Testing "Tough" Fixed Blades

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Vivi

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What kinds of things do you like to see in reviews of fixed blades marketed as "tough" or "survival knives"?

If you were given a medium sized Busse for free, on the condition that you thoroughly tested it for toughness, what would you do with the knife? What expectations would you have? If your task was to test the knife to see what it's capable of, and what it isn't, which aspects of blade performance would be most important to you to test? Where would you start? Would you look for failure points, and if so, using what methods? Would you start out with easier tasks, then gradually get more abusive throughout the test?
 
I hear about people testing knives to destruction and for use but I don`t hear about one then the other (except Noss and he only does a small tests or two and I don`t know if I will need to peel and apple with heavy combat gloves on).I would test the knife for comfort,usefulness,,ease of carry and edge holding then onto things that are hard on a knife and then abuse lastly as abuse testing shows the limits a knife will survive but I care more about how it performs in everyday use than if I can cut a man size hole in a car hood. BUT let me say I love to know that my knife can chip through a cinder block wall if I need it to because chances are I will not have a jackhammer on me when I need it.
 
I think Mistwalker does a good job of toughness testing. He uses the knife for jobs it is designed to accomplish.
 
Vivi said:
If you were given a medium sized Busse for free, on the condition that you thoroughly tested it for toughness, what would you do with the knife?
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I would send it to one of my relatives in Central America, who uses a knife every day, and see how it holds up to the cheap steel knives and machetes they've been using for over a hundred years. If it's at least as good as a $5 machete (that includes a leather sheath) then it's a good knife.
 
A survival knife should one that does its best to walk the fine line between cutting/chopping ability and overall durability as one should want to use the least amount of energy necessary, but still have a knife in case he or she needs to use it again. Any knife which can be used to conserve one's resources while traveling to safety ot waiting for rescue is a 'survival' knife. A $12 mora or puukko, a $5 machete, or even something less expensive can be a survival knife.

A "tough" knife, though, well that's another ball of wax. It just needs to hold up to most of the manually-powered idiocy to which it's subjected. Whether it sinks deeply into wood, debarks tree limbs, or slices other materials with relative ease or not is irrelevant. It just needs to not break.

A Busse will handle both of those tasks.
 
Vivi said:
What kinds of things do you like to see in reviews of fixed blades marketed as "tough" or "survival knives"?

If you were given a medium sized Busse for free, on the condition that you thoroughly tested it for toughness, what would you do with the knife? What expectations would you have? If your task was to test the knife to see what it's capable of, and what it isn't, which aspects of blade performance would be most important to you to test? Where would you start? Would you look for failure points, and if so, using what methods? Would you start out with easier tasks, then gradually get more abusive throughout the test?
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IMO you want to start out doing basic things you'd expect to be able to do with any knife of the same general blade length and class, including cutting wood, food and other non-abrasive items. Then work your way into chopping, use as a draw knife (if it's large enough to be used as such) batoning, etc., making note of overall performance, ease and comfort of use, ergonomics and fatigue, edge durability, and so on.

Ultimately, I think it's also reasonable to test the blade to the point to which it's marketed. This means, if it's a Busse, for example, you might get pretty extreme, testing ability of the blade to withstand heavy loads and cut unhardened sheet metals for example. And before anyone screams abuse ... well, those are needs that could arise in a survival situation, and Busse seems pretty comfortable in suggesting that their blades will stand up to those kinds of uses (and they do, from all I've seen.)

So each knife really is an individual call, just how far and how hard you'd want to test it -- a balance of good judgement based on the knife's construction, what you believe most purchasers would expect of the knife, and what the maker/manufacturer claims its capabilities to be.
 
Testing would consist of several elements.

One element would be real world use, ideally over an extended period of time. Pretty subjective stiff.

Another element would be unlikely but possible uses or accidents that might break or damage the knife. That category might include, for example, heavy prying with full body weight, dropping the knife point down onto a hard floor, etc. It would be possible to make these tests close to repeatable -- pry with a certain length of the blade under the object being pried, and with the same body weight every time, dropping the knife from the same height, and so on. I would not include chopping cement or concrete, or hitting the knife laterally with a large hammer, because these have no analog in even remotely possible real world uses as far as I'm concerned.

Lastly, I would undertake destructive testing that was objective and scientifically sound, i.e., measurable and repeatable. I think of Spyderco's lock testing machine as an example. A similar machine could be made to objectively test the lateral strength of a fixed blade.
 
Ability to hold an edge and ease of sharpening would be my primary tests. See how well it does shaving down wood for kindling, does it hold an edge, chip or roll the edge? From there I might see how well it holds up to some batoning for shelter building and fire wood. How does it hold up to corrosion? Is it a good all around knife for slicing, chopping, and cutting? This is why I like the Fallknivens so much, they are a perfect all around survival knife.
 
If I were to test a knife for "outdoor" use I would give it to hunters in northern Sweden, Norway, Finland, Canada etc. Then after a year I would see if they still use the knife. If they do then it is a good knife. If I were to make a "tactical" knife I would send it off with some troops going to A-stan. If it is still on their west when they come home, then it is a good knife.

Making a good knife takes years. If I am not totally wrong it took Fallkniven seven years to perfect the F1. Field test with the Arctic Rangers (back then northern Sweden was crowded with army units), field test in the woods while hunting, tests at the university etc. Fallkniven now resides in a disbanded army base (I19).
 
Batoning and chopping on wood.
Use as a draw knife.
Drill hole with tip of blade.
Cut various size ropes of varying material.
Prying of the type to tear apart dead wood/stumps.
Drop it a few times on concrete/river rock/ gravel to see about damage.(chipping upon accidental drop?)
Maybe clean a small animal(chicken?)
Cut up some root vegies upon resharpening. Not too hard to shapen.

Cut up a sidewall of an old tire.
 
How about batoning (using wood or a nylon hammer as the baton) into progressively more difficult material until failure. Sharpen the knife to some standard before each trial (unless you always carry around a damaged knife as your "survival" knife, you won't learn much by finding out how a damaged knife breaks).

The knife that can be beat through a HF 1/2" chinese drill bit wins, and we'll hear much commentary on how some knives that failed to cut iron pipe sucks. They would be some great threads! ;)

Or better yet listen to KeithAM - some good ideas!
 
KeithAM said:
I would not include chopping cement or concrete, ...because these have no analog in even remotely possible real world uses as far as I'm concerned.
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The other day I was cleaning up the yard, clearing overgrowth from around my grape vines. The volunteer growth had to be cut from the ground. While chopping, the blade hit a rock, which dinged up the edge pretty good. Stuff like this is a regular occurence for me, so I do see value in chopping against hard substances. Sharpening out damage from one accidental hit like this will easily take many many times longer than restoring a fine edge that was lost via wear. And it will remove much more steel. Therefore for "tough" knives I think this is more important than "edge holding" ability that's usually discussed with more mundane chores.
 
the possum said:
The other day I was cleaning up the yard, clearing overgrowth from around my grape vines. The volunteer growth had to be cut from the ground. While chopping, the blade hit a rock, which dinged up the edge pretty good. Stuff like this is a regular occurence for me, so I do see value in chopping against hard substances. Sharpening out damage from one accidental hit like this will easily take many many times longer than restoring a fine edge that was lost via wear. And it will remove much more steel. Therefore for "tough" knives I think this is more important than "edge holding" ability that's usually discussed with more mundane chores.
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You're giving this image of "The Vineyard Survivalist" -- out there all camied up, in fatigues, Battle Mistress in hand, hacking away ... wife in the kitchen making jelly with Martha Stewart on the tube, and a basement dedicated to the winemaker's art. :)

Sorry, I couldn't resist the digression. Now back to our regularly scheduled program....
 
Thom-
Just figured I'd use an example that more folks could relate to. ;)

But yeah, my blades have a regular habit of (unintentionally) meeting up with concrete and steel during my "other" use.
 
Work around the farm that involves the fall slaughter is a good way to evaluate the performance of any knife. Time, endurance with use will determine if the knife holds up in performance, and user comfort and ease of use.
 
the possum said:
The other day I was cleaning up the yard, clearing overgrowth from around my grape vines. The volunteer growth had to be cut from the ground. While chopping, the blade hit a rock, which dinged up the edge pretty good. Stuff like this is a regular occurence for me, so I do see value in chopping against hard substances. Sharpening out damage from one accidental hit like this will easily take many many times longer than restoring a fine edge that was lost via wear. And it will remove much more steel. Therefore for "tough" knives I think this is more important than "edge holding" ability that's usually discussed with more mundane chores.
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I've done the same thing, in fact I did it last weekend -- I was batonning through some roots nad hit small stones that were in the ground around the roots. So the edges of the knives I used got some dings.

I think it would be possible to create a test to simulate an accidental hit on a stone or concrete that didn't involve chopping all of the way through a cement or concrete block, because my accidental hits will never go nearly that far. Instead of smacking away at the block at random, a few controlled-force hits on the corner of a block would give an idea how the edge would hold up. It would be important to see whether the edge actually chipped or just rolled, and whether steeling would repair the damage. That would be less sensational and much closer to real world use for me.

BTW, I was able to steel almost all of the dings out without removing metal from the blades, so in my case the edges had rolled, not chipped.
 
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