I'm reaching a point here where I'm starting to feel like I need to put a disclaimer into these posts. For starters I don't think this is reasonable use
by any steel, by any edge type. I also fully believe that the damage that occurred here would be significantly worse with a factory edge,
so don't go doing something this stupid with your knife unless you're prepared and capable of fixing the edge afterwards.
I went out today and bought this:
I'm not entirely sure what bone that is, I assume it's a femur (beef). It's extremely thick on the outside before hitting the marrow, and extremely hard. But, for those of you who hunt and process animals and are curious how this steel/SE will handle the occasional bump against bone....here ya go. I didn't bother taking a before pic of the edge...you guys know the deal, it was push cutting phone book paper and tree topping arm hair.
The cut:
No surprise at all, it didn't make much of a dent in a carving cut, it basically just slipped across the surface. I kept increasing the angle until I knew the edge was making contact with the bone but I still couldn't get much of a cut. By the time I was finished I was literally sawing at the bone like you would with an actual saw, and believe me when I say
I white knuckled it. This is FAR beyond the level of contact and damage than you'll encounter when cleaning a deer/elk/moose/brontosaurus.
The Damage:
It basically rolled the very tip of each tooth. There was no chipping or breaking of the teeth/edge anywhere that I could find. I didn't bother doing a cutting test after this since I'm sure the scallops between the teeth were still plenty sharp since they couldn't make contact with the bone, so it wouldn't tell us anything anyway. You can see in those pics the shine on the tips, that's where the teeth rolled towards the back of the blade (due to the angle that I was cutting at).
What I would take away from this is 1) I used a LOT of force to cut into the bone as much as I did....like more than you'll ever put into an accidental whack on a bone while skinning or quartering, 2) The teeth rolled instead of chipping or breaking off, 3) Even though I have already reprofiled and rounded off the teeth on this knife which make them stronger and more resistant to damage, the teeth still rolled. This could simply be the limit of what the steel can handle, or it could just be how hard I went for it and this could happen to any steel.
If you're wondering...NO I didn't bother doing this with my Autonomy, sorry guys that knife costs too much to do stupid knife tricks with. This Caribbean was gifted to me so I feel a bit less guilty about these tests (afterall, the fella who bought it mentioned doing tests like this when he got it anyway). That said, I have absolutely no doubt that H1 would have rolled in the same way, I don't think a steel exists that wouldn't have rolled during this cut
in SE. I don't really see this "test" as really proving anything that most people should have already expected, that bone is stupid hard and not something you want to try sawing through. Regardless, I wouldn't have any fear of using a Caribbean to quarter a deer.
