Blade Show Knives

[graycraig]

I took a non-knife fancier with me to the Blade Show. I had never been there before. My friend did buy two knives while there, one small utility knife and a kitchen vegetable chopper. He asked me a question that I had burning in my mind after walking through the tables. Why were there so many tactical and very large skinning knives? I simply told him it must be market demand, but I can't figure out what folks do with those type of knives except hang 'em up some place. If not for decoration then there are a lot more people than I would have guessed skinning animals bigger than Whitetails and getting in a lot of knife fights somewhere.

I grew up in the rural Iowa/MN border area and then spent a career in the US Army and was deployed to weird places more than many folks, spending time with 4th ID, 1st IDF, 1st AD, 101st ABN and USASOC during the 70s, 80s & 90s. I handled & looked at many different kinds of knives, but never saw the need for anything larger than the old "pilot's survival" knife and even that knife was too large for many functions. A Swiss Army knife with bone/wood saw and a Leatherman were the most useful that I came across.

I was purely bamboozled by the seemingly large numbers of large-sized knives and the blade thicknesses of many knives at the Blade Show.

Is it pure market demand or something else. Everyone I grew up around skinned animals with relatively small blades and I, luckily, never saw hand to hand combat with a knife. Am I simply naive to the use and need of these seemingly large thick bladed knives?

Craig in Tennessee

 

[Jason G Howell]

I use a small knife in the field and agree that you can use a skinner less than 4" and do just about anyhting you need done. but...

There's a certain lure (as a maker) making large knives. I'm from Texas and in the knife world, there's the history of the big knife and the great texas makers that made large knives, particularly bowies. I've used my large knives in test situations, and of course, tried to tear them up. I'm a true believer that they can perform in that realm and hold up to a LOT of abuse. If I was stranded and had to have one tool, it would be a large bowie. There's a lot I can do with it that I can't do with a 3" skinner ...'cept carry it in public