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THE Hollow Handle Knife Thread
- Thread starter Sam Wilson
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I'm done talking about the video I think, unless D. Joy needs to talk some more.
For people that are wondering, the handle of my knife is cut down from the original pistol size which I agree is too big for a knife. The knife handle is actually 1/4 inch thinner than the pistol grip and 3/8 narrower. It's still a big grip though, and not for everybody. Some people will prefer a grip that doesn't fill the hand quite so much.
I used the cut down pistol grip because it was a cost effective way to create a pocket for a removable survival compartment. The 1911 mags. are readily available and not expensive.
At first I was using factory defect grip frames from Caspian, they were very inexpensive. Because there was a lot of time involved in welding and reworking the factory grips I had my own investment molds made to my specifications.
The knife is pretty well balanced and chops really well.
You didn't say too much. Please let me know if there's anything else you'd like to know.
Sam Wilson
Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
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Okay, Sam, where did you find that photo? I've never seen that Lile before. :thumbup:
Loving these pre-First Blood knives. Two from Mike Leach from the 70s. Wonder where he got the idea to use a crutchtip?
The pic is from Miles. I'm fairly certain there are more Lile copper HH knives, I would just have to dig a bit.
I like that Leach. It looks like something I would carry. The crutch tips have never done it for me, but I like the black knurled buttcap. Nice contrast, and I like the little lip for a cord ring he has. Well thought out design.
Sam
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Wow, never seen that copper handled knífe before......interesting.
About the CR; yes, I believe thats the granddaddy of his HH range.
Randall, right?
Just a wild 'stab' in the dark....
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Quite like that Leach.
About the CR; yes, I believe thats the granddaddy of his HH range.
Loving these pre-First Blood knives. Two from Mike Leach from the 70s. Wonder where he got the idea to use a crutchtip?
Randall, right?
Just a wild 'stab' in the dark....
-----
Quite like that Leach.
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2009
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- 4,421
I am just becoming aware that there are some misgivings about batoning, is there? In my mind, with the super strong construction of today's HH knives like the ones we see one this thread, there would be no problem.
I say baton away. What do you think. If you are a batonner, have you had problems? If you are a maker, do you prefer people don't baton on your knives?
What do you think?
Maybe this has already been covered and I missed it.
I say baton away. What do you think. If you are a batonner, have you had problems? If you are a maker, do you prefer people don't baton on your knives?
What do you think?
Maybe this has already been covered and I missed it.
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2001
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- 6,135
I'm not a batonner, but I have batonned before and understand the concept. In a survival situation, I would have complete confidence batoning with my Running River knife shown a few pages back. That blade ain't goin' nowhere. I'd be more concerned with the well-being of the log.
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I'm not a batonner, but I have batonned before and understand the concept. In a survival situation, I would have complete confidence batoning with my Running River knife shown a few pages back. That blade ain't goin' nowhere. I'd be more concerned with the well-being of the log.
I'm with you.
Aside from a few skeptics dubious about the inherent usefulness of batoning, I've rarely heard these days anyone with specific misgivings about it, aside from me that is...
My personal misgivings about batoning are entirely based on two five minute experiment with one knife: I needed to go no further...
The knife in question was a Stainless 440B Randall Model 12 with 14 grind, which had probably the best knife edge I have ever owned aside the Lile Mission and my Oryx Raider II... After thousands of chops in a variety of hard dried woods, the Model 12 showed absolutely no visible damage except for slow dulling, this on a less than 15 per side edge angle on a thin 0.020" base. (Most survival knives I have chopped with showed quite obvious destructive damage, usually in less than ten hits, when anywhere under 20 per side: Micro-rolls or micro-chips... This despite much thicker edge bases... These included, notably, a $2K RJ Martin Raven, A Neeley SA9, ACK Sly II, at least one Martin, and even one of my two Liles -this last one maybe performing poorly due to a heavy full height re-grind, I can't say-...
So I tried this "king of knives", the Model 12 I mean, sharpened -cold- by hand for two years, to do some mild splitting of small 2" diameter sticks: In five minutes of splitting these tiny sticks, the entire edge was micro-rolled (hard to see and only detectable by nail rubbing), having suffered more damage in 30 baton hits than in about 1500 hard chops... In disbelief, I repeated the test later, with great care, to the exact same result...
After this, I did the same as does the spell-check: I dropped "batoning" from my vocabulary... Maybe with extra-blunt 20 per side edges this phenomenon disappears, but likely subtle micro-rolling is simply not noticed by most users, who just get by with rapid geometry height loss, since a rolled edge an cut very well for a long time, and the effect is mostly that you lose bevel height faster on re-sharpening...
Another, even bigger, reason that batoning is a bad idea is that it is by far the use most associated with catastrophic breakage, this because the blade is "trapped" and not free to vibrate "naturally": No matter what anyone says, vibration fatigue is essentially unpredictable, especially in low temperatures (as if that wasn't bad enough!)... Batoning is OK for backyard use, but has nothing to do with rational "Survival" use, unless maybe the situation is imminent death from exposure, when physically wet and surrounded by wet wood, so yes there is still that one very narrow scenario... Even then, one should not "train" for this with the actual knife, since every hit makes a subsequent failure more and more likely, unless you claim to know what is going on at the microscopic level inside the steel...
Gaston
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Wait a minute. When I discussed the academics of jointed steel vs, one piece strength, I was told there was no difference.
Now, you're worried about catastrophic damage from batoning tiny sticks?
Or is it because of the sushi-chef edge you put on your hard-use survival blades?
I batoned a pallet full of Duraflame-type logs with a $20 Cold Steel machete and a 2.5 lb hammer with minimal damage.
I can't imagine being afraid to use it on real wood sticks the size of a cucumber.
Now, you're worried about catastrophic damage from batoning tiny sticks?
Or is it because of the sushi-chef edge you put on your hard-use survival blades?
I batoned a pallet full of Duraflame-type logs with a $20 Cold Steel machete and a 2.5 lb hammer with minimal damage.
I can't imagine being afraid to use it on real wood sticks the size of a cucumber.
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Did you ruin the edge on that machete by sharpening it ridiculously thin before you did this task? Because that might explain why you weren't successful in damaging it beyond belief. Just thought.
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It's amazing to me that you experienced edge roll when cutting straight into end grain on wood and not chopping into side grain. Don't know what to tell you.
Some day when I have nothing better to do I'm going to baton the heck out of everything I can find in my yard, I have a lot of fire wood in my yard. I'm going to take a picture of the edge before I start with my 30 power stereoscope and then a picture afterword and see what happens. I'll do it for as long as I need to and keep track of stuff. I'm going to wait till winter goes away though. It was 35 below zero yesterday.
I don't know what to say about vibration and fatigue either, I have vibrated the heck out of some knives with five pound sledges, with no knife failure, you could see hammer blows but nothing came apart. Maybe I'll learn more about that too when I do my test.
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I KNEW there was something I forgot to do!
Maybe I'll try batoning with a straight razor to get a better understanding of why I shouldn't baton...
I've seen actual 10 degree per side edges put on by REK at my request, huge true and perfect V-edge bevels applied with the Wicked-Edge, and this still held up perfectly to hard chopping with Aus-6 made in Japan (but on a smaller 6" blade, so less energy).
The Randall Model 12 that micro-rolled while batoning was at least 30-40% more open: So around 13-14 degrees per side, probably more counting the inevitable imperfect "swelling" of hand-sharpening: If you call that "Sushi-chef", then we simply don't have the same conception of sharpness...
There are two obvious ways to avoid micro-rolling while batoning: Not noticing it, or calling 20 degrees per side "sharp".
A third way is obviously behind the huge popularity of convex edges: It is very possible a nicely polished convex edge solves the "micro-rolling" problem completely by being duller near the apex. I call convex edges "duller" and go on from there...: The reason I do this is that, inevitably, I will gradually "convex" a true V-edge after a lot of crude sharpening in the field, so I'd rather not start with what I will eventually end up with...
If batoning gets me to a convex edge faster because of micro-rolling, then to me that is a bad thing. If you start with a convex edge, or the usual slightly "swelled" hand-applied edge, then you might not get any micro-rolling.
I do check very carefully for wire edges, so I do know when micro-rolling appears: It is not set up by a previous flaw I induced by sharpening... Interestingly, the micro-rolling was more pronounced near the tip of the Model 12, even if the splitting was started near the middle of the blade: This suggest the asymmetry in loads on the apex gets worse after the wood has split, which is quite counter-intuitive...
I really rather doubt I have the only steel in the world that behaves like this...
Gaston
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You are not accounting for so many variables it is laughable.
Two newest additions. Voorhis and a Martin MCE II. Both are being stripped down for a trip to the local duracoat guy. This is my second Martin and can't speak enough to the quality and capabilities of these knives. Voorhis has a neat cap system on the outside of the tube. Can't wait to get them coated. 1st pic is of family before, subsequent is the new kids.View attachment 691812View attachment 691811View attachment 691813