Knife beating pics to arrive soon

sevenedges

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My brother in law and I used my basic 9 to split some oak logs with a couple days ago. We did so by beating the spine extremely hard with a claw hammer. :eek: This went on for over three hours and the blade did not break, even though we were hammering on the very tip of the knife most of the time. There are some chips taken out of the spine down the length of the blade, and the handle is split open about an inch in length from repeated blows to it. The knife took a serious beating and held up much better than I expected, once again. (I have done this before). We took pictures of the beating and I will post them when the activate my account here on the forums. I just subscribed to the premium membership so I can post pics.

Jeff
 
Originally posted by sevenedges
the handle is split open about an inch in length from repeated blows to it.

I am by no means against abusive testing, as they can reveal a lot, but why exactly did you split the handle open?

Do you plan to fuse the handle back together with heat, or what?

Don't get me wrong, I'm just curious :D
 
Cliff, no I have not done this to any other knives.
Which I should for obvious testing reasons, however I'm sure you have:D would you like to share?

I have broken a few knives just by chopping with them using a hard chopping swing though. Two cold steel ltc kukri's and a becker knife and tool patrol machete along with others. They were much thinner blades however.



Andrew, I wasn't trying to split the handle open, it was just that some of the logs were so thick it was the only place left to impact.
 
Sevenedges,
Sounds like you need a bigger Busse. Looking forward
to your pics.:)
 
I have done it on occasion, and it is very rare to see blades be able to take it, Simonich's test of the Raven for example was used to promote S30V yet the blade failed very quickly under hammer hits. Most tactical / survivial knives are currently being made out of brittle steels like ATS-34, these blades can not hold up to harsh impacts for any length of time, unlike the knives offered by Busse Combat.

The hammer hits on the grip are interesting, how were you holding onto the blade at that time? For larger logs, where the blade length is too short, what I generally do is split them in sections. Take off a piece from the side and work around until the main body is small enough to handle at once. It is slow but saves the tip of the blade and the grip. A Micarta or G10 handle should be able to take the shock without gross failure, but knock a piece out of it and the ergonomics could be significantly effected. So for field use, I would avoid such banging, but for evaluation purposes of course pound away.

The breaks on the Patrol Machete and Cold Steel khukuris are not surprising, the steel just doesn't have the toughness for that kind of use.

-Cliff
 
Cliff,
On one extremely large log we did have to split it in the method you described (small chunks of the edges at a time) and it took a very long time itself, (at least an hour) because it was so big. probably 18" in diameter, and very seasoned and knot filled, on some of the pieces we couldn't even pound though them with full power swings, we had to pry them or chop them off at the knot area. On the other logs that were fresher and smaller we just gripped the knife handle in a normal grip and beat it through a few pounds on each side of the log.(tip area/handle area.)

The patrol machete was replaced and I have had good luck with this one so far.
I gave up on the LTC's after breaking two and warping a friends out of true.


Jeff
 
I just noticed I am now a premium member, I am leaving for school now and will post the pics tonight. As of yesterday:rolleyes: :D
 
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