Bails and Chains

afishhunter said:
I don't know what GEC and Waynorth have decided on for the chain length.
Historically, 18 to 20 inches seems to have been the "normal" length, from what little I've seen.
That might be a little short for some people.
It might be possible to add onto the chain or replace the chain with a longer one?

My SAK chain is 34 inches long. To date I have not had to remove the knife from the chain when using it.
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I could see myself running out of chain quite often. Just last night, I was cutting a piece of thin rope strung between two nails in my garage. The rope was up over head height. No way I'd accomplish that cut with the knife still tethered to me. I'll probably elect to break the chain ad remove the bail. Then I'll add a Beer Scout Knife style bail and add my own clip to the chain. I'll have to live with a floppy bail, but the knife will at least be far more functional.
 
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I can see that overhead cuts would make a difference.
All my cuts so far have been knee-high to shoulder height.
My apologies for not taking overhead cuts into consideration when I made my comment.
 
Buzzbait said:
I could see myself running out of chain quite often. Just last night, I was cutting a piece of thin rope strung between two nails in my garage. The rope was up over head height. No way I'd accomplish that cut with the knife still tethered to me. I'll probably elect to break the chain ad remove the bail. Then I'll add a Beer Scout Knife style bail and add my own clip to the chain. I'll have to live with a floppy bail, but the knife will at least be far more functional.
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Since GEC is using jump rings, you won't need to break the chain, just remove the ring(s).

Looking at the links, they look to be 1/8 of an inch, which will make that chain about 18 inches long as pictured.

It reminds me more of a watch fob :mad:

Also, your *lemon juice* patina method is outstanding! :D
 
afishhunter said:
Buzzbait Buzzbait
I can see that overhead cuts would make a difference.
All my cuts so far have been knee-high to shoulder height.
My apologies for not taking overhead cuts into consideration when I made my comment.
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No worries. The design just seems very limiting to me. I'm not even sure what you do if you want to hand your knife to your wife for a moment. Hand her the whole pile of bail, chain, and knife? LOL
 
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If I had a wife (or girlfriend) and she wanted to borrow a knife, I'd probably just hand her one of the others I have on me. :)
Edit: I'd also ask her what she did with the all the knives I gave her ...
 
I feel bad for GEC sometimes. Seems like no matter what they try to do, they end up disappointing someone.

Part of the charm of at least some of their designs, and the bail and chain is a good example, seem to be targeting nostalgia more so than functionality. And that’s great. But if the nostalgia aspect isn’t appealing for someone, and if the design seems limiting with respect to functionality, maybe it just isn’t the knife for you. That doesn’t really make it a “miss” for GEC.
 
Astronaut FX said:
I feel bad for GEC sometimes. Seems like no matter what they try to do, they end up disappointing someone.

Part of the charm of at least some of their designs, and the bail and chain is a good example, seem to be targeting nostalgia more so than functionality. And that’s great. But if the nostalgia aspect isn’t appealing for someone, and if the design seems limiting with respect to functionality, maybe it just isn’t the knife for you. That doesn’t really make it a “miss” for GEC.
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It just seems that with a tiny bit of planning, GEC could have made the knife both nostalgic AND functional.
 
Astronaut FX said:
I feel bad for GEC sometimes. Seems like no matter what they try to do, they end up disappointing someone.

Part of the charm of at least some of their designs, and the bail and chain is a good example, seem to be targeting nostalgia more so than functionality. And that’s great. But if the nostalgia aspect isn’t appealing for someone, and if the design seems limiting with respect to functionality, maybe it just isn’t the knife for you. That doesn’t really make it a “miss” for GEC.
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That's how they know they're sticking to their core values. If you're making everyone happy you're too soft.

I love the idea of a bail and chain on a knife like this. For sure I can lend it to someone to open a bottle but they're not going to run off with it!
 
Buzzbait said:
I absolutely LOVE the idea of GEC making a boys knife with bail and chain. But I have to admit that I'm kind of disappointed with their execution on this one. They've done pinned bails before (think Texas Camp knife) as well as the press fit bails (think Beer Scout Knife) which are technically removable, but are not meant to be removed, and are not exactly easy to add back on. Pinned on bails are very permanent, which I guess can be seen as a downside, but they work far better. Where a press fit bail tends to flop into the blade path accidentally, a properly made pinned bails tends to hold its position.

With these new boys knives, with bails and chains, it looks like we probably have a press fit bail, which is a bummer, assuming you don't like having your bail swing into the path of your blade as you close your knife. The larger issue though is the fact that there's no clip to remove the chain from the bail. So the knife is more of less permanently attached to the chain. Once the length of chain runs out, you have to unbutton the chain from your clothing in order to reach your cutting substrate. That's a pretty big issue, IMHO, which could have easily been resolved with an small clip.

I really, really thought that GEC was going to do these up properly, with a pinned bail and removable chain.
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I don't know that we've heard any definitive information on these yet. It does look like the bail will "flop." But it looks like the bails may be removable--not in the way the the beer scout bail is removable. I mean, these may pinch off very quickly. In this way, the chain may be permanently attached, but the bail may pop off very quickly. That may eliminate some of your concerns (but not others). What I mean is, the bail may well "flop," so you'll have the danger of closing the blade on the bail (as with the beer scout), but if you can pop the bail off quickly, you would not be limited by the length of the chain. Also, if it is the case that the bail can pinch on and off very fast, then this is a way for people to get a knife with some nostalgic value to it, but also have it as functional as the standard boys knife with the pinch of the fingers. You could buy the knife and toss the chain + bail in a drawer and have a regular buys knife.

Of course, all this is speculation. But I doubt GEC would make a knife like this with NO way to remove it from the chain in some fashion.
 
i cant wait, this will go nicely on my watch chain that i've been working on!
 
I think some people here shouldn't bother to buy a knife with a bail and chain!
It's obviously too much trouble!! Why pay extra for something you are going to struggle with, and probably remove and toss??
I found a chain useful when I was wearing bib jeans as a kid. Just button it onto a shoulder strap button, under the strap latch at your chest. Then you could hang from a branch by your legs, upside-down of course, and you wouldn't lose your knife!!
I remember using a suspender button on my pants also!
I doubt I will need to use a bail and chain any more to keep my knife, but I just want one for nostalgia purposes!!
 
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