Testing handle strength

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allenC

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Jun 18, 2000
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Lately I have been wondering about the best way to test handle strength on my folding knives.
I figure that a good strong handle should be able to take alittle hammering, right?
So, with wood baton in hand, I set out to ABUSE some of my knives.

The unlucky few were my CRKT M16-03, the Gerber Air Ranger, and my Spyderco Endura.

I then, using the wood baton, hammered each knife through about 2.5" of hard cedar.
After removing them I gave them all a very close inspection and function test.
The blades were all straight and true with no tip or blade damage and none of them seemed to be significantly dulled by the ordeal.

The Gerber Air Ranger and the CRKT M16-03 are both liner-locks and the locks held up just fine.
The M16's liner did more farther across the tang (alittle past midpoint) and it was somewhat difficult to disengage, but seems to function just fine now.
The Gerber seemed to suffer no change at all.

I was somewhat more reluctant to hammer on the linerless FRN Endura, but after several hits I casted caution to the wind and let her have it.
Afterwards, the butt of the handle was alittle scuffed and the blade did'nt have the usual "snap" when closing it. I feared that I had damaged the pivot pin, but after applying a little oil, it works just fine now.

I know that all of that was just blatant knife abuse, but I just had to know.

Good luck,
Allen.
 
allenc-- did you baton the knives into the wood using the butt of the handle and driving the knives point first like spikes into the wood, or did you baton them through a 2.5" diameter piece of wood?-- I'm a little confused.
--Josh
 
Thanks for testing these knives. I made similar experiences with my M16-03: very solid lock-up, but since I tested it a bit (not as hard as you did, but I performed many spine whack tests on it) the liner´s not centered right in the middle, so it´s sometimes a bit hard to disengage.
 
Josh, Yeah, I hammered them like spikes through the wood.
I think hammering the spine of the blade, and forcing the blade through the wood would'nt really test the handle/lock/pivot of the knife.
What I was looking for was any damage to the pivot, bending of the handles, separation of the liner-lock from the handle, or cracking of the handles themselves.

I must admit that I was very pleased with the performance of the knives.

These three knives have also passed plenty of spine-whacking (especially the CRKT M16. My friend does'nt trust CRKT knives for some reason, so he did the spine-whack test on my M16 over and over and over. He was so sure it would fail...but no failure).

Allen.
 
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