Spyderco Forums

Tucson Tom wrote: ↑

Fri Sep 18, 2020 10:38 pm

You know I saw the comment about "if you have the right tool for the job, you'll never break it". That is entirely true and some genuine wisdom for sure. Words well spoken. Someone else once said that experience is proportional to the amount of ruined equipment you have left behind. This is only true if you learn from your mistakes. There are people who never seem to learn.

After having worked in an industrial maintenance environment for several decades, and seen all the tools and machinery break when used for their intended purpose, and within the specs of the tool... well, I don't know what to say except that not all tools are created equal.

Stripped two handle screws on my new Caribbean. They were no match for Wiha. Wanted to clean it and polish the washers. Too much locktite.. I can still attack it from the other side, but will need to heat them up first I guess. Had no problems taking apart my other knives though.

Once bent a portion of the edge to the side on a Bark River knife when I tried to baton through a knotty piece of firewood that it was way too small to sanely even attempt to split in the best of conditions. One of these days I need to send it in to see if they can straighten it out. I'm still surprised it didn't snap completely; A2 is tough stuff.

jpm2 wrote: ↑

Fri Sep 18, 2020 10:55 pm

Tucson Tom wrote: ↑

Fri Sep 18, 2020 10:38 pm

You know I saw the comment about "if you have the right tool for the job, you'll never break it". That is entirely true and some genuine wisdom for sure. Words well spoken. Someone else once said that experience is proportional to the amount of ruined equipment you have left behind. This is only true if you learn from your mistakes. There are people who never seem to learn.

After having worked in an industrial maintenance environment for several decades, and seen all the tools and machinery break when used for their intended purpose, and within the specs of the tool... well, I don't know what to say except that not all tools are created equal.

Stuff breaks... and some folks can break an anvil with a rubber mallet!

Not me but family....

I sold almost everything I owned to get cash for a move from Illinois to Silicon Valley, CA back in 1999.

My brother bought the Randall Model 14 that I had painstakingly maintained in pristine condition. I never put the knife in it's sheath, and coated it with oil, then a layer of wax paper to keep oxygen away from it. I even changed the oil and wax paper every 6 months.

He got the knife, wiped off the oil, and placed it in it's sheath where it sat for a decade. I eventually asked about the knife and he told me that it had black spots all over the blade! I was like, "well you still have it oiled and wrapped in wax paper right?"

NOPE!

So it needs to go in for a spa treatment one of these days to see if anything ca be done to slow the process.

I broke the tip doing something stupid with this Caly 3.5. Have you ever done something that immediately you knew that you messed up and there were no overs?

I carried the knife for around a year before I broke the tip.



Even though the broken tip was permanent, I was able to grind down the spine and breathe new life Into it.



Edit** I forgot to answer the OP’s question.

GarageBoy wrote: ↑

Wed Sep 16, 2020 8:42 am

b. has anyone actually permanently damaged a knife, short of prying with it? If yes, what were you doing with it?

I know I will catch **** for admitting to this but oh well.

The spine of the Caly is very square and if you close the knife, you can use it as a t-handle screw driver in a pinch. I had only done this a couple of times but sometimes you got to do what you got to do. I got careless one day when trying to back up a screw that had too small of a slot for the spine to fit into. So I opened the blade and moved the knife spine down until it was narrow enough to fit inside of the screw slot. Unfortunately, the tip of the blade was inside the diameter of the screw. Pressure, snap.

I vaguely remember breaking the tip on a knife around thirty years ago, but can’t remember the details. I use a knife everyday in my line of work and sometimes when you are charging a customer in excess of a hundred dollars per hour, you mess up in the heat of battle. That is what happened.

I bent the tip of my xhp manix lw batoning wood. I've put some serious chips in blades, but never broken one.