Old school toughness

Maybe he's talking REALLY old, like Stone Age. I love my D2/S30V/ZDP-189 blades but I do believe stone tools take the edge in toughness lol.
 
Combativ said:
You are totally right these times it is no easy to find a good knife for a god price.
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Especially with the internet in place this is entirely false.
Rat 1 and 2. Spyderco Tenacious and the rest of that line. Esee Zancudo. Kershaw's budget line. These all can be had for around $30 +or- $10 on the interwebs. Wally World will usually have a few of the Kershaws so we don't even have settle on the lesser pos that are provided en masse.
 
Just a quick point...
Older knives many that have survived were patten wielded with a harder steel for the edge and softer steel for the spine, or they were differentially tempered... so they actually WERE tougher in regards to the abuse they could take in many aspects compared to production line knives today.

The question is were they the norm?
I dont know, I suspect not, they were just better made so they survived the last few hundred years better, along with being higher quality likely looked after better to boot.

However many Custom knife makers offer differentially tempered blades... and with the better steels small grains and less impurities to boot they provide very fine knives that surpass those made of yesteryear.
Assuming you can afford them.
 
I have knives passed from my granfather to my father then to me that are easily 60 years old at the minimum. They are great knives which were mostly handmade by various makers that are still useable. But even though I could use them I wouldn't want to because of all they've been through. Also when compared to a busse or swamprat which are my primary fixed blades I don't think they could compete with them even on their best day. The materials and manufacturing techniques are just to different. Its like comparing the top race cars of the 1940's to the top race cars of today it wouldn't be a fair match.
 
protourist said:
What they don't make the way they used to is the users of knives. We used to treat our knives as cutting tools designed for specific tasks. Mainly cutting. The knives we used were generally much thinner and had much smaller tangs than what we see today. Why? Because we didn't feel the need to beat the heck out of our tools. We used the proper tool for the job at hand.
Were knives made better "back in the day"? Probably not. As knowledge in engineering and metallurgy increases the quality of the tool will get better. Unfortunately, we are living in a time that we don't take care of things. If we break it we either send it back to the manufacturer demanding that they replace the tool that we broke or we just buy another. We really need to go back to taking care of our tools and making them last forever.
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:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:

Being an old fart that grew up in the decade just after WW2, I can tell you that the "old school" knives were not built anywhere near as tough as the so called tactical knives of today. They had blades that were much thinner than todays knives, and you could break off a blade very easy by prying, or doing something other than use it as a cutting tool. But on the other hand, we didn't think, or were under the impression that, stabbing car doors or prying open a bank vault door was the duty of a pocket knife. Our knives were used for cutting things. That was it. They were not status symbols, bragging rights, or for fulfilling fantasies from from unreal video games. They were used as valued tools, and treated accordingly. As a result, sometimes a grandfather got to hand down his knife to a grandson while it was still in serviceable condition. We were raised to respect our tools, to take care of them, and make them last. There was no lifetime warrantee that we could break up our knives and then send them back to the maker to be replaced.

But I guess times as well as values change, sometimes not for the better.
 
jackknife said:
:There was no lifetime warrantee that we could break up our knives and then send them back to the maker to be replaced.
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:D For quite a while the Schrade warranty included 'lost' knives :D

Ahhhh.....the good old days of honest people...
 
spydercobenchmadekai said:
Wrong. Look up "Battle Rat Differential Heat Treat" and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Get your facts straight.
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I will get my facts straight... as soon as the makers of Swap Rats knives on there own forums clear up what blades have or have not been differentially heat treated.

Currently I know that pretty much every knife has or hasnt had a DHT, and that the knife owners themselves on the Swamprat forums cant even agree which knife has a DHT.

What I also know is another respected knife maker has stated outright then the TEMPERING process used... which is what Swamprat uses DOESNT allow DHT.

Last fun tidbit if believed as its from a guy posting from a guy who claims it came from SwampRats directly..

Only black battle rats with a guard have a DHT.... except they ran out of black... so its actually some green... or maybe brown...
Only way to actually tell is from the price you paid.. if it cost more thats why...

However what I do know is.. DHT isnt used in standard production runs by SwampRats... yet need to stress this is from a forum thats from a guy thats from a guy thats quoting someone from swamprats.

If you can point me to some NON-CONFLICTING information it would be VERY helpful.

However even if half the information if accurate DHT is not standard for production line knives.
 
There aren't even any green Battle Rats...And yes it's confusing, but some of them have DHT, so my point stands. This isn't about sprints/etc., only that modern knives also can have DHT.
 
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Never said modern knives couldnt.
I implied standard production knives.. which DHT rats are not standard even for the company itself, never alone the industry as a whole.
Rats are apparently made on demand on a person to person basis.. which pretty much makes them custom jobs(which I also really liked).

Ontop of that they dont even state when the knives are DHT apparently, they just up the price...

Basicly after everything :P
If you want a DHT.. go custom.
Which is what I said....

I also have to say hearing a company was doing DHT as standard.. I thought awesome... was gonna buy one of there knives today just cause after seeing the prices which was apparently DHT....
However a company that doesnt seem to have any idea whats going on with there own knives doesnt exactly inspire confidence and I dont think I will ever touch them unless its storted.

PS-I hope your blade is DHT.
If you have a knife of around the same hardness thats not... try to scratch the back of the spine of each knife with the point.
If they both dig in it means both have tips harder then the spines of both knives.. which means one has to have a DHT.. which by the process of elimination means it has to be the Rat.
If the Rat spine cant be scratched its likely its not DHT(or the other knife had a bad temper)
If the Rat can be scratched and cant scratch back it means the knifes just softer over all and doesnt tell you either way if its DHT.
 
I guess there will always be those people who think things were better back in the day:rolleyes:.
 
18X said:
In todays mass production of anything quality has suffered. Knives are one tool that has been effected by this. Does anyone have or know of any knives that are made with the old school quality that knives used to be made with? I am very curious to see how many are actually left because when I buy a product I would rather spend more and get a durable product than save money on mass produced junk that wont last. A knife that will last longer than the owner and their grandchildren
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It sounds as though you are describing many custom knives.
 
Well a very good argument against "things were better back in the day"
Female breast size has been increasing each generation for the last 100 years.

However... a even better argument for "things were better back in the day"
is
So have mens.....
 
Svords are differentially heat treated, so I'll stick with them. Old school quality.
CK-VTB-900x.jpg
 
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I have had case knives as kid that were as good as it gets the western were good too. But you also could buy a dollar knife off a board at a gas station but over all they were made for hard use and were kept sharp.
 
As a few others have mentioned, there is a big difference between the way a lot of people expect out of their knives today, versus in the past. I don't remember batoning being a big thing a few decades ago, for example. Knives were primarily cutting implements that weren't expected to hold up under extremely heavy use.

A lot depends on what class of knives you are considering, though. It is true that a lot of today's mass-produced knives are not as well those made in the past if you include the cheap Pakistani and Chinese stuff that is all over the place, particularly the mall ninja / tacticool / fantasy knives that are so prevalent these days. There were cheap knives back in the 60s and 70s, of course, but the sheer number of knives produced today that aren't made to be tools has vastly increased.

If memory serves correctly (and it may not), it seems that prices on custom knives have increased in the past couple of decades, even when gauged against inflation. It's hard to compare the older ones to today's, though, since we have more steels to pick from and better heat treating processes.
 
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