How strong is FRN?

[JasonC6612]

I worry that FRN will break..

[paladin]

there's a post floating around here in the cyberverse of a brother who ran over his Delica, or maybe an Endura, with a Bobcat while it was sticking up vertical in the dirt/gravel...not gonna get much more hardcore harduse than that... :eek:

Add to that, the fact that some FRN models have nested steel liners, well...that makes them extra rigid & tough... :D

having said that, I wouldn't trust a FRN Spydie as a makeshift rockclimbing hanger or crampon ...but just about anything short of that I'd wager the blade would break before the FRN... :cool:

[SG89]

Don't.

[Cliff Stamp]

As a curious point, I watched my brother take a FRN Spyderco and lock it in a vice and lean into it. He was curious about when the handle would fail and how it would. The handle was fine, the blade snapped through the opening hole.

FRN is weaker than steel yes, but it is very difficult to actually load the handle significantly in use unless you do something like hit it directly with a hammer.

[yablanowitz]

There are many different formulations of FRN on the market. Spyderco uses top of the line FRN. As others have said, the blade is more likely to break than the FRN handle. Other companies may or may not use the same stuff.

[Holzfaeller]

A friend has a deilca 1 with the blade sharpened to a nub and the handle and lock-up are fine. I wonder if the small amount of flex in the handle contributes to the long lasting nature of the pivot and lock. FRN could be destroyed by extreme use, but I don't worry about wearing it out. Good stuff, methinks.

[bearfacedkiller]

A member on here dropped a Native from the top of a cell tower and it took it like a champ. Rigger might chime in soon. :)