You know, when someone says something like this it completely discredits every thing they have said in the past and will say in the future. It takes about 5 seconds to of googling to prove you wrong. Even your buddy Sam says hollow handle knives have failed. He as pictures too!
Then if it takes 5 seconds, why has nobody come up with any photos of any examples by now? It's been like several
weeks... I'll try to help you on that later, as you badly need it...
I pointed out the JK1 that Sam Wilson has found, and that was the only one: Not that great a representative example anyway, both on the design and quality...
It was posted by someone else on bladesforums, and remains the one genuine broken hollow handle tang (besides the Bill Bagwell Buckmaster article):
People come up with the dumb example of the Chris Reeves Project being hit with metal (Cliff Stamp also broke his), which is
blade breakage. I never even mentionned blade breakage: What the heck does
blade breakage have to do with hollow handles? Obviously I am dealing here with
technical sophistication of a high order...
I talked about
tang breakage: Besides the JK1 above, I have never seen a seriously made Hollow Handle fail at the tang, and for obvious reasons: A smaller tang of the same stock will always be much harder to break than a bigger tang of the same stock, just like a smaller blade of the same stock is harder to break than a bigger blade of the same stock, all else being equal...
To argue that small tangs are easier to break than long tangs is just as stupid as argueing that long blades are stronger than small blades. In fact, to argue that
any smaller object is more susceptible to breakage than a larger object, based on size alone, is about as close to terminal stupidity as one can get...
Unfortunately for the naysayers, there isn't much about a machined steel tube handle that is susceptible to breakage either, so all that's left is the attachement method, of which there can be a wide variety in quality and design... Again, unfortunately for the naysayers, there are many easy ways to make the attachment method quite inaccessible to leverage, and separate parts are definitely less susceptible to vibration-induced breakage as well, though certainly not immune, depending on design.
I'll try to help you guys, since your case is so obviously dire:
So show me a picture of a broken
tang on anyone of those: Buck Buckmaster; Lile First Blood, Mission or Sly II; Timberline/Neeley SA; Parrish Survivor; RJ Martin Blackbird; Randall Model 18; Wall First Blood or Model 18 style; Andrew Clifford Sly II; Steve Vorhees Rambo style, and you will get,
free of any charge, drum roll please:
A mint condition Pre-Dot Lile Sly II, Cerakoated not original finish (since the original sandblasted finish was really crap): It is being refurbished and Cerakoated now, so if you are quick enough you may get to choose the Cerakoat colour... Sheath will be an original Lile Sly II sheath, brown and no hone, dead mint but with a nice waterproof matte coat. This is originally designed to be a cordless handle Sly II, so a straight smooth tube handle, and no compass in the buttcap, but otherwise mint-looking, and the edge will a professionally done 30 degree inclusive edge, much sharper than the pathetic original 80 degree edge...
These are the only conditions I put on the photo: You must be able to source it as older than this challenge, otherwise you don't just get a Lile by taking a sledgehammer to you Buckmaster...
Obviously the Buckmaster is the one that will do me in, since there was over 110 000 made... With this in mind, the other limitation I put in is that the Buckmaster in the photo
must have at least the Patent pending or later marking on the same side as "Buck 184", as earlier ones could have had the tang not annealed, and so don't count... That just eliminates about 13 000 out of 110 000... And I will also exclude the one Bill Bagwell broke on an anvil in the "Big blade bust" SOF article, regardless of what its markings were: Too easy...
I will likely lose this challenge, especially with the Buckmaster in it, but then again who know? It is clear and simple enough: You say Hollow handle short tangs break? Then put up and
provide a picture out of the large selection above, and you get a mint-looking 2K Lile knife in
much better shape than when it left the shop...
This is what you'll get, a bit bland but...:
So let's see where are all those broken tangs: Can't wait to see them...: First one to post a dated pic wins. If nothing comes up, then we'll
really know who knows what they are talking about...
Gaston
P.S. In case you are wondering if I'll really come through, note that I don't like the knife and rarely if ever sell my knives, so make of this what you will, but please don't pretend it's because you think I won't send you a free Lile, and pay postage to boot...
