name your knives that have broken tips

D

dennis75

Joined
Jan 2, 2003
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is it just me or is this very common with Spyderco's? off all the knives i have only 3 have broken tips, and that didn't even take hard (ab)use........

here's my list of 'stompies', you may notice a pattern::mad:

-spyderco military cpm440v
-spyderco police vg10
-spyderco delica vg10

not to be hard on Spyderco (i like 'em), but i can try what i want with my Al Mar SERE's, Buck-Striders and even my supposedly 'fragile' Buck 110, but they just won't give up their tip. the only in-tact Spyderco i currently have is my brand new military s30v, but subconsciously i'm just waiting for the tip to break i guess, thus i don't dare to really 'use' the knife serious....... :(

does this sound familiar or is it just me?
 
IMO, you might want to see if there is a pattern to what you are doing with the knife when the tip breaks. Since you don't mention that, we can only speculate...
All of the knives you list have relatively thin ("weak") tips, that penetrate well. Not knives I'd use for a screwdriver, opening paint cans, or stuff like that.
I have owned over a half-dozen Spydercos, and a couple have been used very hard.
Have not experienced tip breakage during actual use on any knife I've owned, regardless of manufacturer.
 
I've only ever broken one tip on a knife and it happened to be a SS Endura, however, this was my fault since I accidentally dropped it tip first onto a concrete floor.

What were you doing when those tips broke?
 
here's what i did:

-spyderco military cpm440v: thrusted the knife in wooden plank and retrieved the knife careless (sideways)> *snap*, 0.5cm gone

-spyderco police vg10: dropped it vertical on a wooden table (SOFT wood) so that it would stand straight up (playing 'territory game', that kind of thing) only it didn't fall straight but landed slightly at a slant in the wood> tip-point bent> tried to strop it back straight, didn't work> so i used a stone, yes that worked ofcourse, but yet another knife that lost blade-length

-spyderco delica vg10: my brother was removing the leather of a steering wheel> *snap*, cause still not certain.....

the thing is, i have done and still do the exact same sort of stuff with my other knives, but they won't budge at all (al mar, strider, even my buck 110.....).:confused:
 
Benchmade 921 Switchback. Amazing how a tip can weaken when you grind it down to about 6 degrees per side and bear down way too hard the entire time. Before that, I had stabbed that little bub repeatedly through sheetmetal and it had only experienced a little chip (just metal-shed type sheetmetal, nothing thick) on the tip.
 
The tip on a Buck/Strider is much thicker than the tip on the Military and thus it will be much stronger. You basically have to ask yourself do you want the raw strength of the Buck/Strider or the ease of penetration of something slim like the Military. There are Spyderco's with thicker tips, in general though Spyderco makes their knives to cut very well and sharpen easily whereas something like the Buck/Strider is optomized for durability. The police break looks like it may have been a flaw depending on how the tip struck, how high it was dropped etc., but consider vicing a blade at 1/8" back from the tip and seeing how difficult it is to bend or break the tip, not very difficult at all. If it hit with any speed and all this energy went sideways it is easy to see how the tip could bend.

-Cliff
 
I have a small Spyderco knock-off with a broken tip. I tried to throw it at a card board box ninja style and it bounced off and landed on concrete tip first.
 
I broke the tip off a Buck 112 many years back. It was my fault, of course, because I was prying with it. I've been a little more careful since then, and haven't had any more problems of this kind.
 
Reminds me of an old Henny Youngman comedy routine. "Hey Doc, it hurts when I do this!" Doc says, "don't do that".

You need to remember what a knife is used for. Slicing and cutting. Not prying, or screwdriver functions. I'm constantly having to remind my Brother of this, as he often uses the tip of a knife as a Phillips screwdriver. And then, he wonders why I don't want to keep reprofiling his blades for him.
 
I've never broken a tip in 44 yrs of knife usage. I have a police model, several 110's, various stockman patterns, couple of endura's, etc. I also don't use a knife as a pry bar. Use the appropriate tool for the job or don't complain about the consequences of inappropriate applications.
Bob
 
i'm not sure what it is, but i just like knives that CAN also be used for prying. this is why i love buck-striders so much. they take absolutely everything you throw at 'em. i like that in a knife, gives me a more secure feeling, like "i really can depend on this knife, it will do anything, makes me feel more at ease carrying a rugged knife, it won't fail,etc........"

i think i just have soft spot for knives that after doing no-no-stuff like prying a door open, throwing it across the room, dropping it tip-down on the concrete, and still it shows no sign of damage/wear. i just love that!:p
 
So you bent a knife while trying to stick it into a table. Now that's bad table manners!

I have broken the tips off of many knives, but not in the last 25 years or so. For the first 25 years of my life it was a common occurance. Back when I was practicing my commando techniques I did a lot of knife throwing as well as testing thrusting and stabbing methods. Initially I did a lot of this work on unsuspecting trees and heavy lumber. This was hard on points.

Back then most of the blades that I worked with were nonstainless and relatively low alloy (they were a bit soft, but tough). None the less it was common to break tips, even on throwing knives. Before I graduated from Clark Commando School I switched away from using wooden targets. I determined that they were not all that representative of things I wanted to poke at and I developed different targets. What I mostly went to was stacked cardboard made by laminating many layers of collapsed boxes. I would use Dupont spray adhesive to stick the cardboard together. If I wanted to model some bone I would embed a layer of 3/16th inch hardboard in the middle. Using this type of target reduced the shock when thrusting and also reduced bounce back when I was throwing.

One thing to note is that all but the softest stainless steel tends to break rather than bend. For things that involve hard poking at targets I recommend a relatively simple carbon steel blade that is not too hard. A bayonet would be a perfect example. The last tip I broke was on a thin stainless steel kitchen knife. I broke the end off the blade while trying to straighten it with finger pressure.
 
Once, i started the "tip breakage" topic and remembered, that mostly spydies were named.

I was interessted in how thick a tip must be for a general use knife. One knifemaker once said that .5 mm is minimum for tip thickness and than running up to full thickness over maybe 2.5 cm or 3, for the angle.

Don´t know, but i usually i´m careful with knifes, never had a broken tip.

What is minimum tip thickness or what should a good gen. use blade withstand?
 
No broken tips on my knives but I have about a dozen screwdrivers that won't hold an edge to save their lives.:rolleyes:
 
I think the point here is to understand what your knife is designed to do. Throwing them and sticking them into wood and twisting them out probably wasn't the intended purpose of the knives you broke. I remember a friend of mine threw his Spyderco Police model at a tree and the tip broke. BIG F'ING SURPRISE! :rolleyes: I would never think of doing something so stupid with one of my knives, and that's why I'm proud to report I don't have any with broken tips.

If I'm going to stab something into wood it would be something like my cold steel SRK, not a folder.

I just got a new straight razor. Think I should wack it into a cutting board for storage? It should be designed to handle that right? :rolleyes:
 
Wade F,

you are right, but...

It is easy to say, if the tip breaks, the knife wasn´t designed for that thing.

Which strength does anybody expects?

The Police model really has a thin tip. That´s why i will not buy that knife.

BTW the old Fairbain Sykes dagger has had a weak tip too, so Fairbain and Appelgate designed the following knife with a stonger one.

So, where is the advantage of a thin tip, when daggers are build with stronger ones.

Could anybody think of the Police model as a failed design?

I would like to know, how much tip strength anybody expects on a general use knife.

I stabbed folders into wood (.5cm deep) and get them out without breakage. I expect this of a general use knife. I think, the tip should take it to get into wood and be bend to the side (10° counted at the end of the handle) with no damage. That´s a way of careful usage.

I think there is no need for an oversized knife just to get a useful tip.

What are your expectations of a strong tip? What do you want to do with it seriously?
 
I broke the tip off of a Gerber Mark I twenty years ago. I broke it prying a crate lid off.


I had the tip reground and I haven't broken a tip since.
 
Over the years I have broken the tip of a Case slipjoint and the blade of a Leatherman Tool. I finally learned my lesson.

Tom
 
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