Are we carrying tougher knives than are needed?

Are you carrying more knife than needed?

  • Yep. I admit it and I'm fine with it. It gives me pleasure.

    Votes: 115 65.0%

  • Yeah, now that you mention it...

    Votes: 19 10.7%

  • No, I use all the capability I carry

    Votes: 35 19.8%

  • Other

    Votes: 8 4.5%
  • Total voters
    177
dialton said:
<snip>
I believe in the right tool for the job whenever possible. Under normal circumstances My blades get used for cutting, period. I use razor knives, pry bars and screwdrivers for their intended purposes and only in an emergency would risk my blade on their tasks. <snip>
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A couple people have commented in this thread to that effect.
Many of the things I use my daily carry for is these little miscellaneous cutting tasks for which there are specialized tools, but having a do-it-all knife in my pocket saves me a trip to get or look for The Right Tool.

Examples:
  • Open boxes (yes, risking tape glue contamination)
  • Breaking down boxes
  • Cutting up food (hopefully after cleaning the blade from the aforementioned dirty jobs)
  • Cutting tags off of clothing

If you're going to carry a knife but almost always go for The Right Knife, then carrying one seems superfluous.
 
Smaug said:
If you're going to carry a knife but almost always go for The Right Knife, then carrying one seems superfluous.
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This is how I ended up cutting the chrome caps off some rust-swollen lug nuts with a Delica recently. Or at least, cutting them loose enough to peel the rest of the way with pliers.

Still not sure what the right tool there was but the Delica sharpened back up just fine and the OEM nuts have been replaced with single-piece aftermarkets that shouldn't swell beyond the socket size.
 
I'll go at this from a little different angle. Most production knives today are designed more from a warranty perspective than a use-case perspective.
From heat treatment to stock thickness to edge thickness and angle most production knives are made to be tougher than they could be.
That is one thing that i appreciate about spyderco who does tend to produce thin blades in modern steels with fairly high HRC numbers. To that point I think the Native Chief is a fantastic platform to test out different steels.
 
I used to carry super tough folders. But now I just carry a SAK or Leatherman. I don’t need to do non-knife stuff with a knife, if the knife is also other tools.

For hard use times in my life, which are rare, I have a fixed blade.
 
Lesknife said:
My Dad and grandfather also carried only a slip joint knife out on the farm and ranch Usually a stockman but they also had other fixed blade knives they used for various purposes that required more blade. So their slip joints didn’t cover everything they needed. I’m guessing yours did too and maybe it wasn’t as often or as noticeable. Around the farm and ranch there’s some things that an ordinary slippy isn’t enough tool for the job.
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That's how I roll also. On top of a folder, I carry at least a small fixed blade whenever I leave home and anticipate real work. My EDC folders are usually 3" high HRC gen't folders and I reserve them for food and lightweight tasks. So I keep small and tough beaters in my bags. 1075, SK-85, 14c28n, not just easier to sharpen, but I care less.
 
Hell yeah! I grew up with "All you need is a swiss army knife to clean a deer!" my old man showed me how he did it, very slowly as not to break the blade, it can be done with TIME and very much CARE.

I whipped out my western fix blade (sneaky present mom got me) and processed the deer in a quarter of the time he did oh that included skinning. So began our great argument. It started when I was 10. Then it went to "You only need a 4 inch blade max in the woods." I thought he also meant axe and stuff and a SAW both grand fathers said were more important. Nope just a slim 4 in knife. He gave me one and told me to do some thing. It broke on the first "Easy" task. I showed him the stress marks on it. Yes if you Take your Time and CAREFULLY do things it can be done. My western blade did the same things but I did the smaller things with the Buck 110. I was 12. The old man did know his woodsy skills, give him that much. But my "TOO MUCH KNIFE" idea always drove him bonkers. You should of seen how he reacted to my current collections and my RD Tanto. "Oh that's my Midsized one."
 
I’m good with over built knives, they make me happy. Besides, if I didn’t spend disposable cash on knives, I’d be spending it on something else that probably wouldn’t make me smile as much as a new knife. IMO, I absolutely need the knives I have.
 
For EDC, a SAK is enough, even if it is as basic as Bantam.

Last year year around Christmas. I was visiting my son who just moved from Oklahoma to Texas. Texas require front plate, and the pre-drilled holes on the front bumper were too close. Two holes were neede to keep the plate centerd. The car was parked far away from the apartment building, and the toolbox was somewhere in the unpacked boxes. There was a cold wave in Dallas area, windy, and the temperature was bellow 32. Making holes in fiberglass with a spearpoint blade was not fun. SAK Banntam did the job. My fingers were cold and stiff. I had to push hard fully aware what will happen if the the knife closes on my fingers. Holes done, the screws tightened - all with my Bantam.

A little off topic - luckily I did not follow that fad about the alox; the task asked hard push and rotation, the celidor scales filled my hand enough for a good grip, and the friction was sufficient to prevent sliding the hand towards the blade. So, the benefit of the plastic scales is not only the accomodation of the toothpick and the tweezers.
 
vinprom said:
For EDC, a SAK is enough, even if it is as basic as Bantam.

Last year year around Christmas. I was visiting my son who just moved from Oklahoma to Texas. Texas require front plate, and the pre-drilled holes on the front bumper were too close. Two holes were neede to keep the plate centerd. The car was parked far away from the apartment building, and the toolbox was somewhere in the unpacked boxes. There was a cold wave in Dallas area, windy, and the temperature was bellow 32. Making holes in fiberglass with a spearpoint blade was not fun. SAK Banntam did the job. My fingers were cold and stiff. I had to push hard fully aware what will happen if the the knife closes on my fingers. Holes done, the screws tightened - all with my Bantam.

A little off topic - luckily I did not follow that fad about the alox; the task asked hard push and rotation, the celidor scales filled my hand enough for a good grip, and the friction was sufficient to prevent sliding the hand towards the blade. So, the benefit of the plastic scales is not only the accomodation of the toothpick and the tweezers.
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Sounds like the perfect example of needing a hard use folder to me.😉
 
Are we carrying more knife than needed? Sure we are. Driving more truck, living in more house, sending more kids to college than needed, too.

Conveniently, we currently live in a set of conditions that allow us to exceed the bare minimums in many aspects. Over the course of human history, that’s kinda unusual, yet here we are.

Sometime when you’re bored, and you want to glaze your eyes over with psychology, search “Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.” Knives motivate us on many levels.

Parker
 
A PSA ...

*Scene* by a beautiful lake at dusk, children's laughter can be heard as a man sits near the campfire. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a Hinderer XM24 and flips it open with a thundering "thwack" ... suddenly there is silence as the massive blade glimmers in the fading sunlight.

*Tension fills the air* ... he cuts a choclate bar to make smores for the children. *dramatic music plays* ... the choclate splits with ease, it's no match for the knife. *a gasp can be heard*

The children cry as they run to their mother, his wife looks at him in utter disappointment as his family turns and disappears into the tent. The silhouette of a man hunched over, his head hung in shame.

The man leaps from his chair looking at the knife in his hand ... he yells out "damn you over built knife, why did you have to do that so easily?!" ... as he throws the evil knife into the lake! *end scene*

*fade to blank screen* Don't let this happen to you ... never be over prepared again. *Happy music plays as the picture appears on screen. *Off camera voice over says* "For when you care enough to bring no more than you absolutely have to have".

Screenshot_20230926-234317_Chrome.jpg
 
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irsh said:
Ever seen 127 Hours? Imagine having to cut your own arm off with a SAK Classic. :oops:
Granted the chances of anything like that are very small, but I'll happily carry more knife than I "need".
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Sad truth is that for surgeon type chores, you are better off with a scalpel-like blade (or what we have decided to call arround here... "slicy" blade...) than a 1/4" sharpened prybar.

I read in Victorinox website how a volunteer medic had to use his SAK saw as a bone saw for weeks during an emergency in a lost country in Africa due to the dedicated bone saw (and other) instrumental box was lost... The cellidor scales were long gone due to the sanitizying procedures but the rest of the knife worked flawlesly.

So if I ever need to amputate a bony part of me... I would rather have a SAK with saw to slice and saw through it... than chopping through Connan style with a tacticool folder!

Mikel

PD: I don't think that the bigger Victorinox folders (locking, one hand opening, etc.) are a bad choice for anything... maybe for the lack of pocket clip... but besides that, I could do anything I wanted with a Soldier or One Hand Trekker.
 
JJ_Colt45 said:
A PSA ...

*Scene* by a beautiful lake at dusk, children's laughter can be heard as a man sits near the campfire. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a Hinderer XM24 and flips it open with a thundering "thwack" ... suddenly there is silence as the massive blade glimmers in the fading sunlight.

*Tension fills the air* ... he cuts a choclate bar to make smores for the children. *dramatic music plays* ... the choclate splits with ease, it's no match for the knife. *a gasp can be heard*

The children cry as they run to their mother, his wife looks at him in utter disappointment as his family turns and disappears into the tent. The silhouette of a man hunched over, his head hung in shame.

The man leaps from his chair looking at the knife in his hand ... he yells out "damn you over built knife, why did you have to do that so easily?!" ... as he throws the evil knife into the lake! *end scene*

*fade to blank screen* Don't let this happen to you ... never be over prepared again. *Happy music plays as the picture appears on screen. *Off camera voice over says* "For when you care enough to bring no more than you absolutely have to have".

View attachment 2335717
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Well played sir.
 
I like large but not necessarily over built. My current EDC is a Spyderco Endura that I swap out with the current model Spyderco Police. They get used to cut a lot of wild vegetation around the homestead, jobs a machete would be a better tool if I carried one all the time.
 
vinprom said:
For EDC, a SAK is enough, even if it is as basic as Bantam.

Last year year around Christmas. I was visiting my son who just moved from Oklahoma to Texas. Texas require front plate, and the pre-drilled holes on the front bumper were too close. Two holes were neede to keep the plate centerd. The car was parked far away from the apartment building, and the toolbox was somewhere in the unpacked boxes. There was a cold wave in Dallas area, windy, and the temperature was bellow 32. Making holes in fiberglass with a spearpoint blade was not fun. SAK Banntam did the job. My fingers were cold and stiff. I had to push hard fully aware what will happen if the the knife closes on my fingers. Holes done, the screws tightened - all with my Bantam.

A little off topic - luckily I did not follow that fad about the alox; the task asked hard push and rotation, the celidor scales filled my hand enough for a good grip, and the friction was sufficient to prevent sliding the hand towards the blade. So, the benefit of the plastic scales is not only the accomodation of the toothpick and the tweezers.
Click to expand...

Sounds like an alox model like the pioneer or pioneer X or farmer, with the inline awl, would have done the job a lot easier and faster. The SD tip on the can opener is a great Phillips driver. :thumbsup:
 
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