Suitable Style ?

[Howard Wallace]

...
I don't ever recollect a broken HI kangaroo tail. If it happened I never heard about it.
Mayhaps, karda or Mr. Wallace have heard of such an instance.

It has happened. It has happened to me. Such failure is a rare occurrence. It occurs when the knife is improperly heat treated, and the tang is hard and brittle instead of dead soft. When a knife is defective like this it does not take a lot of hard chopping to break it. A light tap in the right direction will do it. This is why Bill used to, and I still do, advocate some hard chopping and slamming the blade back and sides into hardwood a few times immediately after you get such a knife. Any such flaws will almost certainly show up during the test. Such testing should be done with the awareness that a failure could mean a flying blade. Appropriate safety precautions should be observed.

The one time I had a knife fail under such testing HI replaced it immediately with no questions asked.

Many people believe such testing is ridiculous. I have been ridiculed by very knowledgable outdoorsmen for suggesting such. One the owner of a prominent bushcraft school who I know personally and who is very competent in his craft. The common denominator of the people who ridicule is an unfamiliarity with hand forged knives.

That said, I refer the poster to the post on earned patinas for a picture of an enclosed tang Ang khola that early on passed such a test and has gone on to render over 2 decades of hard service.

 

[Dobe_1]

Very good advice.

 

[mtngunr]

Any guy who takes to field without some manner of making sure knife is sound is an absolute "what a maroon" as Uncle Bugs used to say....

some hard whacking and a LITTLE midpoint flex should be attempted, keeping in mind flex is not what it was designed to handle in first place....just looking for that flaw in the diamond, that knot in the wood, is all that is required....

i just obtained a new Randall, and in stainless (which is more prone to developing a carbide clump invisible to anyone during heat treat), and it was of course tested....they freely admit the invisible happens at times and send it back if it does...excellent advice, Howard.....and it has nothing to do with handforged....a bad batch of steel....a bad heat treat run due to mistake or thermocouple failure and you can end up with an entire batch go out door glass hard or butter soft....and of course, outright fraud can happen.



Attached below are results of one test...called BokerUSA prior to purchase to make sure cheap Randall copy (copied by original SOG boys in Vietnam for a disposable version of knife near everyone owned in group if they wanted to be "in") was solid blade/tang one-piece (had seen cheap Chinese with long threaded rod welded to stub tang before) and they assured me it was solid 3/16ths" thick stainless through and through, sounded good for a yard beater.

Three chops later on small tree, blade flew off where welded tang rod broke at notch in stub tang....if they had bothered to anneal the weld i might never have known, but it was glass hard and fragile....trust nothing, test everything WITHIN REASON...

 

[Howard Wallace]

...and it has nothing to do with handforged....a bad batch of steel....a bad heat treat run due to mistake or thermocouple failure and you can end up with an entire batch go out door glass hard or butter soft....and of course, outright fraud can happen.

A suspicious nature after me own flinty heart!

 

[mtngunr]

A suspicious nature after me own flinty heart!

Suspicion born of too many disappointments and failures...and some places and times such failure can get a guy killed, or even worse, dead...i know of one guy who had a stainless Randall #14 break in half chopping on wood, the only one i know of having a critical flaw, and only second i know of breaking at all, and that by marine trying to dig buddies out of rubble after Beruit....it can happen.

Most handforged get a good whack, but maybe it takes two.....if any buyer of any type or make concerned over marring, put a towel over the wood, whether it be firewood, tree stump or porch rail..heck, even Windlass of India does that to forged blades....