Beast of a knife sometimes you need to go traditional

cchu518 said:
...He then meticulously produced an old Schrade 60T lockback hunter. It was dark and that was what I thought I had read on it. The tang stamp said something to the effect of Schrade+ USA on it or something to that effect...

...The Schrade in 1095 steel he said was sharp even though he hadn't touched it up in 6 months.
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Just for clarification, usually, and I emphasize the word usually, the + stamp indicates that it was made with Schrade's Stainless Steel, 1095 is a quality high carbon steel.

Schrade made some beasts of a knife, the 51OT was my favorite big Schrade, a handful of knife up to today's crop of younger hard users, mine survived 20 years of service as a prybar, hammer and pencil sharpener. :)

Pic from aapk...

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Great story... :thumbup:
 
cchu518 said:
That 510 is twenty years old? Wouldn't have thunk it!
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More like 35-40 years old, I was in my early 20s when it came out, I had to have it, it was the most expensive knife I had bought to date, I think I paid $30-$40 at the time, that was like $100-$150 these days. :)

I did notice the company that bought Schrade's name and tooling are making this knife again pretty cheap, this pattern always seemed to me to be the beginning of the big folding knife era. Also this was the first knife I was able to snap my wrist to flip own the blade, it had enough mass in the blade that with a little practice you could flip it open. This all before knives with flippers. :)
 
How awesome to talk knives with you grandpa, even an in-law.
I never got the chance. Mine died when i was young, my wife lost hers
before we got together. I do have my maternal granddads case stockman.
And the remington my great-aunt taught me to sharpen pencils with.
 
When I was a kid my grandfather & I went down to the town dock to see who was catching what. His favorite knife,out of all the black Buck knives my Uncle John used to give us,was that little one with the coping secondary blade,I think a "Lancer" they call it. Anyhow there was a guy we started to talk to about fishing & in doing something,I can't remember what,he pulled out,I think it was a 4+ " Kabar stockman. I was impressed , the steel gleamed,all I could think of was geez,look at the size of that pocket knife. Plus you know how when you're a kid stuff always looked bigger ?

I've got a permanent 7/0 hook lodged in my jaw for life over the slip joint folders. Yeah I'm hooked. Through the years,I like small,big,medium. I give up. Let's face it I like all of them. Some days I'm in the mood for a big knife,some days smaller. Some days two.
Thing about the big folders is,well they are real hard workers,bigger handle= better grip for longer harder cutting work. Bigger blade doesn't hurt either.

That story,the OP says about Grandpa Donald's knife , I've seen many an old timer with larger folders
 
Oh, and i carry the uk pen knife at work.
It gets "borrowed" by others, who carry the
folding box cutters
 
You want to see a beast? Check out this Northwoods Scagel.





It's not every day you see a slipjoint with a blade the thickness of a modern folder.

- Christian
 
I remember as a kid, working with one of my uncles out on the farm, he did everything with a Stockman, Case I think. Everything from growing stuff to butchering stuff. I was the proud owner of an official BSA scout knife at the time. He happened to see it, compared it to his pocket knife, and advised me that I would never need another knife. Of course, I ignored that advice and bought a Buck 110 with my first earned money.

That was many years ago, and many knives ago. But I still have the BSA scout knife and the Buck 110...
 
Look at all these sweet beast of a knife traditionals!

For this past year I have found myself enamored with tiny peanut size traditionals.

The products in the medium end of the spectrum haven't really been doing much for me.

And as of recently I have found large beefy traditionals to be a wonderful niche of great interest. Like that scagel... you get a nice beefy blade in a compact handle that fills the hand. I find myself very drawn to the vintage Schrades though and I have been trying to research the large traditional folder niche more thoroughly.

To be honest I normally carry a little sak cadet or a mini Barlow. They serve as an edc quite well, but they would get up to their armpits in cutting some items like the giant pickle that I was eating. I do think that knives like the 51, 60t that awesome scagel fit really well in the pocket vs some of the moderns out there.

I find myself leaving my new to me Spyderco Domino at home as I am self conscious about having a knife openly clipped to my pants in the NYC/NJ area.

Whereas Grandpa Donald (my wife's grandfather) had this nice big blade hidden in a compact handle all neatly folded up in his pocket and no one would know the better of it! I think that's a big selling point of knives with no pocket clips to them...
 
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Loulasher said:
The knives of today would just be considered expensive "crap".....
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No.
My Grandfather, when he was alive, carried and used slip-joint pretty much exclusively (except for the Fairbairn–Sykes dagger he carried in WW2).
When I showed him my Benchmade Resistor, he examined it, tested its cutting ability, as well as the action of the lock.
His appraisal: "That'll work."
He even liked the mechanical ingenuity and ease of use of the AXIS lock.

He bought and carried slip-joints because that's what was at the store mainly when he was growing up and working.
If he were growing up and working now, he'd buy whatever was at the store.
It probably wouldn't be as expensive as what I have bought, but who knows?
He did appreciate the mechanics and engineering of a wide range of things. :)
 
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