The knife broke and I feel bad!

D

Don Powell

Joined
Sep 21, 2001
Messages
265
About three years ago I made a caping knife for my son. D2 steel, Paul Bos heat treat, Rc 60, 1/8"x 3" spear point blade with choil finger grove which leaves only a 2 1/2" cutting surface. He starting using it to field dress all his deer. He had an arrow deflected by a branch, and then into a tree trunk. He used the little knife to try to remove his broadhead and broke 1/4" off the tip. He said he was trying to be careful. Do you guys think D2 should hold up to this? I wish I had made the knife out of CPM 3V!
 
I'd have to see the arrow in the tree to really say for sure whether I thought the knife should hold up to it. As it is, I'd have to say that its not too surprising that the tip broke off. Just something that happens once in awhile when you get to digging and prying in hard stuff. Steel probably didn't matter much, might have hit something he didn't expect, might have pried too hard. And it really wasn't a knife designed in the sharpened prybar category from what you say, it was a caping knife, designed for fine cutting. Pretty dang hard to make one thats good at both.
 
Yup, what Matt said. From all I've heard, Paul Bos gets you the most from the steel that there is to offer. Its hard to make a knife do all things well. If you designed the knife to withstand the stress of prying a broadhead from a tree, its likely it won't be much of a caping knife.

Might I suggest a quick "repair job" ?

You can grind the tip of the blade back in short order.

Grind a straight line from spine down to the first bit of intact edge and you will actually have a "sharks tooth" type tip which is significantly stronger, but won't be as fine for detailed caping jobs.

Use a contact wheel to grind a clip into the spine / tip to make a new tip. The tip will be finer but less tough.

I think this also further illustrates the point... :( Jason.
 
Thanks Matt and Jason. I just started back making a few knives and having a knife break is not something that inspires me. After thinking about it some more, I must say that prying was not what I had in mind when I designed the knife. This incident does however, make me think about sayings like, " a tacticle knife is the knife that you have with you when you need to defend yourself,or a survival knife is the knife that you have with you when you are faced with survival. Maybe I need to re-evaluate the meaning of a hunting knife and how it's designed and what it's made of.
 
If your thinking of making a new knife or re grinding, another oprion would be a new sheath and spike. If the arrow head is likely to get into another tree, a 5/16 rod spike with chisel point attached to the front ( leading edge of the sheath) may be usefull. If you make it a sharpening steel and or what ever else you like it may be usefull and leave the knife for cutting. I think any knife point is far more fragile than we think. I think the steel you used is fine just a bit of a learning curve for just how fragile a tip can be. I broke a point of my favourite knife ONCE. I have re ground a couple of other peoples.

I have seen spikes as sharpening steels and also as spikes for ropework in nice combo sets.
 
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