in the trades I have no idea when I would ever put a knife to the same hardships some of those guys do when they set out to break a knife. Yet, I have been surprised out how easily some of the knives they test actually fail. I figure for me that if I watch about 50% of one of those videos I have seen all the abuse a knife I own will see in its lifetime.

But if they want to spend their money and take their time to tear up a knife so that other will be ready when the Great Zombie Apocalypse Comes, or the SHTF, or the they find themselves in a situation alone on an island with only their knife as their only piece of gear, the so be it. Many is the time I have seen guys here (no doubt, denizens of the cubicle world) that declare they want a knife they can stake their life on. What would cause them to be in that position, or what their knife would do for them in that position is unclear, but it is important to them.

Like I said, I watch about 50% of one of those vids if they have one on a knife I am interested in, and that satisfies me. It has been my observation that most devices will fail in one way or another if you do not use them as intended. Opening cans, spine whacking, batoning, and all that other silliness isn't what a folder was designed for. On the other hand, the manufacturers crow like a barnyard rooster when bragging about the strength of their locks, so the bring that whole "I have to test this" situation along.

Personally, I can make any machine or even inanimate objects fail. Those little weenies that beat on those knives have to work to get 5 full minutes out of their videos, but if they didn't, they wouldn't have a channel to subscribe to.

Robert
 
To make things more interesting, Youtube reviewers need to up the ante to out-do the next guy. Noss4 started beating on fixed blades, so a few years later, it's no surprise we have gotten to this point. Knife companies are also trying to out-do each other, building beefier knives to be "the toughest." Subject to the law of diminishing returns, the expense, heft, and complexity become prohibitive for most consumers. I'm already there with most knives favored in General Discussion these days.
 
dogstar said:
To make things more interesting, Youtube reviewers need to up the ante to out-do the next guy. Noss4 started beating on fixed blades, so a few years later, it's no surprise we have gotten to this point. Knife companies are also trying to out-do each other, building beefier knives to be "the toughest." Subject to the law of diminishing returns, the expense, heft, and complexity become prohibitive for most consumers. I'm already there with most knives favored in General Discussion these days.
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i wonder if knives are going the way of automobiles these days. they keep getting bigger and bigger compared to years ago.
 
I commend anyone who does any testing, no matter how unscientific. At worst, it provides a silly video to chuckle at and it often gives at least one vaguely relevant data point. There is only ine really standardized way to test knives of any type, CATRA numbers for edge retention, and most companies won't release those if they even perform them. That leaves backyard testing as the only option that doesn't prove prohibitively expensive. One video may prove nothing, but a large number of videos demonstrating the same merits or flaws gives me at least some information where I otherwise have none.
 
dogstar said:
To make things more interesting, Youtube reviewers need to up the ante to out-do the next guy. Noss4 started beating on fixed blades, so a few years later, it's no surprise we have gotten to this point. Knife companies are also trying to out-do each other, building beefier knives to be "the toughest." Subject to the law of diminishing returns, the expense, heft, and complexity become prohibitive for most consumers. I'm already there with most knives favored in General Discussion these days.
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:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:

Robert
 
Kwon Kwang said:
The whole point is that they're over the top and well beyond the stress a reasonable person will place on any knife. So you know it absolutely will not fail during normal use.
Click to expand...

I don't think I can agree with that. Knives, like any artifact, can fail in a lot of different ways for a number of reasons. There was a thread here from a guy who took his Kershaw Blur to Special Forces School and the blade failed. He posted a pic of the knife that clearly showed where a chunk of steel fell out of the spine just over the thumbstud. Didn't appreciably diminish the utility of the knife, though, as it continued to cut fine--which is what I think a knife is supposed to do.

But, let's talk "fail" for a moment. What exactly does that mean? If the scales discolor, is that a failure? For most of us, probably no. For a collector, it might well be. What if it can't hold a decent edge? Say, it's a Gerber. Is that a failure? Only if you actually intend to use it to cut stuff, I think. What if it won't flip cleanly? Is that a failure? What if one of those little ball bearings crack and you lose that slick, smooth ZT feel? Is that a failure? I would think so, but the knife will undoubtedly still lock open and pry like a demon, er, cut well.

What if the scales crack or fall off? What if the blade bends? How much is too much of a bend? What if the little badge falls out? Or the shiny mirror finish corrodes while it's still in your pocket before you and Bear ever make it to the Amazon? Is that a failure?

Importantly, how often does it happen? How many cycles do you get, generally speaking? What is our statistical basis for saying it will (or won't) fail?

More insidioiusly, what if you can whack the crap out of it five times, but on the sixth, the fatigue loading catches up with the knife and it cracks? Fatigue is non-linear and it affects everything, even knives. Without a rational test plan, there is no way to know how many times Bubba can stand on it before it is likely to fail, even if we have a decent definition of what "fail" means to us in this context.

On a more prosaic note, what if the knife were misassembled? Or the wrong part number used so that it almost works OK? Or it fails early because a supplier changed a material specification or had a bad run of parts? There are a lot of variables, and none of them are controlled, so you have zero idea of the significance of the "Hey y'all! Watch this!" video.

TL;DR: Can't tell from one video.
 
NeilB said:
I don't think I can agree with that. Knives, like any artifact, can fail in a lot of different ways for a number of reasons. There was a thread here from a guy who took his Kershaw Blur to Special Forces School and the blade failed. He posted a pic of the knife that clearly showed where a chunk of steel fell out of the spine just over the thumbstud. Didn't appreciably diminish the utility of the knife, though, as it continued to cut fine--which is what I think a knife is supposed to do.

But, let's talk "fail" for a moment. What exactly does that mean? If the scales discolor, is that a failure? For most of us, probably no. For a collector, it might well be. What if it can't hold a decent edge? Say, it's a Gerber. Is that a failure? Only if you actually intend to use it to cut stuff, I think. What if it won't flip cleanly? Is that a failure? What if one of those little ball bearings crack and you lose that slick, smooth ZT feel? Is that a failure? I would think so, but the knife will undoubtedly still lock open and pry like a demon, er, cut well.

What if the scales crack or fall off? What if the blade bends? How much is too much of a bend? What if the little badge falls out? Or the shiny mirror finish corrodes while it's still in your pocket before you and Bear ever make it to the Amazon? Is that a failure?

Importantly, how often does it happen? How many cycles do you get, generally speaking? What is our statistical basis for saying it will (or won't) fail?

More insidioiusly, what if you can whack the crap out of it five times, but on the sixth, the fatigue loading catches up with the knife and it cracks? Fatigue is non-linear and it affects everything, even knives. Without a rational test plan, there is no way to know how many times Bubba can stand on it before it is likely to fail, even if we have a decent definition of what "fail" means to us in this context.

On a more prosaic note, what if the knife were misassembled? Or the wrong part number used so that it almost works OK? Or it fails early because a supplier changed a material specification or had a bad run of parts? There are a lot of variables, and none of them are controlled, so you have zero idea of the significance of the "Hey y'all! Watch this!" video.

TL;DR: Can't tell from one video.
Click to expand...

taking a folding knife to special forces school is a mistake.
 
Personally I don't find any of these tests valid and are just more for enjoyment and marketing purposes to give your a VERY VAGUE idea of what the lock can take.

The benchmade tests are the most reliable/repeatable ones I've seen so far, but it still doesn't tell me if the knife can take a sudden shock load and still hold up. I would be shocked if it could take them at half of what the slow applied pressure test results had gotten had it been a sudden load. Than there is the question of what happens if the load comes at it at a slightly different angle instead of being perfectly vertical and not perfectly secure, than parts may be moved just enough to result in earlier failure especially if the load was sudden. And who knows what else variables that can come into play in real world use so YMMV in lock strength.

In general my viewpoint is that if you are looking at folding knives and how strong the lockup is something your looking at, it's time to buy a fixed blade.
 
If they want to be crazy with their knives, let them. They paid for them. It is a waste though. Use a fixed blade when it is called for. The whole "spine-whacking" thing doesn't really make sense to me.
 
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