A knife with substance, or small, light, and complicated?

T

TheSurvivalist

Joined
Jun 13, 2004
Messages
174
I like to carry a knife that has substance. I like heavy brass bolsters, and leather handles. I like full tangs with hardwood slabs. I like a long, wide, thick carbon-steel blade. I like to feel the weight of a knife in my hand, and know that it's a sturdy, reliable tool. I don't mean expensive, or fancy. I mean a well-made, solidly crafted piece of quality cutlery.

I don't like ultra-light handles made of plastic. I don't like short, thin, narrow, light blades. I would rather have a leather handle than a Kraton one. I'd rather have a leather sheath than one of stiff, ugly Kydex. I don't like really small, light, plastic knives with an overly-complicated "assisted-opener" thingamabob inside that flings the blade open to save one's thumbs from the stress of manually opening the knife. I don't care for those cheap mora knives that look like they'd be more appropriate for cutting grapefruit than cardboard or twine. I don't like those freakin' ugly tanto-points.

I know that there are many people here at the forums that swear by mora knives or opinels, or plastic-handled spydercos. I know that some of you only buy knives made of "super stainless" steels that hold an edge for several consecutive years without a re-sharpening. I know that there are some who won't look at a knife if it doesn't have a thumb stud. I know that a few of you like those "tactical" knives with the modified armor-piercing tanto points, covert de-animation blood grooves, and super-light composite handles that grip like sandpaper. And I know that a great many of you are head-over-heals in love with Kydex. I respect that.

I guess what I'm trying to say is this:

What ever happened to big, manly sheath knives? What happened to people carrying heavy, solid folders like the Buck 110? What happened to the time when men were men, women were women, and knives rusted? Why can't I walk into a sporting-goods store and buy a big, hefty, "Made-in-America" carbon-steel outdoorsman-type knife with a full tang and a quality leather sheath for a reasonable price? The only thing that even comes close anymore is the Ka-Bar. Doesn't anybody prefer a traditional knife? Doesn't anybody like to walk around with a big, heavy blade hanging at their hip ready for use?

The large manufacturing companies are increasingly focused on developing "tactical" knives with new gizmos and complicated doohickeys and fancy crap like titanium handles. Everbody is buying up the latest-and- greatest knives as fast as they're produced, reguardless of whether they intend to use them. Anybody that wants a good, simple, traditional user-knife has to have one custom-made for hundreds of dollars, or else buy one from a collector.

I want to see a larger selection of relatively inexpensive heavy-duty hunting and outdoors knives at sporting goods stores and knife shops. I want them available at my local shops so I can handle them before buying. If I want a knife over seven inches long, I want to see it sitting there in a case waiting for me.

Perhaps this problem is a combination of senseless anti-knife laws and a general societal urge to modernize everything. People nowadays "freak-out" at the sight of a belt knife. Why don't they become upset if someone has a hammer at their belt? If I wanted to harm someone, I could do a hell of a lot more damage with a hammer than with a knife. People need to accept knives as tools once again, and stop viewing them as weapons. People also need to stop making everything compact and light-weight, and overly complicated; big and simple is good.

Maybe I am too tired, and not thinking straight. Maybe I am depressed, paranoid, or slightly insane. Maybe I unwittingly ingested some furry, green, mind-altering substance from another dimension that has skewed my perceptions of reality.

Does anyone else share my opinions?


Questioning my sanity at 1:45 AM,
TheSurvivalist
 
well for one, in this disposable society, everything is pretty much prepackaged. save for what cutting tasks can be completed by a sub 3" knife. everything is pre-perforated, pre-cut, and ready for human consumption.
 
"What ever happened to big, manly sheath knives?"

I would (but don't) get one, it's just too bulky for me to carry. Even a LM Charge is a bit much for EDC.

"What happened to people carrying heavy, solid folders like the Buck 110?"

Lots of heavy solid folders are being made. :confused:

"What happened to the time when men were men, women were women, and knives rusted?"

I think those things changed during WWII.

"Why can't I walk into a sporting-goods store and buy a big, hefty, "Made-in-America" carbon-steel outdoorsman-type knife with a full tang and a quality leather sheath for a reasonable price?"

I have never been to a sporting goods store with any "good" knives, or "reasonable prices". Get to a gun shop.


"Doesn't anybody prefer a traditional knife?"

Believe me, I like them but they aren't quite as fuctional/convenient as modern folders. And as drano said, we really could get by without knives these days. So most people really do EDC for convenience.

"Doesn't anybody like to walk around with a big, heavy blade hanging at their hip ready for use?"


Bulky, and look at this world we live in. I'm also 16. ;)




I'm sure we all feel what you feel, but there isn't much we can do but carry our knives and be responsible for them and ourselves.
 
TheSurvivalist said:
What ever happened to big, manly sheath knives? What happened to people carrying heavy, solid folders like the Buck 110? What happened to the time when men were men, women were women, and knives rusted? Why can't I walk into a sporting-goods store and buy a big, hefty, "Made-in-America" carbon-steel outdoorsman-type knife with a full tang and a quality leather sheath for a reasonable price?
Click to expand...

Those days never really existed. Folding hunters weren't the most popular pattern and when the Buck 110 came on the scene, it was stainless. Most people carried comparitively small carbon steel slipjoints in their pockets way back when; the harder-use knives were fixed blades.
 
TheSurvivalist,

When I read your post, it sounds to me like there's one thing you're really hungering for - a time gone by. You long for things the way they used to be - simpler. More real, less plastic. I feel your pain. Even in my relatively brief life (I'm 27) I've witnessed a major cultural shift. We've swung from a somewhat independent and free-thinking society to a culture that depends on the system to provide for its needs. This dependence is not only a physical one, but mental and emotional as well. This is witnessed in everything from anti-knife and gun laws and attitudes to the means in which we acquire sustenance. I don't like it. This modern society makes things easier (in some ways...) and it's more comfortable, but no longer must men be men and women be women... I don't know what to tell you, just that I feel your pain...

Trout, aka Zack
 
>>>>"I want to see a larger selection of relatively inexpensive heavy-duty hunting and outdoors knives at sporting goods stores and knife shops. I want them available at my local shops so I can handle them before buying."

=========================

One solution would be to start your own sporting goods store or knife shop. I'm not an economics expert by any means, but I suspect the knife-related businesses that stay in business are the ones that provide what the buying public wants.

Now, with that said, I happen to AGREE with the sentiment of your post! Why not hang out with the rest of us curmudgeons over here at the slipjoint/traditional forum. Meanwhile, at the Buck forum those guys are always going on about the 110!
 
I understand what TheSurvivalist is saying, and I agree with much of it. I even started a topic about my Buck 110 epiphany!
 
I like traditional designs and materials a lot. If I can choose I'll get wood, stag or leather over any synthetic material. Of my fifty fixed blades, only two have synthetic handles.

I do like moras (wooden handled ones), leukus, pukkos and Opinels. They might not be hefty "manly" knives, but they are time tested designs that work very well. I use my knives hard, working outdoors for weeks and away from the rest of humanity, and so far good old Scandi blades have worked for me. I do like other knives, too (like Bark River's, which I think are a great combination of modern and traditional values).

I'm grateful for stainless steel every single day of my life. I live in a VERY humid place, sometimes have to work in even more humid jungles, under rain and carbon steel just gets ruined. Even though I take good care of my knives, the weather and working conditions I have to put them through just eat carbon steel.

I like the looks of a good Buck 110 a lot more than my Spyderco Paramilitary, but I can't deny the usefulness of the Para with its one hand opening, pocket clip. When I work on SAR operations, I have to take the knives that offer more performance, and sometimes one hand openers are better than a traditional lockback and fixed blades with orange G-10 replace my beloved wood handled knives.

You should really take a look at Razorback Knives. Scot makes some awesome blades in very well heat treated carbon steels, he can make a small pocket EDC or a big chopper and they will both look beautiful and cut like there's no tomorrow.
 
Well for .02cents heres my take on it;

Big manly sheath knives were popular with drug store sportsmen. I remember sitting on the tailgate of grandads pickup in the early 1950's watching him and a friend clean the game birds they had shot. They had leather handle knives alright, with slim little 3-4 inch blades made by companies like Case, Western, and Ka-bar. They were sportsmen of the old school. The pre ww2 school and on hunting and fishing trips I never saw granddad with anything but his old leather handle Case little Finn with about a 3 1/2 inch blade and his Case stockman. If a heavy cutting chore came up he had a small hatchet in his kit bag. Grandad used that Case little finn for trout, birds, deer, and general camp use. My dad had the same style knife made by Western.

Buck Folding hunters- still selling well last I looked.

Have a big heavy knife on my hip ready for use? On what? The wild injuns are gone and the Santa Fe trail is paved now and ya drive it in a Toyota. If it's bears to worry about I'd rather have a nice big revolver.

Want carbon steel? get an Opinel. Your yelling about wanting a traditional knife- Well Opinel has been in buisness for 115 years. Thats pretty traditional and they must be doing something right.

Want traditional- The moras you knock can be had with a wood handle and laminated carbon blade. It will rust if you don't take care of it and they have been making them for hundreds of years.

I'm an old fart in my 60's and sometimes I yearn for what was. But then I remember the old days sometimes were not so good. There is a better selection of high quality knives now than ever before, and not all of them are the tanto pointed tacticle stuff I'm not to fond of either. Want traditional- its still there or why else is Case, Queen, Shatt and Morgan popular ? The young guys like the other stuff, so let them have thier fun, they will learn soon enough.

As for weight and heft? At this point in life I like lightweight. I like synthetic materials that don't chip or crack up in use or if it gets dropped on a concrete floor. I can remember those leather handles- they would shrink and get loose, or if wet too much start to rot. You had to really be careful of them. I like my stainless steel and plastic handle sak. it does all I have to do in a suburban environment and I can wash it off in the sink.

Sometimes things change and sometimes its for the better. Sometimes its not. But it will change, and if we don't do a little of the change ourselves we become dinisaurs.
 
FYI, Boker is making some SWEET traditional carbon steel slipjoints these days. The Buck 110 is the same as it ever was. Queen still makes some pretty sweet looking traditional fixed blades in D2 steel. You're right in that it's a bummer we can no longer walk down to the corner B&M store and hand-pick the knife we want.
 
I'm not sure I agree with the premise of your post. I don't think there was ever a time (in the last 1,000 years anyway) when the average person carried a large sheath knife. My grandfather (who worked very "manly" jobs such as coal mining, steel mills, farming, etc.) always carried a small pocketknife and would have thought anyone with a sheath knife was a show-off.

I've worked some "manly" outdoor jobs myself including all sorts of construction (railroad, concrete bridge, residential...), field archaeology, and now I'm a mudlogger on a drill rig. Most of the time I carried an Opinel, but recently switched to a smaller and lighter-weight knife. There has never been a time that I wished for a large sheath knife.

There is good news for you though. There are thousands of fixed-blade knives on the market today with full tangs and natural handle materials. Buck, Bark River, AG Russell, Boker, Puma, Marbles...

The Buck 110 is sold at WalMart. I don't see how a product could be any more available to the public.

Doesn't anybody like to walk around with a big, heavy blade hanging at their hip ready for use?
Click to expand...
Use? For what? And you do know that would be illegal in many places?

Best Wishes,
-Bob
 
What ever happened to big, manly sheath knives? What happened to people carrying heavy, solid folders like the Buck 110? What happened to the time when men were men, women were women, and knives rusted? Why can't I walk into a sporting-goods store and buy a big, hefty, "Made-in-America" carbon-steel outdoorsman-type knife with a full tang and a quality leather sheath for a reasonable price? The only thing that even comes close anymore is the Ka-Bar. Doesn't anybody prefer a traditional knife? Doesn't anybody like to walk around with a big, heavy blade hanging at their hip ready for use?
Click to expand...

I see it like this:

I've seen alot of old antique knives, some that were actually used by pioneer settlers and mountainmen, and you would be surprised at how light-weight they were.
They were not excessively thick either.
They were'nt big, heavy, thick, crude, hunks of iron--they were finely crafted and very balanced and even a little thin when compared to some of today's fixed-blades.

Even in the pioneer days nobody wanted to lug around any more weight than they had to.
Those old mountainmen liked stag-antlers for handles because it was tough and light-weight.
And I don't think that anyone ever actually enjoyed seeing their knife rust.
Even our pioneer forefathers were always looking for better blade-steel.

Performance is what counts in my book.
I use my folding knives to slice and cut things--I don't use my folder as a hammer or as crowbar.
So with that in mind, what will a heavy Buck 110 do for me that a Spyderco Endura cannot?
Why lug around the extra weight if you're gaining no advantage in performance?

But if you do want a heavier knife, and you're having a hard time finding one, this guy has a Schrade LB7 and an Old Timer 6OT and a Buck 112 that he's willing to trade.

Here's the link:
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=375229

From mnblade:
You're right in that it's a bummer we can no longer walk down to the corner B&M store and hand-pick the knife we want.
Click to expand...
It's funny that you should mention that.
Just yesterday my father (age 72) was looking over my knife collection and commented on the variety.
He said that when he was a kid the only choices he had was Case or Camillus in his hometown.
He said you had to go to the big city of Raleigh to find a larger selection.



Here in the Carolinas, where the men are still men, and the women are still women, but nobody likes a rusty knife!

Allen.
 
I, too, like to keep things as simple as possible. My wife loves her Kershaw but I have yet to carry an assisted opener for any length of time (I briefly owned a SOG BLink that I traded away). All my fixed blades are carbon steel with natural handles, except one. My EDC is a wood handled lockback, an EKA 88. I gotta say, though, the Sandvik stainless is pretty good. I had a Buck 110, and it saw use around the house but I could never get used to the belt sheath. I tend to carry my knives in my pocket so 4-5oz. is about as heavy as I like to go. If I go camping I'll bring a khukuri but for my suburbanite office life the thin blade does what I need.

My preferrence for simple things doesn't end at knives. When I used to carry, it was a 4" 357., even though I got ribbed by the tuppergun crowd. I'm looking to replace my super-simple '65 Baja Bug with a simple work truck. I really don't need power windows, power door locks, power leather seats on a truck. I'd be perfectly happy so long as it was a 5-speed with a working radio. Good luck in your quest, Brother.

Frank
 
The answer is fairly simple. Men just don't wear suspenders anymore so we need lighter knives. :)
 
Maybe you should rename yourself: The Traditionalist ;).

Mmmmh, I don't know, I drive a pretty old and heavy car but I am not sure if I would want to go back to the "good old frontier times" when cars were 3 ton monsters with 12 hp 16 cylinders, getting 2 mi to the gallon and had a horse carriage suspension. All in all lighter is better.

Nor would I really appreciate my girlfriend needing a maid to get dressed and get her corset tightened while wearing a dress with a hoop skirt either. I tend to think that I am man enought that I don't need a servile woman in a skirt to make me feel like a man. I think I can deal with a girl wearing jeans.

Times change I guess, not always for the better but all in all I think we are still improving.

Having said that, I do like wood accents a lot. I like the looks of leather sheaths much better, too, but they perform not nearly as well as their Kydex counterparts.
 
I'm a young 22-year-old punk, and I like a wide variety of knives.

When I am at work, it isn't out of place for me to carry a Buck 119 Special on my belt, and a 110 in a sheath is downright stealth. So at work I tend to carry bigger, heavier knives, since that is my only chance to do so without getting scared looks. And I like larger, heavier knives very much.

But when I am going to the grocery store, I really like my Leek since it is so small, light, and non-threatening. The Leek cannot chop wood, but it is a very elegant, svelt knife that is easy to carry and very friendly to all of the soccer moms (especially since its hard for them to even notice while it's clipped in my pocket).

Knives and the habits of knife users have changed because society has become so safety-oriented. You can't do a lot of the things you used to be able to do. Some of this is for the better, but a lot of it is for the worse.

Survivalist- A lot of the reason your style of knife isn't as common anymore is that it doesn't sell as well anymore. People want light, small knives for EDC, and modern pocket knives have a hugh amount of advantages over older designs. That doesn't mean we don't like old designs and styles, but a plastic-handled, small, one-hand-opening Spyderco has a hugh market. A lot of knife-buyers today also want high-technology. Leather is cool, but it's not new tech.

There are still knives like you prefer being made, but they aren't as common because they used to be the only way people knew how, and now they have company.
 
Thank you all for your comments and criticisms. If I have inadvertently offended any of you, I assure you that was not my intention.

Originally Posted by Trout Tamer
I don't know what to tell you, just that I feel your pain...
Click to expand...

Thanks Trout Tamer. It isn't really pain. It's more like an annoying tingling sensation in the deep recesses of my mind. But thanks just the same. :thumbup:

Originally Posted by mnblade
One solution would be to start your own sporting goods store or knife shop. I'm not an economics expert by any means, but I suspect the knife-related businesses that stay in business are the ones that provide what the buying public wants.
Click to expand...

I have thought about opening a specialty cutlery shop, but I'll need sufficient capital first. I will also need to do an extensive analysis to determine local market demographics. If I make it happen, it won't be for quite a while.

Originally Posted by jackknife
Your yelling about wanting a traditional knife- Well Opinel has been in buisness for 115 years. Thats pretty traditional and they must be doing something right.
Click to expand...

I wasn't yelling. I was ranting. :D I know Opinel has been around for a long while, but I'm talking about wanting a big, beastly, classic blade. Those Opinel knives look flimsy, and I would undoubtedly break them. Opinel is a company based in France, and I like to buy American. No offense to anyone who's French.

Originally Posted by Bob W
I'm not sure I agree with the premise of your post. I don't think there was ever a time (in the last 1,000 years anyway) when the average person carried a large sheath knife. My grandfather (who worked very "manly" jobs such as coal mining, steel mills, farming, etc.) always carried a small pocketknife and would have thought anyone with a sheath knife was a show-off.
Click to expand...

I am not talking about average people. It is blatantly obvious that an average desk jockey, salesman, or factory worker doesn't need a fixed blade knife. I am talking about outdoorsman types. I am talking about people who use knives regularly. People have carried large belt knives throughout history. During the middle ages, large knives were often used for hunting, eating, and defense. In the American West, large knives were carried by hunters, trappers, and cowboys. Using a large knife appropriately, for a specific task, without intent to do harm to another, is not illegal. If a person uses a sheath knife, like many people still do, it is not "showing off." A coal miner isn't going to need a sheath knife. Maybe your grandfather was just jealous. :D

Originally Posted by allenC
And I don't think that anyone ever actually enjoyed seeing their knife rust.
Even our pioneer forefathers were always looking for better blade-steel.
Click to expand...

You mis-interpreted what I was trying to say. I don't enjoy seeing my knives rust either. I don't let them rust, and I enjoy taking care of them. I abuse my knives, but I do not do anything that will seriously damage them (like prying). I treat my blades like the Samurai treated their swords: with the utmost respect.

A carbon steel will perform better than stainless if it is cared for. I know that better steels are constantly being developed, but they are expensive and difficult to produce. A knife made of simple, inexpensive 1095 steel will be tough and will perform well.

Originally Posted by SilverFoxKnows
Good luck in your quest, Brother.
Click to expand...

Thanks SilverFoxKnows. The quest continues...

Originally posted by HoB
Maybe you should rename yourself: The Traditionalist
Click to expand...

I suppose I am sort of a traditionalist, but I'm much more of a survivalist.


Again, thanks for all the input, but I would really like to hear from some hardcore outdoorsmen. I'd like to hear the opinions of those who use big blades on a regular basis. Speak up, all ye sheath-wearing knife-nuts!

TheSurvivalist
 
I used to like heavy thick knives, but as I am getting older and wiser I realized they don't cut that well and they are just too heavy (duh) and sucks heat out of you like a heat sink. Afte all it's a knife not a pry bar. Now I am carrying a light weight Spyderco folder.
 
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