what is knife abuse?

hardheart

hardheart

Joined
Sep 19, 2001
Messages
8,968
I don't think abuse is universal to all cutting tools. Is it abuse to use a carbon blade in a saltwater environment? Is it abuse to cut abrasive or hard materials that dull the edge? Is cutting a tie wrap not considered abuse until a finely ground folder loses a bit of edge?

You can call batoning abuse, but if you then watch a couple dozens knives do it without issue, is it still abuse because a couple break? Is batoning just plain abusive to knives, or is it just abusive to the wrong kind of knife? Is a knife that can be used to baton, chop, or pry a bad knife?

Use the right tool for the job, but hey, what is the right job for the tool? Not so hard to guess with scalpels, fillet knives, bread knives, etc. But what is the 'right' job when the knife weighs a pound, has a spine thicker than 3/16", is saber ground, or has a tanto point, maybe has an edge more than .030" thick, possibly is coated to match military uniforms or to reduce glare, comes with sheaths that mount on load bearing equipment, or has any of the advertising and naming conventions you know the 'tacticals' all get.

Are all knives made just for cutting? If so, are we sacrificing cutting ability just for aesthetics and a coolness factor that isn't supposed to translate to uses outside of cutting? Are some makers doing the industry a disservice by advertising, encouraging, and warrantying such (ab)use?
 
Abuse for any given knife is the level of treatment that I would be ashamed to admit that I had done if I wanted to invoke the manufacturer's warranty.

Thus, abuse is a very different thing for my CRK Mnandi and my Busse Badger Attack. They were bought for dfferent purposes. Each is a valid tool, just with different capabilities.
 
Prying with a knife, using the edge as a screw driver, and throwing them is abuse. Cutting wire is a users call, I don't do it with my nice stuff.
To me a knife is a tool, if you take care of your tools they will take care of you.
-Mat
 
i dont like using a knife for anything except for what it was meant or made for. i have fixed countless broken tips, resharpened knives that cut cardboard laying on a concrete floor or cut wire. i have removed nicks 1/8" deep from nice knives from someone trying to cut a screw down by beating the spine only to mess up their knife. i get a sick feeling when i see a nice handmade knife abused or broken knowing what it takes to make a knife. the other day a friend showed me his buck folder with another broken tip. i had fixed it last year due to him using it as a screwdriver when all he had to do was walk a few feet and get a screwdriver. i have seen all kinds of abuse and used that information when drawing up my guarantee.
 
I guess that abuse depends on the knife. I wouldn't baton with a sak but it's fine for most fixed bades. I do agree with you, a knife should have some specific purpose, whether bushcraft, fighting, rescue, survival, etc. and some knives don't do any at all, take the Chris Reeve project1 for instance, it can't slice, chop or be abused so what is the point of it?
 
No, not ALL knives are made just for cutting. Are we sacrificing cutting ability for the sake of other things? Yes. Some of those things are needed by some people, some are needed by other people, and some are just there to appeal to the mall ninja set. Does a knife with a 3/16" spine, a flat saber grind and a thickness of .050" behind the edge slice a tomato cleanly into thin slices? I doubt it. Does a knife with a spine thickness of .080, a full flat grind and a thickness of .005" behind the edge take batoning well? Again, I doubt it. Are they both knives? Yes. They are just different kinds.

Abuse is using the knife for something it wasn't designed to do. How do you know for certain what you are doing is abuse? The knife breaks. It may be abuse even if the knife stands up to it, but a broken blade is a pretty good indicator.
 
MikeH said:
Abuse for any given knife is the level of treatment that I would be ashamed to admit that I had done if I wanted to invoke the manufacturer's warranty.

Thus, abuse is a very different thing for my CRK Mnandi and my Busse Badger Attack. They were bought for dfferent purposes. Each is a valid tool, just with different capabilities.
Click to expand...

yablanowitz said:
No, not ALL knives are made just for cutting. Are we sacrificing cutting ability for the sake of other things? Yes. Some of those things are needed by some people, some are needed by other people, and some are just there to appeal to the mall ninja set. Does a knife with a 3/16" spine, a flat saber grind and a thickness of .050" behind the edge slice a tomato cleanly into thin slices? I doubt it. Does a knife with a spine thickness of .080, a full flat grind and a thickness of .005" behind the edge take batoning well? Again, I doubt it. Are they both knives? Yes. They are just different kinds.

Abuse is using the knife for something it wasn't designed to do. How do you know for certain what you are doing is abuse? The knife breaks. It may be abuse even if the knife stands up to it, but a broken blade is a pretty good indicator.
Click to expand...

These seem like good definitions to me. "Abuse is something the knife was not designed to do. Exactly what that is will vary depending on the knife."
 
knarfeng said:
These seem like good definitions to me. "Abuse is something the knife was not designed to do. Exactly what that is will vary depending on the knife."
Click to expand...

I think that's a great place to start for the definition! "Using the wrong tool for the job."

I'd define cutting wire as "abuse" for most knives, because there's a better tool for the job--a wire cutter and stripper, which will do the job better and more efficiently. Then, of course you have Electrician's Knives that are designed to cut and strip wire.

I use the tiny screwdriver on my SAK Rambler (classic size) to pry the lids off paint cans when I don't have a paint key or screwdriver handy. However, I wouldn't think of doing the same task with the blade of another knife, and I'd definitely call it abuse.

Are there "hard use" knives that can take a ton of abuse with minimal or no damage? Sure. But I still think there are a lot of non-knife tasks that qualify as "abuse" whether or not your particular pocket tank can handle it.
 
I like that warranty definition that MikeH posted, and to it I'd add that if you'd be embarrassed telling your knife-knowledgeable friends about what you did to your knife, there's an excellent chance that a) you shouldn't have done it, and b) it's probably abuse.

It constantly boggles me that people try to do things that seem so patently obviously improper with knives, or for that matter other tools. This is a free country of course, but for goodness' sake, buy a prybar and a screwdriver.
 
To me, abuse of a knife is defined as lack of care for the tool. And by that I don't necessarily mean using the tool in a manner not intended, but rather simple neglect, like allowing a knife to become very dull, or corrosion.

Andy
 
Look to movies and TV for obvious signs of knife abuse. One instance that stands out is the first "National Treasure" movie in which Nick Cage uses a tactical folder to cut and hack through mortar to remove a brick from a wall.
Or the movie "Insomnia" which Al Pacino employs the less blasphemous but still frowned upon knife-blade-as-screwdriver.
 
Thats why I always have in my pocket a victrinox swiss officers model. has all the screwdrivers and such so i dont ruin my fixed blade. The little sissors work great for cutting thru king crab legs to get the meat out, lot better than those stupid nut craccker things they give you.
 
JimConvex said:
Hitting knives with hammers--chopping cinder blocks with knives.

Pointless and abusive.

Jim
Click to expand...

I disagree.

I don't think it's necessary to do abusive testing with a kitchen knife whose toughest job is going to be slicing tomatoes or a pocket folder whose toughest job is going to be cutting tape, but I always feel better when buying a knife for wilderness use to read about how it stands up to extreme abuse. If I get into an emergency or survival situation with a lot of unknowns, and where my life might depend on my knife, I'd far rather know it could chop a cinder block than know it couldn't.
 
I find abusive testing to be interesting but truly pointless. Well-made knives don;t need to be "tested" with vises, prybars, sledgehammers, concrete, and other such silly stuff.

It seems that most of us pay quite an exhorbant price for our knives, from the $40 Buck 110 to the elusive Busses. When we want to remove a screw we reach for a screwdriver and when one isn;t available, we leave the screw alone until later.

However, I think, IF in an emergency situation, the knife was the most reasonable tool to fix something, whatever that something was, I'd use even if it meant bending, breaking, or otherwise damaging the knife. So, in emergencies, I don;t think there is such a thing as knife "abuse" unless there was another tool or implement available that would have been more suited to the task.
 
StretchNM said:
I find abusive testing to be interesting but truly pointless. Well-made knives don;t need to be "tested" with vises, prybars, sledgehammers, concrete, and other such silly stuff.
Click to expand...

It's a counterbalance for when a knife or its steel is oversold, but that can be taken (correctly or otherwise) as assuming the knifemaker or steelmaker is lying and setting out to bring "THE TRUTH" to the unwashed masses. If you're proud of what your product can do and someone does their best to make you eat your words with only so much as an "oh, you weren't lying. Hunh..." in return, it's hard not to think of that person as an aardvaark or donkey.

I think John T. Wylie Jr. said it best. Leaving it in the safe is abuse.
 
There is a lot of fetishism going on in the "hard use" knife market.

If you believe the earth to be much more than 6000 years old, man, during his stay here, has gotten by in daily survival situations for tens of thousands of years, with no metal implements at all.

Then bronze, iron, and finally simple steels, getting on with the daily business of living with apparently inadequate stick tanged knives and swords.

Now? Now someone needs that comfort zone in their mind somewhere that their knife can chop through a cinder block?

Maybe the block stands in for the possible accidental rock strike, but seriously, how bad is your aim to hit it thirty times in a row?

And like I said in another thread, who besides Bear Grylls would be caught in the field hammering a knife with a rock?

There's a saying, "When all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail."

Knife abuse is a situation when the user's laziness or lack of imagination puts a knife into circumstances where it can break or be horribly chipped out.

That said, I don't offer to explain the Project I failing in wood, even though struck by a hammer.;)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top