Due to the recent post by "Rainy Day" and the "failure" of his #15 CDT, I think a thread on documented failures of RMK's is warranted. Circumstances surrounding these failures is paramount.

Now, no "I heard" and "someone told me" second and third hand stories.

One problem that comes to mind has occured on 3 of my orders. Keep in mind..."3" out of thousands but still a repeat occurence. One was even instrumental in the development of my "Stanaback Special" which I have documented before.
Model #23-4 1/2" in stainless steel has developed a hairline crack in the top false edge, about half way up. One case was noticed in the main room of the Randall shop. This one was re-ground by Jeff McCartney and became a 4" Stanaback Special in the early-mid 1980's. One was spotted by yours truly, after I had taken delivery but before I sold the knife. A new replacement knife was made. One was noticed by a customer shortly after he received delivery. The knife was sent back to me and a new replacement was made.
That's the extent of "issues" of this type that I have had first hand knowledge of.
Best, Capt. Chris

I have seen several knives fail to various degrees, generally because of misuse or using beyond its design capabilities i.e. throwing, battoning, cutting improper material, or some other task the knife was not designed for.

Any knife broken at the hilt I know of as Rainy Day's knife was, was due to lateral force put on the blade when it was stuck in something like a tree or used a pry bar. I knew a guy that put a 50's vintage stag 1-8 in the sheath on his table that looked great sitting in his case. Many would ask to see it and when they took it out of the sheath, all you had was handle and hilt. Broken prying open a crate.

I have a 15CDT, just like CrutchTip mentioned, that broke at the hilt. It is off to RMK for inspection.

They will see no lateral stress as that would be evidenced by stress compression of the lateral solder joints and possible indentation of the brass hilt and see that it was a more a shattering. They would also be able to put the two pieces together and if they fit like a puzzle, and the blade is dead on straight, then again, no evidence of lateral movement.

Just like the Capt, seems the stainless can be suspect and have a mind of it's own. Hence, cracking and such. That is to be expected in any manufacturing situation and is never indicative of a companies sum total.

Tom

Rainyday, You never know the blade could have had a stress crack from when it was heated and then cooled during the initial blade work and then when you chopped it finished the break. If I remember from your pictures that the blade had some brass transfer on it. That would show vertical movement of the blade to the hilt. Anyway the shop has seen more broken RMK knives than anyone on this site regardless of what they say. They will know what happened and should take care of you.

Joe,

Only one other instance that I can remember in the last 10 years as follows (This one in 2006). You need to be a member to access the site. I've copied and pasted an excerpt:

http://www.customknivesandguns.com/ckgforums/showthread.php?t=1597&highlight=randall

[i]A friend of mine tests all of the knives he's going to deploy with by chopping on an old, damn near petrified, oak log......

Here's an example of why he does that before 'betting his life' that they're gonna work as advertised........new, out-of-the-butchers paper, never used.....but one chop.

I was told this happened because of a heavy grit grinding scratch that was missed before the heat-treat was done, causing a stress riser that resulted in catastrophic failure of this knife.







Best,

Ron

Good to see ya' posting Ron. We've missed you.
Thanks, Capt. Chris

Wow Ron, that looks exactly like mine. Be interesting to hear how CrutchTip spins it though. It has to be operator error or something like that.

Be nice Rainy Day.
Joe's a good guy and knows as much about Randall's as anyone I know.

Thanks, Cap!

RainyDay: X2 on what Ronnie said. If you spent some time with Joe you'd have a different perspective on him. We're all on the same team.

Best,

thanks for posting the pictures of the model 1 I had been looking for them for a while

Okay.

I'm just playin'

Tom

I do more reading than posting but Ron, you have been missed. You too are one with way too much Randall knowledge not to be posting here. Damn glad to hear from you. If you haven't seen it go look at that older mod. 4 the Cap posted. Sure looks like a Ron type of Randall. It's a beauty.

Thanks, Ronnie. I'm not going anywhere. Its' just that between work getting a lot busier and two grandsons there just isn't much time left for anything else.

I'm not sure I saw the Caps Model 4. I did see Rocky's 4-7 from 1948 on the "This Old Randall" thread and it's a killer!

Best,

PS to Ben: Welcome :-)

Very Good Post and Pictures Ron.

Obviously a very rare possibility of the Randall Knife failing
but the photos are very similar in the type of failure. One chop, huh?

Mr Day, I also think that if you get an opportunity to meet Crutchtip, as I hope to some day at a show, Joe can pass on some of his wealth of Randall Knife knowledge.

Tom Vaught

I woulg guess the heat treating went wrong somehow.
On the pics the tang broke. The tang got heattreated to hard and snaps. Mostly the tangs is not need to be heat treated.

Hey everyone:
I just got off the phone with Jason Randall. Although he cannot address this #14-CDT being shown here, Jason informed me that the Randall shop does "not" heat-treat their tangs. Both stainless and carbon models are "annealed" to make then less brittle and to be able to work with them during the fit and finishing process.
As A side note: I cannot help but notice how "un-new" the nickel silver double hilt appears for just "one chop". Not saying it didn't happen....just a curious observation. The initial thread did ask for "first-hand" accounts. This is not "quite" first hand.
Thanks to Jason for the clarification. It's great to see that, not only do we have Scott's eyes and ears on our forum, but Jason's as well.
Have a nice weekend everyone, Capt. Chris

That's what I thought. Well, it's strange anyway

Confused Capt. Both of the knives that "failed" looked to me like they had BRASS double hilts, did I miss a photo?

Tom Vaught

The last one that Ron posted looked NS to me?? The first was a brass "single" hilt.
Best, Capt. Chris

This was sent to me by a fellow member in response to a post from another member that mentioned "stress risers"

You will notice in the photo from Ron's post there is in fact a radius at the tang, albeit a small one, but a radius nonetheless. This indicates to me that RMK is aware that a sharp inside corner is detrimental to the durability of a knife, but is it enough? It doesn't appear the knife broke at the radius, but actually snapped beyond the radius possibly indicating another issue. Comparing the photo to the representations in the diagram, you be the judge.

Too bad that we do not have the other side of the knife to look at.

Randall Made Knives has the knife now and they know the failure mode.

Tom Vaught

ps My main question would be: Why post this "failure" on a international website vs just sending the knife back to Randall Made Knives to be replaced? Why not deal directly with the shop in the first place? Let it go, Joe.

Maybe he posted here because he thought there was some RMK expertise here. If you want to see the other side of the blade or want to know why they did what they did with his knife just call and ask them. Otherwise let's drop this whole witch hunt. If we want to limit what we can post lets all just head on over to the other forum that has all of the rules.
Lets just move on, his knife broke, the shop replaced it and why they did is RMK's choice and not any one's here on this forum.

Guys,

I think this has been discussed enough now.

Let's move on.

Thanks,

Rick

Uhhhhh, Tom, I think you must be confused. You may want to review the threads. So you are clear, this is NOT Rainy Day's knife, but a copy of one of the photos Ron posted of a different knife.

And Rick, this is a legitimate subject and thread. Perhaps you also mistook the intent as well as the content of my post like Tom did.

I think it is pretty clear the purpose of the post and the content of same. In case you are not getting it, it illustrates in the diagram where sharp inside corners create the identified stress risers. In layman's terms, weak spots prone to fracture.

The photo illustrates that at least on this particular knife, RMK did not have a sharp inside corner and the fact that the tang did not break at the transition from tang to blade, but the tang itself broke.

....

Ron that beast looks like he could take care of business.

Ron...'Serious' statement from a cat that look's like CNN host Anderson Cooper.

Thought this thread and subject was ORIGINALLY about Rainy Day's knife failure, Joe. I guess I missed the part about the "Stress Risers" discussion. Agree, if you put a "Stress Riser" in a part you can have a potential failure. As an Engineer for 36 years+ I can usually spot a stress riser situation without looking at a picture. We all know that Randall has an excellent design and the knives are created by skilled craftsmen with years of experience. It is possible to have a flaw in a piece of material from a steel manufacturer or a "One in Ten Thousand" manufacturing flaw when "all of the stars in the universe line up".

Most people understand this deal, Joe, and move on. So why don't we "let it go" and "move on" as I said before. You are not buying the steel, you are not making the knives, so you are an observer, just like me in these discussions.

I am done.

Tom Vaught

Have any of you gent's ever observed,first hand, any Model 18 failures?

It also appears that there are more instinces with stainless failures than carbon steel, is this a correct assumption?

It seems with the stainless they can have an issue that can cause this type of failure. It should be understood that this is a rare issue and that 440B is no weaker than 01 and in my experience 440B is extremely strong, never rusts and holds a wicked edge and is easy to sharpen.

I have used both 01 and 440B and I prefer 440B.

My first Randall was a #14 in 440B. With that being said, I much prefer O1.

True, you don't here about a Randall breaking that often and everytime I have read about it, Randall Knives has fixed the issue.