Why the obsession with prying & chopping?

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mike_mck2

Joined
May 19, 2005
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301
What is with the value placed on being able to pry & chop cinder blocks with your knife?
Some here seem to have an inordinate amount of pride in being so illy prepared time after time and needing to pry/chop with a knife. Why is that?
Even more bizarre are those that apparently want such a knife but have no intention of using it as such.

Yes, I too have owned knives like this, such as Busse, etc...and yes, they can definitely pry & chop, but none of them have been able to actually cut very well at all. Looking back on those days, I don't have any idea what the appeal was for me, as these knives were basically useless, except as a very expensive prybar and super crude cutter.

Nobody need "justify" their preference, so if that does not interest you, I'm sure you can come up with a topic on your own, that does interest you.
 
Having a knife that has no 'deficiencies' makes up for the 'deficiencies' of the owner...I guess.

The reasons are psychological. :D
 
a busse cant cut? in relation to what, exactly? they cut excellent for knives in their class. sure if you put 10-15 degree grinds on a blade itll out-cut it, but for how long? if anything, cutting ability is the weakest test of a knife since even the poorest knives can cut fantastically for a short while if sharpened properly.
my chopping/prying utility knives can cut very well. having the capability to chop and pry basically ensures that your utility/survival knives are well-built of suitable materials, with sturdy efficient geometries and solid construction, and that you can depend on them to be versatile tools.

when you are out in the bush - be it a camping situation or, god forbid, a survival one - the more you can do with your knife the better, and you want knife failure to be a remote possibility. there are many knives out there that can cut like theres no tomorrow but if you try to baton a piece of wood with them, or chop down poles, sharpen stakes, clear brush, etc they will not perform well or will fail entirely. if they fail in such a situation you have just lost your most valuable tool, and were potentially seriously injured in the process.

testing on a cinder block does not mean that you will be using these knives to chop cinder blocks - but it puts a lot of stress on a blade and is one good indicator of durability. there are many knives that will break/shatter upon a single impact with a cinderblock - is this the type of blade you want to trust your life with? it is highly likely that your blade can contact a stone, knot, etc during use and you want something that is either tough enough to minimize the damage or built to absorb the damage.

theres no such thing as a knife absolutely without deficiencies, however in the survival/utility class of knives durability is a massive factor. any knife - even a sharpened chain-link fence tensioning rod (as demonstraated by cliff stamp) - can cut excellently if sharpened properly, but this does not necessarily make it a good knife, or one suitable for utility/survival purposes.

cheers,
-gabriel
 
Be prepared.That is the only thing I can think of.Not refering to the chopping cinder blocks,as I consider that asinine even when done with a sword.Buy a knife/sword then destroy the edge. :rolleyes:
 
mike_mck2 said:
What is with the value placed on being able to pry & chop cinder blocks with your knife?
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It's a test to make sure common or occasional use is within the limits of the knife. If a blade can break a cinder block without problems, you can worry a lot less about hitting a bone when skinning or a hard knot when chopping sticks.
 
What is with the value placed on being able to pry & chop cinder blocks with your knife?
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Knives designed purely to cut are boring, we know what they are, the wife uses them in the kitchen. Chopping and prying knives are cool; we buy them and we start thinking about heading for the sticks to whittle a 20 room mansion out of a giant red wood.

n2s
 
To be fair, there are plenty of outdoorsmen on BFC who really do use their knives for all those heavy-duty tasks; they prefer to carry one large knife that'll be good at cutting and chopping over carrying two separate tools, a knife and a hatchet, that'll do the job a bit better, but weight more.

_However_, there are plenty of people who have no such need (c'mon, how often does somebody come around here asking about the chopping characteristics of a 4" folder? Every week or so?) who want big, heavy, impractical, _expensive_ knives when small, thin ones would do the job better. What motivates that impractical selection? What motivates the purchase of 90% of the SUVs on the road?
 
The last thing I need out in the Bush is a large heavy knife that cannot cut worth a hoot. I have solved my problem by carrying a light hatchet & a very thin sharp fixed blade. It works for me! JMO :)
 
I want to know that when it comes down to it or if it comes down to it, my knife can handle the job. We don't all live in cities and use our knives to open mail and boxes. Some of us are going to Iraq. Some of us adventure to jungles and mountains. Some of us are survivalist or want to know that we have an absolute trustworthy piece of equipment. I don't need my guns, knives, and other junk, but I have them anyway. Better to be prepared than to wish you were prepared.

With the above philisophy, just buy one knife to cut, say meat, perhaps a chef's knife and one gun, perhaps a glock or pump shotgun and perhaps one car, a honda civic. Noo need to get anything else right?! :rolleyes:



Cliff

http://pic15.picturetrail.com/VOL569/3466311/7123467/106758750.jpg
 
mike_mck2 said:
Yes, I too have owned knives like this, such as Busse, etc...and yes, they can definitely pry & chop, but none of them have been able to actually cut very well at all.
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A belt sander and/or a coarse waterstone will solve that apparent dichotomy quickly. After viewing Dan Koster's convex edge CD, my khukuris are very tough/overbuilt and cut very well. Same with my RD-9s.

I like the knives that are so tough that only water is their nemesis as well as those with edges so thin that they'll roll or chip on a stray molecule while you're push-cutting an atom.

I'd like to know what's up with those knives that are too thick to cut well and too weak to pry or chop. They're the demonic legions which threaten this world of cutting goodness.
 
I’m a minimalist. I’m only prepared to carry one sharp tool to cover all my bush craft needs. This tool generally ends up being a robust fixed blade with around a 7” blade. I like a blade I can trust, and a blade that forces me to learn as much as possible about how to put it to a variety of uses.
 
It is nice to have the right tool for the right job but sometimes we don't have it when we need it, with a big blade I can chop, pry and if cut if I do my part.I am just one of those guys that will use what ever I have to do the job at hand, I killed a coyote one day with a pipe wrench and I'll use anything for a hammer, about the coyote he got into the fence when I plowing up some old pasture one day and I knew there was no time to get a gun and I wanted to keep the fur in good shape so I did not use my big knife.
 
"What is with the value placed on being able to pry & chop cinder blocks with your knife?"

It's a newbie thing. I went through this also when I first started collecting.
After you go to a few shows and get to see some MS blades you get over it.
 
"What is with the value placed on being able to pry & chop cinder blocks with your knife?"

I would ask, what is the value placed on being able to cut in one blow a free-hanging rope? I have a hard time envisioning real life situation where I would have a rope hanging suspended and would have a desperate need to make it a little shorter using only one hand.

What is the value in being able to slice a rope a hundred times or more? I couldn't make it short enough by cutting it while free-hanging, because I badly needed seventy 1" pieces of rope?

The point is, of course, that all of these tests are not recreations af something that we are likely to need to do in real life. They are simply tests or demonstrations of attributes that we may find a need for in a knife.

The place that I am most likely to ever be in a desperate survival situation is in my car or truck. That is why I have a large Busse near the passenger seat in each of them. I can't store a sheet metal cutter, a prybar, a hammer, a seat belt slicer, and a window breaker all within reach, but I can darn well have a knife at hand which can substitute for all of them in a pinch. It might just help to repel boarders as well.
 
People take these tests too literally. But they serve as a benchmark or steady standard than remains constant and unwavering. The closest thing to a scientific test for knives besides analysis of the blade material itself, which many people state many times don't live up to their respective hype/performance expectations.

Those tests are a means to judge many different types of blades, knife styles by using one constant methodology. A crash wall is a crash wall. But the cars subjected to hitting them at 40 mph are all different. Let's find out which car (knife) is best at it's particular test.

cliff :D
 
So if "your" knife can withstand chopping a cinder block, what does that translate to for other things you might chop?

Obviously, if you don't know what stresses are involved, you will have no idea what might actually damage your knife, regardless of what you think you know.
Further, if the person who is testing has a poor technique, they will obviously get worse results than someone who knows what they are doing.
Again, making such tests pretty much useless, it would seem.

I will admit, the temptation to make fun of people who "need" 1/4" thick knives for stuff I can accomplish with a buck 110 is tempting, but that's not what I am doing here.

I honestly cannot see what the appeal is, even though I myself used to buy such knives.

Sure, I can completely repofile a 1/4" knife so that it will cut efficiently, but not only will it no longer chop as well, I can buy a more efficient knife to begin with, and save the trouble.
 
ERdept said:
You see no need to be overprepared or get something overbuilt?
I want to know that when it comes down to it or if it comes down to it, my knife can handle the job...I don't need my guns, knives, and other junk, but I have them anyway. Better to be prepared than to wish you were prepared.
Click to expand...

So I take it you EDC a 12" bowie, 5-cell Maglight, and M1 Garand? I mean, if "doing the job in the worst-case scenario" is your only concern...

We make compromises. Most of us aren't prepared to carry that much weight and draw that much attention for the sake of being prepared for the unlikely. I'm not prepared to give up cutting performance because I can imagine a situation in which I might need to force a door with my knife. OTOH, I _will_ accept the inconvenience of maintaining and carrying a knife in order to be prepared for everyday emergencies, in which a SAK or Spyderco Calypso'll work perfectly, but a Strider'll be less-than ideal. If I could carry a gun I would, but it'd be a snubby revolver or subcompact auto.

We all draw the line in different places. I roll my eyes a bit at Striders, knowing that a small proportion of their devotees actually _need_ a niche knife like that, just like I roll my eyes at SUVs, knowing that the overwhelming majority of 'em will only go "off road" when Ms. Soccermom misses the driveway.
edited to remove a cut-and-paste error
 
mike_mck2 said:
What is with the value placed on being able to pry & chop cinder blocks with your knife?
Some here seem to have an inordinate amount of pride in being so illy prepared time after time and needing to pry/chop with a knife. Why is that?
topic on your own, that does interest you.
Click to expand...

Why are people driving SUVs and hardly ever go offroad? They simply like the idea of beeing able to if necessary.
 
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