The “spine whack” test: Valid quality metric, or much ado about nothing?

Paratrooper06 said:
To all the defenders of the spine whack test: Don’t be shy, I’d like to hear your side of things.
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In my life as a civilian, the spine whack is nice, but not very relevant to me. When I'm in my role as a light infantry soldier, I do find the spine whack test to be valid. I've only ever been very glad I tested it, once - this wasn't some combat role or anything crazy like that. I was just extremely tired in the field, in low-vis situation and under a lot of time pressure. TLDR; my folder got stuck cutting on a hard dense material, so I pulled (upwards) extremely hard to free the blade it took a lot of force and I had forgotten there was a beam about 18 inches above me and the spine of my blade hit that beam. At that time, I was very glad my knife didn't failed or I would of had a nice trip to the medic then doctor... To people who say "just carry a fixed blade" I already got so much stuff on my belt, my vest etc that unless I know I'm going to be needing a fixed blade there is no way I can justify the size or weight. At least in my country, we often deal with natural disasters ie. I know a lot of guys who get sent to a location and their tasking is to just help with filling sandbags etc. next thing you know, they're helping rescue civilians... The fact of the matter is, as much as I would love to "always have the right tool for the job" or to not have to work in time sensitive, stressful situations that I'm not directly trained for - that isn't how my job works. So having tools that can take the same level of abuse as me and keep functioning is vital...

EDIT: Once again, not an exciting story but might as well share a few similar situations I have seen for example: command wanted to test out the new HQSS (told to build the HQSS after we had reported for duty what was suppose to be tasking that was not physically demanding at all), and I saw a guys knife fail when trying to cut some of the thick material (in this case an extremely thick zip ties that is holding bags that weigh 100+ lbs each together...) and when trying to saw through the material, they rocked their knife back and forth putting pressure onto the spine as they wedged their knife between the bag and the zips ties and their knife failed on them from that pressure on the spine. While not always zip ties or bags, I do occasionally see knives fail in a when used in awkward situations like this where there is pressure put onto the spine of the knife.
 
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Locks. A 'safety' feature on the second simplest tool known to man, after the bludgeon. Oh, but now we're talkin' folders, and they've really only been around for a couple of thousand years. But locks are an even more relatively new development. And many of the newer locks are actually rather technically sophisticated, and supposedly, even safer.

Izzat cuz weze gittin dummer?

Some folks seem to be able to make a living, of sorts, off of tryin to break stuff on the interwebz, and can be pretty creative at finding ways to destroy otherwise perfectly good products. To hell with that BS, if I wanna know if I can destroy something, I'm gonna do it myself. I sure as hell ain't gonna sit on my ass in front of a computer and watch somebody I don't know get paid to have more fun than me doin something I'm perfectly capable of doin without even really tryin.

And my spine's already outta whack, I try not to bang it on stuff unnecessarily......
 
Testing?
Yes please!

NEVER testing a lock is silly. Like never testing a seatbelt or brakes on a car.

Stupid testing?
Nah.

I’m guessing that the folks here that don’t like “YouTuber” spine whack testing are A) ok with the manufacturers doing this testing, or B) simply see no point in a lock whatsoever and just carry slipjoints and shards of glass around to cut things like in the olden days. ;p
 
scdub said:
Testing?
Yes please!

NEVER testing a lock is silly. Like never testing a seatbelt or brakes on a car.

Stupid testing?
Nah.

I’m guessing that the folks here that don’t like “YouTuber” spine whack testing are A) ok with the manufacturers doing this testing, or B) simply see no point in a lock whatsoever and just carry slipjoints and shards of glass around to cut things like in the olden days. ;p
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So what’s the real-world practicality of it? You can’t just say the test is like testing the seatbelt and brakes on a car.. because those two features are used all the time, particularly the brakes. So tell us why the “spine whack” is the knife equivalent of brakes on a car?
 
I hate pine 2×4's with a passion!! Everytime I encounter one I attack it with whatever I have on me!, I cant always bite through one in less than 3-4 chomps, and even a good quality folder, doesn't have the weight for chopping...but there is almost always a, baseball bat, monkey wrench, tire iron, or just a lump of concrete or ashpalt, that will allow me to preserve my polished edge and pound the spine into that sucker until it splinters into kindling!!
This is why all my folders have Fame! Axle! Or Tri Able locks!
 
In advertising, we'd call such nonsense "irrelevant demos"--they look good but mean nothing.
 
They are out there.
I’ve seen a few guys that were very aggressive in knife use. Instead of using a controlled steady slice or push cut to open a bag they attacked it as if fighting a grizzly bear. Lol. I think it’s mostly for dramatics instead of just getting the job done

Yes accidents can happen and the rare incident of lock failure is possible but it’s usually done in a careless manner without regard to physics. Inertia is going to happen when force and velocity acts the same as using your fingers to disengage the lock. That’s how it is supposed to work.

I’ve seen similar stunts on old slapstick comedies so it’s not new, just meant to get a laugh at someone’s ignorance. Lol
 
Paratrooper06 said:
So what’s the real-world practicality of it? You can’t just say the test is like testing the seatbelt and brakes on a car.. because those two features are used all the time, particularly the brakes. So tell us why the “spine whack” is the knife equivalent of brakes on a car?
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Real world practicality of testing the lock is to see if it works as expected. Just like a seatbelt or the safety on a firearm.

You might not like or use seatbelts or firearm safeties, but if someone is marketing them to us as safety features I’d hope and expect them to have been tested as such.

People make and buy billions? trillions? of knives with locks for real world reasons (as opposed to knives with slipjoints, or detents, or “slowdowns” or “speedbumps”). We’re talking about LOCKS designed so that knives won’t close accidentally.

We can all agree that’s the function of a knife lock I hope?

Ok then, let’s test our LOCK before we start selling it to random folks, since otherwise we might be selling something with a faulty safety feature.

How do we test it? I’m thinking with a certain degree of force that is aimed at defeating the lock mechanism. Spine whack and weight hang are two that come to mind.

Are you in favor of different kinds of lock tests?

Do you like locking knives but think the lock should NEVER be tested by the manufacturer?

I don’t understand the logic of making a safety feature and NOT testing it - where’s the “real world practicality” of that?
 
You guys should watch the joe x videos; a numnut in a gas mask beating knives into oblivian; probably the most stupid and pointless abuse ive seen.And to think i get the slightest tape residue from opening a package and i break out the case paste or flitz....
 
Why bother to have a lock at all ? :confused:

If you never really need a lock , just get a slip joint... instead of a half-assed junky lock that you have to be afraid to spine wack or otherwise proof test .

For those who want a folder to function as close to fixed as possible , these type tests are perfectly valid .

IMO , the whole purpose of a lock is to hold the blade open and in place . For whatever I need to do , even in an emergency or a fight . :cool::thumbsup::thumbsup:

If your folder lock fails in some small way in regular use , probably no big deal . If it fails under hard use / survival conditions ...that would be sad . :oops:
 
scdub said:
Real world practicality of testing the lock is to see if it works as expected. Just like a seatbelt or the safety on a firearm.

You might not like or use seatbelts or firearm safeties, but if someone is marketing them to us as safety features I’d hope and expect them to have been tested as such.

People make and buy billions? trillions? of knives with locks for real world reasons (as opposed to knives with slipjoints, or detents, or “slowdowns” or “speedbumps”). We’re talking about LOCKS designed so that knives won’t close accidentally.

We can all agree that’s the function of a knife lock I hope?

Ok then, let’s test our LOCK before we start selling it to random folks, since otherwise we might be selling something with a faulty safety feature.

How do we test it? I’m thinking with a certain degree of force that is aimed at defeating the lock mechanism. Spine whack and weight hang are two that come to mind.

Are you in favor of different kinds of lock tests?

Do you like locking knives but think the lock should NEVER be tested by the manufacturer?

I don’t understand the logic of making a safety feature and NOT testing it - where’s the “real world practicality” of that?
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Well a spine wack test isn’t accidental like. It’s purpose is to take it to the point of failure or damage.
There are many models and designs of locking blades that have been safely used for 50+ years with plenty of field use, industrial and various tasks. So far the only ones complaining are those who are absent of reason.
everything has a limit as well as a purpose. If someone wants to take a knife beyond it’s intended purpose thats on them not the manufacture. Most manufacturers have a limited warranty because they know there are stubborn folks bent on testing to the point of destruction. Underwear is designed for the purpose of hygiene and shield outer garments, but do you want to test the limit of how well it holds crap?
 
I know for a fact that most reputable manufacturers test their knife designs and take them beyond the normal usage. They have their name and reputation at stake.

Why should I trust some ytube jockeys in their tests ? Who put them in charge of testing ? Where’s their certification ? They probably don’t have calibrated equipment or a way to actually know the amount of force or the engineering specs to go by. That is like the blind leading the blind.

I remember a hardness test snafu awhile back that made a lot of manufactures look bad. It was found out later the test criteria was faulty and not calibrated, certified or done according to the standard specs. Some home garage engineer took it upon himself to do some testing and botched it badly.

Beware of the un-certified home/garage tester on ytube or anywhere else!
 
ALL of which is a round-about way of saying that if yer gonna use a folding knife for much more than opening mail or spreading mayo, ya should probably keep an eye out for wayward 2x4s, beams, car hoods or anything else that might not have YOUR best interests in mind......,
 
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