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Tri-Ad lock from Cold Steel SR1 Lite Tanto Failing Multiple Times Under Hard Use Test

SteelByMySide said:
I don't think it's dumb at all. I think that hard use tests are very valid.
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I find hard use testing fine to test limits. But spine whacks are not an applicable test if you want real-world testing. Especially that hard. Beat on the knife, but pick something that at least mildly applies to how it's used. I feel like the spine whack is like driving a car off a cliff into the Grand Canyon to see how a car handles a crash.

The title is also mis-leading. It makes it seem like the knife failed and if it can take thag much abuse, that is a heck of a tough folder. It handled ghings I wouldn't expect some fixed blades to handle.
 
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What a waste of time, zero relevance. If you don't ever use a knife for anything, you have no idea how to "hard use" test that knife. Chopping into the sheet metal body of a car or smacking the spine of the blade on a cinder block is stupid. At least batoning has real world application.
 
bikerector said:
I find hard use testing fine go test limits. But spine whacks are not an applicable test if you want real-world testing. Especially that hard. Beat on the knife, but pick something that at least mildly applies to how it's used. I feel like the spine whack is like driving a car off a cliff into the Grand Canyon to see how a car handles a crash.

The title is also mis-leading. It makes it seem like the knife failed and if it can take thag much abuse, that is a heck of a tough folder. It handled ghings I wouldn't expect some fixed blades to handle.
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I couldn't agree more. Open some food cans, pry some slats off a crate or pallet, dig into some wood simulating a search for insects and dryer wood, sharpen a point on a stick, strip some tree bark, notch some hardwood, baton some wood rounds, hack some bamboo, clean a fish....all useful testing. Otherwise, we are just watching a video of someone filling their idle time.
 
I wasn't interested in these, but now I am. That knife took a tremendous amount of hard (and by that I mean stupid) use before it wore out. If we're being realistic it's tougher than probably 99.9% of the sub $50 folders on the market. I honestly would've forgive it if gave up within 5 minutes of that "test".
 
tltt said:
I wasn't interested in these, but now I am. That knife took a tremendous amount of hard (and by that I mean stupid) use before it wore out. If we're being realistic it's tougher than probably 99.9% of the sub $50 folders on the market. I honestly would've forgive it if gave up within 5 minutes of that "test".
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Me too, LOL! I was eyeing the SR1 Lite a while back. I thought about purchasing a KaBar Mule folder yrs ago, but I vaguely remember the lock mechanism experienced some failures with that model. The SR1 knives fill that “ridiculously large folder” niche like the Mule. I just looked at the specs, made in Taiwan (yeah!). But the steel is Chinese, if I’m not mistaken.
 
Nice! He beat on it pretty good on that oak, from both sides. Pretty Impressive for a cheap knife. Thanks,
 
SteelByMySide said:
4 - Maybe I shouldn't say that the Tri-Ad failed. Maybe I should say that the knife simple broke from so much abuse.
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Yes, you should.

If you abuse anything long enough and hard enough, it will fail. In engineering, we call that an "ultimate strength test".
Here's how Boeing does it with airplane wings. In this case a 777.

It gets tested till it breaks. The fact that it finally broke does not indicate a failure. The amount of force necessary to cause the failure is the pass/fail criteria.

I once used an unusual adhesive bond design at work. The stress folks objected because they could not calculate the strength of the bond. So we tested it, to see how strong it actually was. "Test to failure." The lab reported that the design "failed at 750 lbs of applied force". We had a young project engineer who started wringing his hands about what steps were we taking to fix the design, because "it failed". We had to gently explain to him that the part only needed to withstand 38 pounds of force and that the design was fine. That young fella got hung up on the word "fail".

In the case of the SR1 LITE, even the tester was amazed at how much abuse the knife withstood before failing. And with how well the edge held up. I'm going to guess that when he repeatedly forced it sideways after pounding it into the log, the lock mechanism got tweaked a bit. That likely allowed some play in it and allowed it to release with the repeated spine whacks. That was a ridiculous amount of side force to apply to any folder. I was impressed. (or maybe aghast.)

Everything will fail if you sufficiently beat on it. The only question is, "How much abuse will it withstand before failing?" The SR1 Lite withstood a tremendous amount.
 
knarfeng said:
Yes, you should.

If you abuse anything long enough and hard enough, it will fail. In engineering, we call that an "ultimate strength test".
Here's how Boeing does it with airplane wings. In this case a 777.

It gets tested till it breaks. The fact that it finally broke does not indicate a failure. The amount of force necessary to cause the failure is the pass/fail criteria.

I once used an unusual adhesive bond design at work. The stress folks objected because they could not calculate the strength of the bond. So we tested it, to see how strong it actually was. "Test to failure." The lab reported that the design "failed at 750 lbs of applied force". We had a young project engineer who started wringing his hands about what steps were we taking to fix the design, because "it failed". We had to gently explain to him that the part only needed to withstand 38 pounds of force and that the design was fine. That young fella got hung up on the word "fail".

In the case of the SR1 LITE, even the tester was amazed at how much abuse the knife withstood before failing. And with how well the edge held up. I'm going to guess that when he repeatedly forced it sideways after pounding it into the log, the lock mechanism got tweaked a bit. That likely allowed some play in it and allowed it to release with the repeated spine whacks. That was a ridiculous amount of side force to apply to any folder. I was impressed. (or maybe aghast.)

Everything will fail if you sufficiently beat on it. The only question is, "How much abuse will it withstand before failing?" The SR1 Lite withstood a tremendous amount.
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Pretty cool. Would be interesting to see how the wing would react if it was flexed much more quickly like would happen in actual turbulence.
 
The guy did a lot of things that weren't safe. :thumbsdown:

I like "extreme" push to/beyond the limit tests done safely.

Nos' Busse Basic 9 videos are an example.

I believe there's a place for such tests done safely...my reasons are that this thread has gotten some good pro/con attention and it's probably sold a few SR1's. ;)
 
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