Busse handle durability question

[will york]

Noss,

I was impressed that you were able to knock the handles loose on the Busse FFBM by "batoning" with a 3 lb. hammer, when the only material you had hammered into at that point was wood and the handle was supported only by your gloved hand. That occurred in Part 5 of the destructive testing at about 4:40 min.

I've also heard that those same flared-tube handle fasteners will fail under the stress of throwing a knife multiple times.

Were you surprised at that result, and would you give us your opinion of which type of handles have held up the longest with the least damage in your destruction tests? It seemed that even the hard rubber/resiprene handles on the Scrap Yard Scrapper 6 would have been more useable at the end of the test than the G10 slabs on the FFBM, once the tube fasteners had fractured and no longer supported the slabs.

Thanks,

will

[Noss]

If the Busse had one weakness, it was the handles coming off. In comparison, Many other handle types like the A1 and Scrapper 6 are held in place more securely then the Busse
tube method. They didn't come off until I cut them off.
I think some barrel nuts and heavy screws would be a better method of attachment. At least you can just re tighten them if they become loose.

The amount of force and impact from the hammer will just shear them off.

A lot of these synthetic handle materials are very tough. Some are tougher then the knives they are on. I use a sledge to see if I can destroy the handles and it just bounces off some of the tough ones.

canvas Micarta, G-10. they very tough. Micarta handles non canvas are not very tough
They will shatter compared to the canvas ones.

As soon as I get my camera back from my camera man. I'll post some photos here of
ones from the test knives for a comparison.

I should have may camera back in a few days. At least I better :D

[will york]

Another thing that struck me about the FFBM destruction test was that the hammer blows were applied between the two rear “points” on the spine, toward the bottom of the slightly dished area between those points. We know that stress fractures are invited by notches in metal, such as serration scallops, and I wonder if the force of the blows was being concentrated toward the bottom of the “dished” area on the spine, due to the spine shape. The final breaking point looks like it corresponded fairly closely with the rear edge of the hammer face, which may have been striking slightly ahead of the rest of the face for much of the time you were hammering, further concentrating the impacts at that point.

Conversely, I wonder if hammering directly ON one of the points along the spine might have distributed the force of the blows outward from the point along the spine, such as the way the point of a triangle takes a load and distributes it along the two adjacent legs. The effect of this distribution is known to enhanced strength, making the triangle shape structurally very efficient at supporting loads.

If you still have that remaining length of blade from the broken FFBM, I wonder if it might be possible to use the next point out along the blade spine as a striking point while holding the rear of the blade, and see if the pointed area could take significantly more impacts than the slightly concave area where the blade broke the first time. If so, we might discover that when applying metal-to-metal impacts on the spine, as when hammering the blade through very hard materials, it may be that those points on the spine should be considered optimal “batoning points”.

[Noss]

I see what your saying and this did come up on blade forums in a post or two. I would think it would be much better to hit on the second hump if you were going to hammer the knife through something instead of between the two.

I didn't have any edge left when I got to the tubing except between the two humps so that was were I had to hit it, in order to for the knife to shear through the tubing.

If I was able to hit on the second hump maybe it would not have broke. And the test would be have been 3 hours long. :eek:

[will york]

Thanks, Noss. I appreciate your insight. Your contribution to blade knowledge has been very interesting and helpful to me, personally.

will

[Noss]

Your welcome. :)