I know that extreme cold weather can affect mechanical items like the reliability of the moving parts of firearms and other equipment. I just wondered would the basic carbon knife say a mora clipper or your basic AUS8 knife work just as well in below freezing temperatures?
Depends how hard it was heat treated to. Cold will increase the hardness and could make it brittle and easily breakable.
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Don't forget that Moras come from Sweden.
Vae Victis
Hmmm, interesting question. Everything has a limit, but with well made knives I think the extreme need on the cold side would be to way to cold the be trying to use the knife in.
Now if your talking about the Arctic or Antarctic and the knife being left outside, yes I guess that could be possible.
At this writing I can't recall seeing any "specs." on operating temperature ranges for knives, but now you've got my curiosity up.
Maybe someone else will come along that has seen such specs.
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I would imagine that, as long as you're not wading around in liquid nitrogen, blade brittleness is probably not going to be a big factor.
I could be very wrong.
It seems to me that the temperatures that are survivable by humans would not render a steel blade all snappy crisp.
Hadn't really thought about it before, though.
Maybe someone with a metallurgical background?
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Cheap steel tends to become brittle at about -30 degrees celcius/-22 degrees fahrenheit. However, a decent steel alloy is going to go down to around -100 degrees celcius/-150 degrees fahrenheit and at those temperatures you want very special tools. For most people it really not going to be a problem outside say the Antarctica bases during the winter.
Let's not forget that there are people who live in the Arctic Circle and other extremely cold areas, they do not seem to have any problems with knives -in fact these people (like the Saami) tend to have strong knife cultures going back hundreds if not thousands of years.
These people only use knives the way they were meant to be used -for cutting and slicing. Brittleness shouldn't be a factor.
I think that it's only knife collectors who tend to punish their knives with silly tests like hammering them thru car doors, chopping concrete, pounding them into tree trunks, prying with them, etc. I don't doubt that any knife would fail in extreme cold if you abused it.
Vae Victis
you know maybe you have a point there because I have personally split kindling with my knife and cut down a few trees just to see if it would hold up to the test. I did use the wood from the tree that I cut down though. Makes me realize that a lot of the stuff that we want and ask knives to do we are doing it for bragging rights or just because. How many of us have actually been in a true life survival situation, lost in the woods overnight, plane crash, hunting accident with know one around and the like. How many were put into a situation were there knife abuse actually saved their lives or have the majority of us abused our knives for bragging rights to say that mine can take it? In light of Inuit peoples, finland, swedish and all other cultures that come from very cold conditions, most have extensive knife cultures, yet this does not answer the question above how well do they hold up under these conditions. Because a people have knive culture does not mean that the choice of tool holds up well, just means that it is a neccessity to living under those conditions. Who knows they may replace their knives like we do cars every 2-4 years. I am leaning towards believing that a knife can hold up to extreme cold temperatures and perform because I would think that the uses would be specifically for its design purpose to cut, meat rope and other light objects. A knife would not be a chopper under those conditions everything is frozen including the wood, what little wood their is. Ever been to Siberia. Snow snow snow and more snow and when you run out of snow look there is some ice. Under these condition I do not think that our survival knives would lend much as a chopper for wood nor would our 3-5 inch blade cut us a snow cave or igloo blocks before we froze either. We would need an axe or some sort of huge knife like a leeku or kukri. These of course are my observations and opinions. Give me yours
If you are going to build an igloo, it generally advisable to use a saw or a snow spade, to cut your ice blocks and use a larger blade or axe for fine shaping. A spade would be more choice too on a snow cave. I wouldn't like to have to do this work with a usual survival knife. Normally the people who are making igloos have snow saws to do the work and it is still going to take you a good several hours to build and is a really difficult task. All props given to people who can throw them up.
I used my kukri for light chopping and working of a camp sight in in temperatures down to 16 degrees F, but thats about as cold as it gets here, but it had no problem with your gloves on. Its nice when you can make yourself a little chair and other little comfort out there in the woods.
Only problem I ever had with a knife and cold weather..in the lower 48....was keeping a sheath knife under my coat, and using it.
It was around 30 below 0 , and the snow melted on the knife and froze to it while I was using it. I was a kid and I learned from that....keep your knife in an outside pocket....so it's cold!
But it's not cold enough in the lower 48, most of the time to effect knife steel!
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Where I live the lowest temp recorded was minus 46F (-48.3C) at the airport in town but it gets colder in the more rural areas…
What do you wish to do with your knife? Cutting, slicing just let in warm up a bit near to your body for about five minutes before doing anything and it will be fine. Chopping on the other hand the blade has to be kept close to the body otherwise it will break on you—the edge will chip badly.
I hunt with my knife outside of my coveralls and have gone a whole day outside, temp about -10F/-23C and around the late afternoon tea break, before shaving some fire sticks to start the fire I just take my knife from the sheath and holding it just stick it inside my jacket for five minutes and I’ve never had a problem with breakage.
I always carry two pocket knives on me at all times and I'll just use the larger one to cut with if I'm in a hurry as it has been next to my body all the time so pre warming isn't required.
I carry a very expensive carbon steel axe, Iltis Oxhead, in the snowmobile sled but before I use it I put it in my armpit (outside of your coat) for about 10 minutes or so, otherwise the edge part of the axe will get damaged, the head won’t as it’s too thick (unless you used liquid nitrogen), large chunks will just fly off—ruined a couple of good axes like that when I was a kid.
Snow is easy to cut through and the Inuit would just use a thin piece of wood to accomplish snow blocks...It's only when you get ice do you have to worry about saws and they aren't the right kind of blocks to build an igloo with. Nowadays the hunters will use a folding saw as it is easier to store and can be used to separate the carcass of what they're hunting...
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