Knifetests.com Project 1 Destruction Test.

[macgregor22]

Did you watch the project test?

 

[mark2600]

And that would make sense, since a fillet knife is used for filleting fish.

But Noss isn't testing for that, is he? He's just seeing what it takes to bust the knife.

These are not kitchen knives or folders. Noss' test of this knife is more relevant than any knife test yet. The hollow handle knife is intended last ditch survival blade. It is sold to people to stow in aircraft in case you go down in the middle of nowhere and such. I have to say toughness is an integral trait, in this case. I don't know any other way to test for toughness than to see what breaks it. This is an interesting test to potential buyers of this blade. At least they will know it is limited in terms of impact resistance. In the interest of common sense, though, the last thing I would do when lost in the wilderness is to begin pounding on my knife with a hammer.

 

[tsiloics]

I'm not against these test, and some knives have surprised me both good and bad, but I just cannot imagine a situation in the real world that would warrant beating a knife into wood or concrete with a sledgehammer.

The earlier tests with the webbing cuts, batonning and maybe digging the point into wood are fair, but the sledgehammer just seems unrealistic.

When did concrete and a sledgehammer come into the picture? He used a #3 maul to drive the knife through a 2x4 (so either Doug Fir or Hem Fir). The knife itself weighs 14 oz, so the two tools are really not all that dissimilar in mass.

Also, there's so much resiliency in the 2x4 and its support in the vice, that much of the impact force from the maul is lost in deflection. The knife isn't even capable of generating a reaction to them. It actually wouldn't make much difference (from the standpoint of stress on the blade) if he were using a sledgehammer, because the additional impact force would simply be lost at the connection between the vice and the 2x, and in the wood itself.

The whole idea of batoning is to use one object with greater mass to force another object with a finer edge through a third object. It wouldn’t make a great deal of sense to use a 12 oz baton on a 14 oz knife. It is true that the maul is less resilient than a wood baton would be where it contacts the knife's spine, but it is softer than the blade.

This scenario strikes me as being within the parameters of what might reasonably be expected of a knife designed to "fulfill all the features... vital for a knife carried by a Marine".

You're under attack. You have to open a crate of supplies. You have a piece of metal and your Project I. You have to beat the knife through a few metal straps to open the crate - like right now. That is entirely consistent with what's being shown in the test. It actually would transmit *more* force to the blade, and Mr. Marine's life (and many other lives) might very well depend on the knife functioning properly.

Again, you're in a combat situation. You have to move a heavy object. You rig up a 2:1 tackle with some rope. You pound your Project I into a crack in a boulder above the tackle to use as a quick anchor point. Completely reasonable use under the circumstances; comparable amount of force to what's shown in the test, if not more.

Maybe you're an archeologist, geologist, EMT, SAR, etc., who bought the Project I on the merits of its toughness. As a cutting tool, with secondary chopping, botoning, prying and penetration uses in mind. You're pulling people out of wrecked cars, burning buildings, out from under steel beams... moving the odd rock out of the way. Maybe sticking the blade into a crack and standing on the knife's handle to reach something overhead.

This is not a fillet knife or a letter opener. It's a general tool intended for hard field use. An ombudsman, as it were. It has to be able to withstand a broad variety of heavy uses, in addition to more mundane cutting tasks. If this were not true, and the knife were really only intended for basic cutting tasks, it would have a more effective cutting geometry, and it would be heat treated to have a harder edge.

 

[dodgeem33]

This all makes me wonder if a project, GB, FFBM, etc were all brought to a controlled environment and the "scientific" factor was eliminated and the were accurately tested to their limits what opinions would be?

 

[t1mpani]

And that would make sense, since a fillet knife is used for filleting fish.

But Noss isn't testing for that, is he? He's just seeing what it takes to bust the knife.

If you want a "knife" to bust up concrete or get hammered on by another chunk of steel (neither of which are normal uses of knives), get one designed for the purpose. As far as I know, only one knife maker designs for that - go buy his knives, and have fun beating the heck out of them!

I stand by my opinion: Great fun to play with a knife this way, but it doesn't tell me anything about the quality or usefulness of the knife as it was designed to be used.

Testing how many fish it can fillet before it needs resharpening would. :thumbup:

*Sigh* Okay, you asked for it....

Filleting fish is a great test for a fillet knife, right?

So filleting fish is a great test for a paring knife, right? Well, other than the blade isn't long enough.

But, filleting fish is a great test for a straight razor, right? Well, except for the fact that the thick spine will push the hollow ground edge into the spine and make it stick.

But, filleting fish is a great test for an axe, right? ...Okay, the horse is (hopefully) dead so I'll stop beating it.

Fillet knives are built for filleting. As such, they need to be flexible and capable of holding a consistent angle through a cut, so they're built thin and with very flat grinds and little angle variation between bevels (if there ARE any bevels).

Combat knives are built for combat/survival. That can mean fighting, that can mean shelter building, that can mean butchering, that can mean digging. You can disagree with any of these uses all you want, but that won't stop the fact that people, and soldiers particularly, will put their knives through tough stuff. Large, heavy knives like this are--or should be--built with the understanding that they may come into hard contact with a bone, or be used to clear a mess of tree roots out of the way of a shovel, etc., etc. If they can't stand up to this, what on earth is the point of them? You say that filleting fish until dull would tell you something about this knife---what precisely? That with its thickness, inflexible spine, hollow grind and weight it makes for an incredibly crappy fillet knife? That the recurrent contact its non-flat ground blade would force the edge into having with bone will dull a knife more quickly than meat will?

So, again, we come to it. How do you test a combat knife? It's not going to be used to clean a thousand fish, it's not going to be used to skin thirty deer, and it's not going to be used to dice tomatoes, so what would the point of these tests be? I actually do appreciate the fact that these videos are begun with peeling an apple---it proves that the subject is actually a knife capable of controlling in a cut, and not just a 1/2" thick chunk with no primary bevel and just a cursory edge. But, past that, he's progressively stepping up the difficulty of the cutting mediums/conditions he's performing, and seeing how, when, and why the blades fail. And yes, they ALL will fail--that's understood from the beginning. And all fillet knives will become dull filleting fish, and all mattresses will succumb to the pressures of the giant roller. Whether that happens sooner or later, however, is the point.

You're right, batoning with a piece of wood makes much more sense than with a steel hammer. The thing is, though, this is a toughness test, not a "how much wood can it baton before it gets dull" test. Not saying that the latter wouldn't be a viable interest, that's just not what these are about. If he's trying to see how the blade/spine stands up to impacts, then he has the choice of doing it between thirty and forty thousand times with a wooden mallet, or speed up the process and do it with a steel one.

And no, I'm sorry, but you're not going to convince me that these are just *break the knife any way you can* exercises. If that was the case, all he'd have to do is vice each of them up and take one solid swing with a twenty pound sledge in a side impact, and every single one of them would snap with one hit. That's not what he does. He uses extreme versions of use (steel mallet instead of wood, concrete chopping instead of green wood chopping, hammer side impacts instead of accidentally dropping it on rocks, stabbing steel plates instead of bone ribcages) to accelerate wear and see what the knives' strengths and weaknesses are relatvie to each other, and if they pass one area they move on to something harder. You may not like that he does this type of testing exclusively, but it's not unusual. Impact safety engineers only test cars by crashing them, safety glass builders only test glass by breaking it.

Filleting fish is a viable test for a knife that will be used to fillet fish. These knives that the vidoes are about aren't made for that purpose, they're combat knives, so testing them by filleting fish would be singularly goofy. Testing all knives the same way, regardless of what they're designed for, makes as much sense as seeing how well a Corvette can pull a U-Haul.

These knives are advertised as being tough, and toughness is what's being tested. Again, I don't think the tests here are employing near enough control for variations, but WHAT is being tested is absolutely viable. If you're a knife maker and your knife can't stand up to filleting fish, don't call it a fillet knife. If it can't stand up to combat, don't call it a combat knife.

 

[hlee]

I was apparently under the mistaken impression that CRK was running their blades in the 57-59 HRC range. If they are in the 55 HRC range, then someone should show them the chart. Sorry for the confusion. It is even less surpirsing that the knife broke, if it was HRC 55, as this is a local minimum of toughness. As a matter fo fact, according to the chart, if they are 55 HRC, they could be HRC 64 and still have the same toughness. I bet more kinfe nuts would be on board, but it still would have failed.

 

[macgregor22]

Bravo t1mpani!

 

[t1mpani]

I was apparently under the mistaken impression that CRK was running their blades in the 57-59 HRC range. If they are in the 55 HRC range, then someone should show them the chart. Sorry for the confusion. It is even less surpirsing that the knife broke, if it was HRC 55, as this is a local minimum of toughness. As a matter fo fact, according to the chart, if they are 55 HRC, they could be HRC 64 and still have the same toughness. I bet more kinfe nuts would be on board, but it still would have failed.

I have a few from CRK and will say now that they are among the most finely finished, meticulously crafted knives you'll ever own. But I've never understood Chris's take on heat treat. The BG-42 Sebenzas were a wonderful, golden exception.

 

[Tyrkon Lawson]

Bravo t1mpani!

+1

Always great posts man! :thumbup:

Which reminds me that I need a new fillet knife.

 

[JD Mandrell]

When did concrete and a sledgehammer come into the picture?

My comment was mostly about his test in general, he does use a 3lb sledgehammer on knives into wood and concrete. He didn't get to concrete in this particular test.

We can fantasize all we want about scenarios that very few folks ever find themselves in, but very few are going to require someone to beat on the back of a knife with a 3lb sledgehammer.

 

[Grampa]

How do you test a combat knife?

Good question.

Did you watch the test of the Ka-Bar USMC knife? There's a knife that's been used successfully in the real world, in real wars, for several generations.

Yet it came out poorly in the destruction test.

Real world: Darn good knife, very successful, did the job for hundreds of thousands of US servicemen. Not the best knife possible, but it has a history of getting the job done.

Destruction test: Not so good.

Again, these tests seem like a lot of fun to do, but they only tell me how to break a knife.




p.s. The filleting thing was not an example I brought up - I was just going with what another poster wrote. Obviously a fillet knife is not a combat knife. However, I'll bet the WWII Russian soldier who had his throat cut with the older cousin of a Normark fillet knife didn't have a chance to complain that the Finnish soldier didn't use a proper combat knife!

 

[avidknifeusersf]

T1mpani #85, that was the longest post on BF I've ever read, AND been interested in, all the way through!

I'm with you. You summed it up better than I ever could! I hope other people see it from (the correct) your point of view!

 

[crossada]

if you were going to set out to design the better combat/survival type knife i fail to see why you would choose to design a knife this way with a thin hollow grind with thick spine. to me this is a drawback in performance when it comes to basic survival type chores.

this is only speculation on my part though as i have not bought a large knife with these characteristics to test against other grinds. i like long flat grinds for this type of knife but if there is something that performs better i'll buy it. i just don't think this is a better design

 

[mark2600]

Again, these tests seem like a lot of fun to do, but they only tell me how to break a knife.

For some reason I just had the image of a baffled rescue party finding the dead, frozen body of a man holding a 3lb mallet and a broken knife with the blade wedged into a log.

 

[Elen]

*Sigh* Okay, you asked for it....

:thumbup: Great post, and I agree.

I think it's been said enough times: what Noss does is not scientific, is not claimed by Noss to be scientific, and hasn't anything to do with cutting performance in "normal" work. What he does is simple all-out destruction testing to give folks a very rough idea of how different knives survive extreme levels of abuse. What this shows is not how well a knife cuts or holds an edge, it just shows, to a certain degree of accuracy, how much damage and abuse you can expect the knife to take if you should for some reason abuse it like all hell had broken loose. It's not scientifically accurate, but accurate enough to be useful to folks who want their knife to take more abuse than the average.

I just can't get the folks who keep coming in to say that all Noss' "tests" show is that any knife can be broken, or that Noss is simply trying to break the knives as quick as he can. First, I hope no one is insane enough to even think there is something in this world that is both man-made and unbreakable. Noss certainly seems to know all the knives are going to break eventually. Second, if the guy just wanted to smash the knives up quickly, nothing would prevent him from using a blow torch or an industrial laser - that would be a short video. What Noss does isn't pretty or scientific, but it does have value to anyone who even slightly cares about just how tough their gear is. Of course, one shouldn't consider Noss' tests as the holy grail of anything - certainly, there are important considerations beyond toughness, such as, say, cutting performance and edge-holding, without which a knife would be pretty useless indeed.

As for the knives used by soldiers in wars long past, I have a hereditary puukko that was used to, regrettably, end some poor Russian conscript's life in the Finnish theatre of WW2. There is nothing tactical or scary about that old puukko, and it isn't very tough. It did what was required of it, like many other knives in that time. But that is not to say that the men who used those knives would not have chosen something stronger, tougher, bigger and more modern in that situation, if they had been able to make such choices. You go to war with the army and the gear you've got, and you'll be missing something better when the SHTF. For example, I would think that if I should somehow end up in a knife fight tomorrow, even with a Busse FFBM, I would quickly end up really wishing I had one of my swords with me.

As for this Chris Reeve, I do find the results a bit sad to see. It's not that I expect knives to be able to survive hammer impacts repeatedly - few if any of my traditional puukkos would do that for long. But from knives like this Project I, that aren't particularly suited for precision work due to their size and geometry, I would expect a lot of toughness. If they don't have that, then what do they have? They don't cut well at all, and they're not particularly pretty to my eyes. So, they better be tough at the least, because if they're not, then they have absolutely no value of any kind to me...

 

[t1mpani]

Good question.

Did you watch the test of the Ka-Bar USMC knife? There's a knife that's been used successfully in the real world, in real wars, for several generations.

Yet it came out poorly in the destruction test.

Real world: Darn good knife, very successful, did the job for hundreds of thousands of US servicemen. Not the best knife possible, but it has a history of getting the job done.

Destruction test: Not so good.

Again, these tests seem like a lot of fun to do, but they only tell me how to break a knife.




p.s. The filleting thing was not an example I brought up - I was just going with what another poster wrote. Obviously a fillet knife is not a combat knife. However, I'll bet the WWII Russian soldier who had his throat cut with the older cousin of a Normark fillet knife didn't have a chance to complain that the Finnish soldier didn't use a proper combat knife!

Many of your points are good, but you keep thinking things through 90% and then quitting. Yes, the Kabar USMC did well for a number of years, and is still serviceable today. That doesn't change the fact that much better things may well have come along in the meantime. I'll remind you that for tens of thousands of years man was killing bears and mammoths with stones tied to long sticks. You could then, I suppose, make the argument that everything that came after may have been superior in a theororetical sense but in the real world, were just silly advances to make since those flint edges had proven themselves.

The Assyrians conquered and ruled with bronze weapons and tools, and so I'm sure when the Iron Age came around there were lots of grumpy old men hollering at anybody who'd listen that bronze had worked for a thousand years and if it was good enough for their great grandfathers, by good-golly-gosh it oughtta be good enough for you kids to! Young punks with your ferrous metals and big ideas and loud music...

And once again, these tests do not show you how to break a knife. If you want to break a knife, hit it with a 20 pound sledge instead of a 3 pound. Or lock it in a vice and tie a chain to it, and tie the other end to a tractor.

 

[t1mpani]

For some reason I just had the image of a baffled rescue party finding the dead, frozen body of a man holding a 3lb mallet and a broken knife with the blade wedged into a log.

And then they look at the knife, see it was a Project 1 and are no longer baffled. Okay, okay...kidding, kidding...

 

[Joshua J.]

My comment was mostly about his test in general, he does use a 3lb sledgehammer on knives into wood and concrete. He didn't get to concrete in this particular test.

We can fantasize all we want about scenarios that very few folks ever find themselves in, but very few are going to require someone to beat on the back of a knife with a 3lb sledgehammer.

Ok, so if you make sure to never, ever hit your knife with another piece of metal then fine, the tests don't apply to you. But if these types of things are not beyond your field use, then they do have their applications.

 

[avidknifeusersf]

The Assyrians conquered and ruled with bronze weapons and tools, and so I'm sure when the Iron Age came around there were lots of grumpy old men hollering at anybody who'd listen that bronze had worked for a thousand years and if it was good enough for their great grandfathers, by good-golly-gosh it oughtta be good enough for you kids to! Young punks with your ferrous metals and big ideas and loud music...

Thats great! I may have to use some piece of that in my sig line if its ok with you.

But back to the issue with CRK, it seems the heat treat is the most likely culprit? Or the actual design? Or the serrations? Or all of those things?

Has CRK ever told Noss what they thought the problem might be?

 

[t1mpani]

Thats great! I may have to use some piece of that in my sig line if its ok with you.

But back to the issue with CRK, it seems the heat treat is the most likely culprit? Or the actual design? Or the serrations? Or all of those things?

Has CRK ever told Noss what they thought the problem might be?

I don't have a problem with it, edit to your preferences.

I don't know what the main culprit was, but between a temper that is less than optimal for the steel, and hollow grind on a large, heavy knife (which is just always a baffling choice in general) and stress risers from the serrations, I think there were many things working against this knife. A couple points higher on the HRC scale, a full flat or flat-saber grind and no serrations would give it a much better shot. Of course, eliminating the serrations would lessen its utility for some kinds of cutting chores in favor of toughness. Whether this was a good or bad choice is something any user has to weigh for themselves.