What do you learn from destruction tests?

[Cosmic Superchunk]

What I've learned is that most people who buy into the torture test hype do it to convince themselves that the knives they buy are bad-ass, thus they feel bad-ass for carrying them. The vast majority of the people who frequent this forum will never put their knives to such abuse. The forum is replete with OCD types who obsess over their knives and freak out if the blade isn't perfectly centered in the handle when closed or fuss about the scuff they got on the blade from inserting their knife into it's sheath. Don't believe me? Just look at the number of people on this forum who won't buy black coated blades because the coating wears off and they don't want their knives to look like crap after some use.

 

[singularity35]

What I've learned is that most people who buy into the torture test hype do it to convince themselves that the knives they buy are bad-ass, thus they feel bad-ass for carrying them. The vast majority of the people who frequent this forum will never put their knives to such abuse. The forum is replete with OCD types who obsess over their knives and freak out if the blade isn't perfectly centered in the handle when closed or fuss about the scuff they got on the blade from inserting their knife into it's sheath. Don't believe me? Just look at the number of people on this forum who won't buy black coated blades because the coating wears off and they don't want their knives to look like crap after some use.

So now you've gone from attacking the tester to attacking the people who find the tests useful for some purpose? Watta guy!

 

[kurodrago]

infamous CRK GB breakage,

S30V AIN'T an Impact steel. Just ask around.....a two year old child knows this

 

[americanbulldog1]

Remember you get what you pay for, you click on a video of a DESTRUCTION test you get a DESTRUCTION test. You play these videos that's what you get. I don't see the point either, but yet i still find myself watching them and saying Whats The Point. I guess i shoud listen to the words of Nancy Reagan { just say no }

 

[Planterz]

Somehow I knew you weren't going to give a serious answer. LOL

Not everybody's looking to chop down a tree or carve up a truck with their knife. The biggest, baddest folder I have is an Endura, and the largest fixed blade I own is a Swick (marginally larger than my SPOT). If I were in the market for a large camp or "combat" knife, I'd probably go with a Becker, ESEE, or SW. Any of those would far exceed anything I would expect to do with it, or expect it to handle. But not matter how big and/or bad it was, I'd still use it with reasonable restraint, judgement, and intelligence. It's only steel, after all.

In high school a friend of mine got new glasses with those titanium frames that can bend like crazy without breaking and then return to normal. He demonstrated them to me by twisting them around, and they broke. The point is that they're only eyeglasses. Eyeglasses, by their nature, tend to get strained. They get stuck on your ear when you take them off, they get sat upon, they get dropped, etc. Some people are really hard on them. These super-flexible ones are designed for that. But they're still only eyeglasses. Not rubber bands. It's one thing to use something to its reasonable limit, but another to willingly disregard and exceed that limit. Knives, by their nature, require hard steel, and hard steel, by definition, has limits to toughness and flexibility. Understanding those limits will get you a lot further than testing them beyond those limits.

I can appreciate the desire to know the limits of a particular knife, but knowing those limits requires a) reasonable restraint, and b) scientific repeatability, neither of which noss4 demonstrates in his "tests". You don't test something by doing something to it that has a high likelihood of exceeding its limits (like dropping an egg from the top of your roof). All that it demonstrates is that you exceeded that limit, rather than what that limit is.

 

[unit]

I am not sure I have learned anything watching a handful of these videos EXCEPT that I would REALLY like a YouTube feature like the one on my DVD player that allows me to watch the video in 2x, 4x, or 16x speed without sound.

I watch these videos occasionally for entertainment and with very few exceptions, I find them to be WAY too long and boring.

 

[singularity35]

I can appreciate the desire to know the limits of a particular knife, but knowing those limits requires a) reasonable restraint, and b) scientific repeatability, neither of which noss4 demonstrates in his "tests". You don't test something by doing something to it that has a high likelihood of exceeding its limits (like dropping an egg from the top of your roof). All that it demonstrates is that you exceeded that limit, rather than what that limit is.

There's all this talk about scientific repeatability which is the most often quoted reason to invalidate these "tests", and that's all fine if you want to measure something to several decimal places but that is probably not the purpose here. Let's not just talk about Noss or whoever, let's take somebody stabbing a refrigerator door with a becker whatever. it survives with no damage except dulling. If you have the same becker, it's a reasonable assumption that yours will be able to survive stabbing a fridge door. You don't need to have a machine that will replicate the same exact stroke with the same exact force measured all to several decimal places.

You need several decimal places of accuracy to just even say it's repeatable. I say any guy can stab a fridge door with the same knife and that for me is a good enough repeatability.

To quote somebody:

"The word science comes from the latin which means knowledge, it has been used since the time of Aristotle to mean that which can be known through reason. It has evolved (very recently) to separate it from philosophy to be that which can be known through measurement. At a basic level, if you claim something is not scientific you are saying that you learned nothing from what you did, and further it is incapable of learning anything from doing so. There is absolutely nothing unscientific about anything you did. The methods could be improved to refine accuracy and precision, but this is the case with any experiment."

 

[Planterz]

To quote somebody:

"The word science comes from the latin which means knowledge, it has been used since the time of Aristotle to mean that which can be known through reason. It has evolved (very recently) to separate it from philosophy to be that which can be known through measurement. At a basic level, if you claim something is not scientific you are saying that you learned nothing from what you did, and further it is incapable of learning anything from doing so. There is absolutely nothing unscientific about anything you did. The methods could be improved to refine accuracy and precision, but this is the case with any experiment."

I don't disagree, but in this case (referring to the breakage of the CRK GB), the failure was not measured nor defined. Nor was it repeated, nor precisely tested on other knives. Just noss4 haphazardly whacking knives with a hammer into a 2x4.

I will grant this one concession: If I did want to break a knife, he demonstrates one way to, and in that way, he has produced a scientific result. Whacking a stainless steel knife from nearly directly overhead, with the knife already imbedded into wood, with the knife blade positioned at approximately a 60° degree angle from vertical, thus effectively twisting the knife in a manner in which knives are not meant to be twisted with an impact that such knives are not intended to be impacted, can break said knife.

 

[singularity35]

I don't disagree, but in this case (referring to the breakage of the CRK GB), the failure was not measured nor defined. Nor was it repeated, nor precisely tested on other knives. Just noss4 haphazardly whacking knives with a hammer into a 2x4.

I will grant this one concession: If I did want to break a knife, he demonstrates one way to, and in that way, he has produced a scientific result. Whacking a stainless steel knife from nearly directly overhead, with the knife already imbedded into wood, with the knife blade positioned at approximately a 60° degree angle from vertical, thus effectively twisting the knife in a manner in which knives are not meant to be twisted with an impact that such knives are not intended to be impacted, can break said knife.

You also learned another thing if you learned that. You've learned that anything less than that will not break the knife. Which is precisely the point of the demonstration which seeks to show what will break the knife and what won't.

 

[cziv]

NOSS does his thing, you can watch or turn the channel - and most knives are donated from what I recall. I find them interesting and some boring but it's no different than car companies who use destructive testing on their vehicles. Makers may find something in the tests that they can improve, I don't other than surprised to see some cheaper knives doing quite well.

I know He's never going to borrow one of my knives (if I ever met the guy )!

Cold Steel has been doing a more sophisticated version of this since day one and look at how successful they are?

 

[Planterz]

You also learned another thing if you learned that. You've learned that anything less than that will not break the knife. Which is precisely the point of the demonstration which seeks to show what will break the knife and what won't.

Not necessarily, and that's the point. Dropping an egg at 10 feet will break it. That doesn't mean that dropping it at 9 feet won't break it. Or even one foot. What he does/did doesn't demonstrate a knife's limits, merely what certain things exceed those limits. And that's what noss4's fans fail so spectacularly to understand.

 

[singularity35]

Not necessarily, and that's the point. Dropping an egg at 10 feet will break it. That doesn't mean that dropping it at 9 feet won't break it. Or even one foot. What he does/did doesn't demonstrate a knife's limits, merely what certain things exceed those limits. And that's what noss4's fans fail so spectacularly to understand.

But a knife is not an egg as you so often repeat that a knife is not a car.

I will grant this one concession: If I did want to break a knife, he demonstrates one way to, and in that way, he has produced a scientific result. Whacking a stainless steel knife from nearly directly overhead, with the knife already imbedded into wood, with the knife blade positioned at approximately a 60° degree angle from vertical, thus effectively twisting the knife in a manner in which knives are not meant to be twisted with an impact that such knives are not intended to be impacted, can break said knife.

It's obvious here in your post what you think broke the knife. It's also as obvious that just chopping a fridge door won't break that particular knife. That is at least one data point that is obvious. You just don't want to acknowledge that and you are using fancy footwork to avoid it.

 

[Planterz]

But a knife is not an egg as you so often repeat that a knife is not a car.

Different analogies of the same principle. Excessively abusive tests can only demonstrate something useful when the point of "excessive" can be be pinpointed and defined. Dropping a car off a cliff at 100 feet proves nothing more than dropping it off 110 feet if they're equally destroyed. And hitting 2 different knives with a 3lb hammer doesn't demonstrate anything unless they're done with identical forces at identical angles, particularly if one or both were never intended to be whacked by a guy with a 3lb hammer into a slab of wood.

 

[singularity35]

Different analogies of the same principle. Excessively abusive tests can only demonstrate something useful when the point of "excessive" can be be pinpointed and defined. Dropping a car off a cliff at 100 feet proves nothing more than dropping it off 110 feet if they're equally destroyed. And hitting 2 different knives with a 3lb hammer doesn't demonstrate anything unless they're done with identical forces at identical angles, particularly if one or both were never intended to be whacked by a guy with a 3lb hammer into a slab of wood.

Yep, but you seem to be missing the point that the knife is not being equally destroyed by battoning as compared to being pounded by a 3 pound hammer into a concrete block. Isn't it painfully obvious that a knife that can withstand being pounded with a 3 pound hammer into a cinder block for a period of 5-10 minutes will do much better with just reasonable battoning? Of course whether you need to batton or not.

5 minutes of pounding with a hammer into a cement block is obviously much harder on the knife than being battoned by a wooden batton into a 5 inch log or is that all the same to you?

You are still stuck in that identical forces and identical angles mindset when the point is if a knife can survive much harder pounding for a while, then it can in all reasonable expectations survive much better with lesser pounding which doesn't need to be measured by any other instrument except the one between your ears.

 

[Planterz]

being pounded by a 3 pound hammer into a concrete block.

I must not have seen that video.

 

[singularity35]

I must not have seen that video.

Well you're obviously just referring to one particular video. I am referring to destruction testing in general. And besides one particular method of extreme abuse is as good any if we are to be relevant to what we are discussing here.

 

[marthinus]

There's all this talk about scientific repeatability which is the most often quoted reason to invalidate these "tests", and that's all fine if you want to measure something to several decimal places but that is probably not the purpose here. Let's not just talk about Noss or whoever, let's take somebody stabbing a refrigerator door with a becker whatever. it survives with no damage except dulling. If you have the same becker, it's a reasonable assumption that yours will be able to survive stabbing a fridge door. You don't need to have a machine that will replicate the same exact stroke with the same exact force measured all to several decimal places.

You need several decimal places of accuracy to just even say it's repeatable. I say any guy can stab a fridge door with the same knife and that for me is a good enough repeatability.

To quote somebody:

"The word science comes from the latin which means knowledge, it has been used since the time of Aristotle to mean that which can be known through reason. It has evolved (very recently) to separate it from philosophy to be that which can be known through measurement. At a basic level, if you claim something is not scientific you are saying that you learned nothing from what you did, and further it is incapable of learning anything from doing so. There is absolutely nothing unscientific about anything you did. The methods could be improved to refine accuracy and precision, but this is the case with any experiment."

I know that quote....

From a pure scientific view (according to academic standards) if it aint repeatable by your piers it is invalid.

Yes science has developed, but science has also changed and questioned itself in order to become more accurate to be undeniable proof. In academic circles tests have to be repeatable and every measurement taken, this forms part of your methodology, data capturing, interpretation of that data and conclusion. Or else it is null and void. I know of a fellow student when I did my research that almost lost his degree because his methodology was not "clear enough on what is measured"

Science is far more complicated then just discovery and learning these days, same with engineering, geology, philosophy. All academic fields are changing constantly.

 

[Planterz]

Well you're obviously just referring to one particular video.

Yes, the one video that I've specifically referred to a few times, and referred to by others. I watch that video and all I can say is "well, no wonder it broke".

I am referring to destruction testing in general. And besides one particular method of extreme abuse is as good any if we are to be relevant to what we are discussing here.

Admittedly, knife destruction tests aren't exactly every-day-viewing for me, but if they're as unscientific as noss4's (or Cliff Stamp's), I doubt I'd be any less unconvinced. I'll grant that other people might find them more fascinating than I do, but for my own purposes, they're little more than arbitrary pissing contests.

 

[singularity35]

I know that quote....

From a pure scientific view (according to academic standards) if it aint repeatable by your piers it is invalid.

Yes science has developed, but science has also changed and questioned itself in order to become more accurate to be undeniable proof. In academic circles tests have to be repeatable and every measurement taken, this forms part of your methodology, data capturing, interpretation of that data and conclusion. Or else it is null and void. I know of a fellow student when I did my research that almost lost his degree because his methodology was not "clear enough on what is measured"

Science is far more complicated then just discovery and learning these days, same with engineering, geology, philosophy. All academic fields are changing constantly.

Ok then, let's not be scientific. Let's be use common sense. If a knife(say a battle mistress) can only be broken by being clamped in a vise and bent with a cheater bar, then it would probably not be a strain on common sense to assume that another battle mistress would be around as strong as that. It can be much weaker(unless it's defective) that it can stand prying apart a particle board from a frame since it only needs your brain to see that the second task is much less abusive than the first.

 

[singularity35]

Yes, the one video that I've specifically referred to a few times, and referred to by others. I watch that video and all I can say is "well, no wonder it broke".
Admittedly, knife destruction tests aren't exactly every-day-viewing for me, but if they're as unscientific as noss4's (or Cliff Stamp's), I doubt I'd be any less unconvinced. I'll grant that other people might find them more fascinating than I do, but for my own purposes, they're little more than arbitrary pissing contests.

Oh so you can use google too? It's just you guys who came out swinging against a test being "unscientific". In spite of that you can probably tell that one beating is less of a beating just buy looking at it. Or can't you?

Do you need to the latest scientific instruments to make the assumption that a similar knife won't break by battoning a small branch because we saw one that needed a vise and a cheater bar to break?