What Are Your "Hard Uses" ?

[Bookworm]

One thing I consider "hard use" (among others) is loaning your knife to someone else to use ... you just never know what chore they might have in mind for your knife and do not really care what might damage the knife ... I carry a cheap "loaner / beater" folder just for this and other nasty jobs.

wow, can't agree to that more. That's why the blade on my gerber has a couple chips in it.

I consider hard use as cutting electrical wire, cutting hard plastic scraping gaskets off, cutting hard rubber and stuff like that. For those tasks I use my old Spyderco Delica and a cheap S&W folder.

I am a service tech in the food and beverage industry. I am constantly cutting reinforced beverage tubing, zip ties and the like, I call that hard use. I'm about 85% hard use, 15% mundane cutting tasks during a typical work day. Slicing fruit at lunchtime would be a good example of a mundane chore. I have never considered using a light duty locking folder or a SAK while on the job. I've got my share of them, but that's what weekends are for

I've never considered that to be hard labor. I work for a company that puts on company-scale outdoor parties, and we use a LOT of bar locks (zip ties for you not in that line of work) on a slow day I'll cut through maybe 50-100 bar locks, on a BIG day, maybe 600-1000. (the cutters on my multitool see most of this, but still) I go through a lot of wire, rope, tubing, paper, plastic, cloth, and sometimes wood.

In retrospect, I guess I am somewhat hard on my knife. hooray! Now at least I have a good excuse to buy another.

 

[sodak]

Cutting wire, trying to split wood, splitting a pelvis or sternum, scraping gaskets. All hard use, but in a different way.

 

[Easyrider]

What are my hard uses for a knife?

I'm a college student and for me a hard use that I do most days is to open a snickers bar package! Nothing is more frustrating than needing a chocolate fix and can't get through that wrapper!


Fortunately my William Henry T-09 is up to the task.

 

[starboard]

Sometimes I have to shear off thin metal tabs, or cut into something resilient that's backed by metal or glass. It's nice how easily blade steel will go through soft thin metal. I don't much worry about edge damage, since it's easy enough (and fun) to bring it back.

 

[Jamesh Bond]

One thing I consider "hard use" (among others) is loaning your knife to someone else to use ... you just never know what chore they might have in mind for your knife and do not really care what might damage the knife ... I carry a cheap "loaner / beater" folder just for this and other nasty jobs.

Here here.....! Minus the loaner part...
I simply refuse unless I'm sure they aren't dumbasses....

 

[IUKE12]

wow, can't agree to that more. That's why the blade on my gerber has a couple chips in it.





I've never considered that to be hard labor. I work for a company that puts on company-scale outdoor parties, and we use a LOT of bar locks (zip ties for you not in that line of work) on a slow day I'll cut through maybe 50-100 bar locks, on a BIG day, maybe 600-1000. (the cutters on my multitool see most of this, but still) I go through a lot of wire, rope, tubing, paper, plastic, cloth, and sometimes wood.

In retrospect, I guess I am somewhat hard on my knife. hooray! Now at least I have a good excuse to buy another.

The OP is asking what you consider hard use for a knife, not what you consider hard labor. Since you seem to agree that cutting zip ties constitutes hard use for a knife, it appears that we agree. I never stated how many zip ties I cut in a day, or how many miles of tubing I slice through...I'd need a calculator

 

[Daniel Dorn]

I've put my BM 730CFHS through more hard use than any other knife I own. When my weed-eater broke down, I walked my privacy fence with the knife, and hacked away at the long grass, and small seedling trees. Got a few chips on the concrete walk.

I've also used it at my folks' house cutting drywall (several long days), yards of vinyl flooring, and shaving 2x4's to fit.

It also went with me to New Orleans for clean-up a couple years ago, and cut a few rubber gas lines, and some plastic drums.

More mundanely, it's opened up countless large heavy-duty cardboard shipping boxes.

When I think that I could have sold that knife recently for 200% profit, NIB, I cringe a little, but I think I've gotten more real use out of that knife than most all of my other knives combined. It's the best $100 I've ever spent.

It looks like $#!+ now, but that's just the teflon finish on the blade. The Axis lock, and knife blade have held up remarkably well, with no play at all, and I have sharpened out all the dings, and have a great edge.

It still does light duty, but it's just waiting for a new adventure.

Daniel

 

[thedogpound2]

i use a 20 dollar smkw gerber 3.5 presto at the graveyard where i work and it takes a beaten and keeps coming back for more