I don't think Iz Turley needs to be talked about in a negative manner. This has nothing to do with him or Turley knives. He could stab rocks and no one should care. He makes his own knives and can do with them what he wants. Also in a lot of his vids he says he is over abusing his knives and doing things you shouldn't just to make sure they will hold up for the customer. He must be doing something right with his lengthy wait list and his knives reselling higher than what he sells them for.
I don't know if you guys realize that the guy in the video is an extremely respected maker who has a sub forum here and on bcusa. His wait list is like 4 years or something, more importantly he's an avid woodsman and an awesome guy.
I've tried to read all of this thread as I have time...for some reason my wife has had more than usual designs on my time tonight...
Anyway, I didn't see where anyone had spoken negatively about the man, or his knives. I hope not anyway, as this isn't the place for it, and I have come to expect better than such things from the crowd that frequents this forum. I saw where some voiced a negative opinion of the technique, and we all have a right to an opinion when the technique is offered up by the OP as a descriptor of what he was doing at the time the knife broke. Opinions of the technique are going to be personal to the individual based on various factors...personal experiences in the woods, and personal experiences with preferred knife styles. Myself, I think the technique of using a knife in chisel fashion is viable, will be run across in some survival situations, but should be done with a tool made with this use in mind. I think these knives, in a reasonable scenario, would most likely be better suited to military and combat rescue personnel, or barring that someone anticipating a survival situation or some form of catastrophic event. I think about these types of situations a lot in designing tools for combat personnel, because during times of traumatic and stressful events like being shot at, chased, artillery rounds bursting in uncomfortably close proximity, etc. can seriously diminish reason and rational thought. Tools made for guys that are in this line of work should be built tough enough to withstand some serious abuse. Not all knives need to be.
I have a few knives I use for crazy experiments from this line of thinking. An absolute favorite is one made by Dylan Fletcher. A heavy-duty field knife made of 3/16 O-1. The extended pommel was requested just for instances where the knife may be used in chisel fashion. I find the pommel extension serves the purpose well, without the hassle and wait time involved in a welded pommel done correctly. And I like the concept of welded pommels, there is at least one regular in this forum that can attest to my fondness for them, as well as the amount of work involved in sorting out the balance. Dylan was able to give me exactly what I needed with the pommel extension, and a perfect neutral balance without having to wait a year to get the knife much less four years.
That said, in this instance I'm not convinced it was the technique as much as perhaps the execution of it by someone just practicing it. If the knife was stuck into the wood with enough force that tight grain of the wood already had the tip of the blade flexed a little, thus already under lateral stress, then while holding the handle of the knife the piece of wood was struck down upon a solid surface. If the piece of wood did not strike the surface flatly, and the force of the blow caused the piece to roll to a flat position, then the sudden force applied to the tip, already under lateral stress, by the change in direction of the force, could have broken it. If that were the case then it is simple physics. The energy was transferred and concentrated on a small section of the blade. That's just one scenario mind you, and I'm not saying that's what happened, just that it could be. I have seen that type of stress and energy transference damage knives in the past in my own experiments. I have also run across inclusions in knives that were not designed for, nor warranted against, the types of use they were damages during. I lived and learned.
My advice for such experiments, would be to get an ESEE-4.They are tough, and guaranteed for life. The most they will do is ridicule you if you do something stupid, but you'll get a new knife and at a third of the cost of a hand made knife like a Fiddleback. Use that knife to learn and experiment with, and learn. Then carry your nicer knives to use as cutting tools when out and about, and apply what you've learned with your beaters if you inadvertently find yourself in a survival situation. It's all about circumstance and situation. If the actions performed while breaking the tip of a $300 knife in turn saved a life, it would seem a bargain, but broken while experimenting in a back yard, not so much. In my humble opinion, that's just a risk you take when experimenting with survival techniques with an expensive knife that was neither designed nor marketed as a survival knife. We live and learn, and some lessons are just poignant.
