Aftermarket Leatherman Blades?


This is off topic from your original question, but how did it break?

What I’m thinking is that a better knife steel might have better hardness and edge holding ability, but might not necessarily have more resistance to breaking.

Ill admit I’m not what you would call a hard user of knives, but I’ve can’t remember ever breaking a blade without doing something that I knew shouldn’t have done to a blade, if that makes sense.

Im not trying to give you a ration of $#() about breaking a knife blade - we’ve all done that. I’m just wondering if better steel would really help.
 
GBinGA said:
This is off topic from your original question, but how did it break?

What I’m thinking is that a better knife steel might have better hardness and edge holding ability, but might not necessarily have more resistance to breaking.

Ill admit I’m not what you would call a hard user of knives, but I’ve can’t remember ever breaking a blade without doing something that I knew shouldn’t have done to a blade, if that makes sense.

Im not trying to give you a ration of $#() about breaking a knife blade - we’ve all done that. I’m just wondering if better steel would really help.
Click to expand...
It broke wen I had it in a hole that was drilled into a sheet of OSB that needed to be enlarged slightly to get some electrical through it. Trying to follow the radius of the hole and the torque of making an arcing cut snapped the first 1/2" right off.
 
I will through in my 2 cents.
Your accident may have just been bad luck. 420 steel is a very tough steel. Not the toughest available, but very tough.

Not the greatest edge holding steel, but decent with a proper heat treat.
 


You could also modify it to use scalpel blade:

 
I gambled and ordered a AliExpress blade for my Surge. It was advertised as M390 steel. I was skeptical but ordered it anyway.
I've been using it for a few months now.
I'm convinced it is really M390.
The fit was perfect, dropped in with no tuning needed. The grind and finish was really good.
It took a month or so to get it, but the seller gave an accurate estimated date on their listing.
It wasn't cheap, about 70 bucks I think, but it was a dramatic upgrade from 420HC.
It solved my only complaint about my Surge.

Original well worn, sharpened hundreds or thousands of times. And the new M390.

IMG_0825.jpg
 
I’ve broken at least one 420hc blade on a Wave and my Charge Ti’s 154cm blade 2 or 3 times. The all broke the same way- cracked above the thumb hole, and every time doing pretty much exactly what you describe (twisting motion). One time I was carving a pumpkin. It’s kind of inherent in the design- the (relatively) thin blade stock combined with the thumb hole means that there’s just not much steel to resist side-to-side or twisting pressure. The additional strength of the Arc knife probably has a lot more to do with the thicker blade stock and lack of thumb hole than it does any inherent advantage of Magnacut.

The Wave/Charge blades are plenty strong inline with the edge btw, I actually prefer them over my Arc for a lot of things- carving wood and food prep- but they certainly aren’t as strong. And the Arc’s saw blade actually has the same weakness due to the thumb hole. I cracked mine a few weeks ago when it bent in a cut. If I could fit the saw from a Wave in my Arc, I would.
 
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