What is the toughest thing you ever made a knife do?

L

Leviathan

Joined
Dec 30, 2001
Messages
8
And did the knife survive the task?

Mine was making my old Buck 110 cut away the fueling probe from an oiler as it threatened to take the entire foward refueling station of my destroyer on a trip into the Pacific when both ships were hit by a rogue wave back in the day. My knife "survived" the task, breaking the locking bar, but I was always left wishing I'd had a machete at hand for that one.

The Buck 110 does not have great reach when trying to cut away several thousand pounds of apparatus all moaning hysterically. I am forever grateful that I learned how to sharpen what would obviously not be called "supersteel" back in the Dark Ages.

I have been buying fixed blades or tougher locking folders ever since because there is no such thing as an overbuilt folder.

What's your story?
 
I use a Swiss Army knife pretty roughly, and it shows the abuse:

I used it as a crowbar to take apart a wooden frame for a window, and snapped the main blade off in the process. I also use the smaller blade to chip spatter out of welds and have lost a good portion of the tip, and the edge looks like hell. Just reached for this rather than going to the store and buy a chipping hammer! oh well.

Erik
 
1. split frozen wood down to kindling. Don't remember the blade (this was a long time ago), a medium production knife (6" blade maybe) of its time, but it survived. Remember that I had to shave pieces progressivly off the larger wood.

2. Chopping out roots the shovel (holer) wouldn't cut when digging post holes. Another no-name fixed blade beater. Yes it survived. The blade had a lot of tweaks in it, but no chips.

3. Worst thing I ever did to a folder was to use my sebenza as an ice pick. Worked fine.

4. Worst thing I did to a knife today (actually Sun Jan 20 local time)... My wife had a half dozen plants in plastic pots about 2 gallons (7 liters) in size. Plastic is 2mm thick (3/64"). The plants had bound themselves into the pot (they should have been removed months ago), and the only way to get them out was to cut the plastic pot open from the top (a curled lip), then down to the bottom in a simple slice. Used what was on me which happend to be a custom 4" utility from Tim (Taz) Johnson I described over here
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=184455

Cutting the lip took a few back and forth sawings over the first 2" with strong downward pressure. Once the lip parted, the blade easily parted the plastic side down to the bottom. I wanted to cut as little of the plant as possible, so most of the cut was done with the first 1" of the tip. Knife did fine. Just noticable edge degradation, easily restored with a steel.
 
I once used my BM AFCK as a screw driver! The three screws were Phillips, and they were holding a locking latch onto an old door jam. I didn't have a screwdriver, and I didn't want to kick in the door, so I used the tip of the ol' AFCK.

This knife now has a home made "apple-seed" grind point, much like that of the Lum Spyderco. The point is just to fine to do this kind of work with and it inevitibly snapped.
 
I used my Fox 594 lockback skinner to cut down and debranch a small tree, about 3" in diameter, to obtain a pole for a flag when I was in the army. Using a folding knife as a hatchet is about as much abuse you can manage to give it.
Not only the knife survived the task, but it didn't get any free movement. It's still one of my favourite knives for camping, as its thick, curved blade will cut about everything I need to cut and the knife is very sturdily built, as the task I put it into demonstrated.

www.foxcutlery.com
The knife is in the pocket & hunting section. The balde is 440A SS heat treated to 55-57 Hrc. It takes a fine edge easily and maintains it even trhough heavy use. I sharpen it at about 25° per side, for a total 50°. this gives a fine yet very solid edge.
I paid it 45 bucks equivalent and is one of the finest knives I have.
The only real defect is it lacks a one hand opening pin. I'll add one ASAP, now that I've bought a drill press :D

Another knife I put through serious abuse is my Cold Steel Outdoorsman. I was to my country home and wanted to do some bow shooting, but didn't want to loose my arrows in tall grass if I missed the target... Therefore i needed to mow down a strip of tall grass, and hadn't anything useful at hand, so I taped the knife to a long pole and used it as a scythe.
The knife mowed down the grass... and some rocks too :)
Well, I was able to get my strip of low grass and had only to clean away from the balde a couple of dings, none deeper than a half millimeter. :D
 
Well my BA survival knife is constantly used as a hammer, wedge, crowbar, and general "beating stick". Of course it's survived as these things are indestructable, but it's worn off a small amount of the parkerisation.

Toughest thing I ever used a folder to do was pry a few jammed windows open. It managed to pop the first two open fine (these had been painted over, and were wooden. In the North of England. Needless to say, they were somwehat swollen and misshapen). It was only *after* I'd snapped the tip off that my (at the time) girlfriend (who's house it is) told me that that one was nailed shut. Stupid? Especially since it was her that asked me to open them in the first place.

Leathermans also take a lot of abuse for me, the old supertool is now consigned to the "dead tools box", with the Wave standing up quite well. Oh, for the spectacle wearers who might happen to read this, the smallest flat screwdriver on the Wave is just the right size for the little screws you get in glasses. And the medium size is just right for the flame adjustment on gas lighters.
 
Chopped up an old tree into about 5 fire sized logs with the first machete I made.........but Glenn Hornby made a survival knife for an army sgt back during desert storm and the guy was on a M50 squad. The think jammed and the army sgt used the knife to pry the bolt open and get the stuck case out.....broke about 3/16" of the tip off. Glenn had him write a letter about it, send him back the knife, and made him a new one!
 
I was hiking in Aridzona (just kidding for those of you who live there---I like it better than the PRK) when I came upon a deposit of some really nice crystals in a rock formation. I remembered that I had a Glock knife in my pack and figured getting the crystals was worth the $25 it cost me. I used a rock as a hammer and the Glock as a chisel. It worked, and the tip was not all that badly mangled. I reshaped it a bit, sharpened the false edge, and it is still very useable (but not real pretty---of course, that was never one of its strongest attributes!).

Lucky I wasn't carrying a really nice knife or those crystals would still be there.
 
BM/Emerson Specwar (C7?) used as a prybar. Yep! Locked myself out of my work truck (Ford Ranger - job was in El Paso) in a very bad part of town. Second week on the job, so pride dictated that I couldn't call for the spare keys. Used that benchmade to pry open the back sliding (and locking) window. Had to reprofile the edge, but otherwise no damage (I survived, too).

-Al-
 
My friend broke 486 processor by hitting it with Spyderco Delica... 486 is made out of ceramics - you can't even drill that crap... The very small piece of a tip broke off - the knife made it through surprisingly well :eek:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top