Newbie question: does anyone wear out a knife?

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Pier23

Joined
Jan 4, 2015
Messages
64
Gentlefolk,

I am a newbie knife guy, but have puttered in the gun world for a while. The gun world has endless threads about a gun's durability - will the new WunderBanger REALLY last 700,000 rounds as YouTube claims--- while in reality if most guns ever have 5000 rounds through them, that is "heavy" use.

I have read here threads concerning blade and hardware durability, so I wonder if this is a similar concern? Do knife people fixate on knife durability when in reality no such wear theshhold will ever be normally reached? Or is knife durability a more real-world concern?
 
Just like guns... the people who see the full useful life of a knife is .0001% of the community.
 
Pier23 said:
Gentlefolk,

I am a newbie knife guy, but have puttered in the gun world for a while. The gun world has endless threads about a gun's durability - will the new WunderBanger REALLY last 700,000 rounds as YouTube claims--- while in reality if most guns ever have 5000 rounds through them, that is "heavy" use.

I have read here threads concerning blade and hardware durability, so I wonder if this is a similar concern? Do knife people fixate on knife durability when in reality no such wear theshhold will ever be normally reached? Or is knife durability a more real-world concern?
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I have a Buck 110 that I got when I was 10....carried and used that for at least 10 years. Hunting, whittling....whatever. Still tight as when new, but looks like crap. I learned how to sharpen knives on it and it shows. I think a knife would be retired because of over sharpening before a hardware failure as long as the knife was used as intended.
 
My chefs knife has been the primary knife in our kitchen for 30 years and has been sharpened on a Sharpmaker countless times.

It is just starting to show signs of over sharpening. I figure its got probably another good 20 years left on it.

If ypu area knife fan, You'll most likely got bored with a knife or give it to a grandkid before it wears out.
 
With todays new materials/ super steels, I think very few of us will ever wear out a knife. Especially since most of us have multiple knives to rotate. But just look at some pics of old traditional knives that our fathers and grandfathers used and you will see many of them used to the point where the original blade shape is not recognizeable.

The closest I have come to wearing out a knife is an old CV case. It is getting to the point where the sharpening is starting to change the blade shape slightly, but as you can see there are many more years of life in it.
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Scurvy092 said:
Just like guns... the people who see the full useful life of a knife is .0001% of the community.
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Despite this, I will still choose washers over bearing pivots. It doesn't matter how smooth that bearing flipper is when I flip my knife at least 30 times a day and need it to last 600 years or so. 550 years is unacceptable. :D
 
Mayenard said:
Despite this, I will still choose washers over bearing pivots. It doesn't matter how smooth that bearing flipper is when I flip my knife at least 30 times a day and need it to last 600 years or so. 550 years is unacceptable. :D
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Yeah, and don't forget to demand 5% lockup.
 
Only worn out knife I've ever seen was one that was constantly over-sharpened on a stone. Worn down the blade to a third of its original size.

But then, it still cut, so it wasn't really worn out
 
I have seen blades worn down from excessive (and usually incorrect) sharpening. With normal use and proper maintenance, a quality knife (folder or fixed blade) should last multiple generations.
 
It depends on what you call normal. Even a couple of centuries ago with the softer steel and using the knife on a daily basis it could take a couple or 3 decades to make a butcher into a paring knife. However, if you were a buffalo hunter, you would wear out a similar knife in a season. Same today. A small butcher and a paring knife will last a family (that uses the knives) for several decades. And that is using a combination stone to sharpen them. Steeling or stropping will extent their lives. If you look to the commercial use (canneries, poultry, etc.) they might only last a season.
 
Mayenard said:
Despite this, I will still choose washers over bearing pivots. It doesn't matter how smooth that bearing flipper is when I flip my knife at least 30 times a day and need it to last 600 years or so. 550 years is unacceptable. :D
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When we grew up on our family farm in the 1960's you would only open your knife to cut things, so it was a rarity to wear out the opening mechanism. Most knives would wear out from use and over sharpening or improper sharpening techniques. Seems like today with flippers, thumbstuds, spyderholes, discs, wave, speed safe, etc. opening and closing a knife numerous times a day has surpassed for some the actual intent of the knife.

So I would suspect the blade used for cutting will last a lifetime with proper sharpening techniques and no abuse. However the opening mechanism utilized on your knife and the frequency of opening and closing throughout the day will be substantially less time.

That said it's your knife to do as you please, and I actually enjoy the sound my flippers make when deployed, whack, flip on.
 
Yes, it is possible to wear out a knife. My Case barlow that I got as a kid was essentially worn out from sharpening it with a grinding wheel. My Dad sharpened it for me at that time where he worked. Anyway, eventally the tip protruded enough to catch on clothing (pockets) and minor sticks to the hands that the knife was retired and replaced with another Case jack knife. I would now consider the sharpening done by my Dad as abuse. But at the time, I was happy to have a sharp knife. My guess is that the tip broke off a couple times and he re-ground them. I noticed on a couple of his pocket knives that the blade was about half the orginal size at times.
 
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Titanium liner and frame locks can be worn to the point where the lockup is no longer safe - I would consider this to be "worn out".
 
asdf12345 said:
Titanium liner and frame locks can be worn to the point where the lockup is no longer safe - I would consider this to be "worn out".
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This is an academic question, not a challenge. Have there been reports of this happening?

I'm not particularly concerned, just looking to increase my understanding. I have 5 folders that I consider suitable for frequent use. If I wear one out, I'll consider the dead one worthy of retirement, and I'll move on. If I manage to wear out a $200+ knife, then I'll feel like I got every penny of value out of it, and then some.

The closest I've gotten to wearing a knife out was using a Spyderco Persistence until the blade became badly off center. It still opens and closes, though the blade is almost resting against a liner on one side in the closed position. I could still use it if I had to.
 
RBid said:
This is an academic question, not a challenge. Have there been reports of this happening?

I'm not particularly concerned, just looking to increase my understanding. I have 5 folders that I consider suitable for frequent use. If I wear one out, I'll consider the dead one worthy of retirement, and I'll move on. If I manage to wear out a $200+ knife, then I'll feel like I got every penny of value out of it, and then some.

The closest I've gotten to wearing a knife out was using a Spyderco Persistence until the blade became badly off center. It still opens and closes, though the blade is almost resting against a liner on one side in the closed position. I could still use it if I had to.
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The only time I have seen 'worn out' titanium frame/liner locks is either from abuse or from improper lock geometry.
 
I've got a very old kabar stockman pattern slip joint that was my great grandfathers. It's a small knife. About the size of the buck solo slip joint. It's about as close to worn out as i could imagine. The walk and talk is now gone. It doesn't snap open. The patina is deep deep and the blades are sharpened about gone. The pen blade is now no more than a leather spike. The covers are so full of oil that they are black.

It took many many years of it being his teeth. Every meal he would cut up his food into little tiny pieces with it. Plus cleaning game, whittling, and just general use. It's worn out.

Very few people do that now. We just don't need a knife like they did.
 
You can theoretically sharpen a blade until there is nothing left. This pretty much takes machines though as I doubt any of us would want to manually grind a blade down to nothing. You certainly won't wear a knife out cutting stuff. You can wear out or break a lock if you apply the right (wrong) kind of leverage or the lock design was off.

Even with incorrect sharpening though the vast majority of bladeforums users will never find themselves in the situation where they are a knife short. It's not like anyone here only has just the ONE knife. :D

With some designs they could become unsafe to carry in short order if you sharpened them so the tip became exposed in the closed position.
 
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SVTFreak said:
Very few people do that now. We just don't need a knife like they did.
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We've graduated to using ours for emotional security. I don't know if that's progress or degradation.

Great. Now I feel all emotional.

Gonna go snuggle my TiSpine.
 
There is a habit called flipping. Some of us might be reading this and flipping the blades right now. It is a sign of knife-nut syndrome, and it can wear down joint and lock mechanisms much faster than normal.:eek:

There is also the tendency to treat bone/ stag handled pocketknives like worry stones, constantly rubbing away the surface until the surface smooths, and eventually the handle cover vanishes entirely. :D
 
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