"Carl's Lounge" (Off-Topic Discussion, Traditional Knife "Tales & Vignettes")

[Cambertree]

The Sear's 4-way and the P-38 make a fine dynamic duo of pocket tools. This pair has been with me since the later 60's. Small bit on the 4-way had been filed down a bit to fit small Phillips screws.

On my key ring for years.

When I was looking for my own dynamic keyring duo after reading Carl’s tales, which first brought me to the Porch while researching an old TL-29 I was given, I managed to get a Shelby P-38 locally. Procuring a Sears 4-way driver in Australia proved a little more difficult. I ended up getting the Victorinox knock-off, which actually seems like a slight improvement re the small Phillips head driver. I think it’s available as a replacement part for one of the Swisscards.

When I make a pot of ramen noodles, I usually drop two or three eggs into the boiling water, right after I add the noodles. An egg will poach in 2 1/2 to 3 minutes, the same time it takes the noodles. They add protein and richen the soup.

Yeah, I do the same, Henry.

If I’m making a traditional ramen or soba soup from scratch, sometimes I boil the egg separately for 4 1/2 minutes, then put it in cold water for about 30 seconds to contract it inside the shell. Then, peel the shell at the fat end of the egg and slip a teaspoon down inside the membrane and work it around the circumference of the egg. There’s a little knack to it, but once you have it down pat, you can gently upend the intact softboiled egg out of the shell and into the soup, with the assistance of the teaspoon. Then pierce the egg gently with your knife.

It’s a nice technique, when you want the egg to be more localised in flavour so it doesn’t mingle all through a lighter broth and the other ingredients.

This egg in pork broth from one of my local chain ramen joints is boiled a little longer, so it can be sliced in half, but you get the idea.

It’s not very Japanese, but I can’t resist the dollop of chilli paste on top which they offer!

 

[jackknife]

When I was looking for my own dynamic keyring duo after reading Carl’s tales, which first brought me to the Porch while researching an old TL-29 I was given, I managed to get a Shelby P-38 locally. Procuring a Sears 4-way driver in Australia proved a little more difficult. I ended up getting the Victorinox knock-off, which actually seems like a slight improvement re the small Phillips head driver. I think it’s available as a replacement part for one of the Swisscards.

I got one of those Victorinox tools a year or so back and have been playing with it. Like most stuff Victorinox, it's better thought out than the old
sears with really better shaped Phillips drivers. It's a lot smaller than the Sear's, and that is a little handicap when using as a pry tool. But for dealing with the small Phillips screws that seems o hold the whole world together these days, it's a better tool than the Sear's. I've taken to carrying it in my wallet with the P-38 in a rotation with the Sears. Little by little it's gaining. The Sear's is a 50 year habit with me, and with better tools available, old habits are hard to break. So don't dis the Victorinox tool.




It certainly is a compact little sucker. I like compact. Here compared to the old standby P-38. Not as good a mini pry tool, but a better Phillips driver!

 

[jc57]

It’s not very Japanese, but I can’t resist the dollop of chilli paste on top which they offer!

I thought perhaps that was Korean gochujang chili paste. I covet that meal. I wish I had a chain of ramen joints nearby that sold food like that.

Edit: Well thanks to Google, I have found a nice ramen restaurant nearby I have not tried. Horizons expanded.

 

[Cambertree]

I got one of those Victorinox tools a year or so back and have been playing with it. Like most stuff Victorinox, it's better thought out than the old
sears with really better shaped Phillips drivers. It's a lot smaller than the Sear's, and that is a little handicap when using as a pry tool. But for dealing with the small Phillips screws that seems o hold the whole world together these days, it's a better tool than the Sear's. I've taken to carrying it in my wallet with the P-38 in a rotation with the Sears. Little by little it's gaining. The Sear's is a 50 year habit with me, and with better tools available, old habits are hard to break. So don't dis the Victorinox tool.




It certainly is a compact little sucker. I like compact. Here compared to the old standby P-38. Not as good a mini pry tool, but a better Phillips driver!

Thanks for the comparison, Carl, I wouldn't have guessed the size difference was so drastic. The Vic certainly is a nicely machined and finished piece of steel. Looking at it next to the Sears though, I can see you could get a lot more prying action out of the older 4-way. For light prying though, I tend to employ the SD/file tip of the Classic, as you've also recommended. If I need to go with a stouter tool, it's the flathead/bottle opener on the Pioneer.

I should also thank you, while I'm at it for the tip on picking up old keychain Classics/Secretaries/Escorts/Rallies and the like. I look out for cheap ones at auction and sharpen and clean them up. They make useful little gifts. My old Mum is fond of telling me, when I see her, how she last used her little purple Classic to solve some task or other. It's quite unusual to see a second hand SAK which has had any attempt at sharpening at all done to it. I guess they're used until they don't cut anymore then a new one is bought. One of the other strange treatments of old SAKs which leaves me shaking my head, are the occasionally bent main blades from prying? WHY? When it would've only taken another second to open the screwdriver blade?!! I guess for most non knife folk, a pocket knife blade is the correct improvised tool to use for prying.

A chef mate of mine fell out with one of his housemates after she used his 8" Wusthof chef knife to pry open dried paint tins, leaving a permanent banana bend in it.

I thought perhaps that was Korean gochugang chili paste. I covet that meal. I wish I had a chain of ramen joints nearby that sold food like that.

Edit: Well thanks to Google, I have found a nice ramen restaurant nearby I have not tried. Horizons expanded.

Nice one John, thanks for expanding my own horizons on gochugang, I hadn't heard of it before, and you're probably right, considering the Japanese obsession with Korean food.

I hope you enjoy that ramen place, my friend. While we're talking about fish and eating, this is my favourite local place to combine the two for pure food bliss. The itamae, or sushi master here started working on a fishing boat out of Fukuoka at age 11, before doing his thirteen year apprenticeship.

 

[jc57]

thanks for expanding my own horizons on gochugang

I have to apologize for my earlier typo - it's typically romanized as "gochujang" (고추장) - not with the "g" that I used in place of the "j". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gochujang . I am guessing you found it anyway.

I have a tub of the store-bought kind in the fridge. That stuff is HOT. Due to my limited Hangul reading skills, I think I ended up with the "Very Hot" grade, which is one notch down from the "Incinerate your mouth" level. I've only used it so far in a kimchi fried rice recipe, which was great with a fried egg on top (back to the egg topic).

 

[Cambertree]

I have to apologize for my earlier typo - it's typically romanized as "gochujang" (고추장) - not with the "g" that I used in place of the "j". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gochujang . I am guessing you found it anyway.

I have a tub of the store-bought kind in the fridge. That stuff is HOT. Due to my limited Hangul reading skills, I think I ended up with the "Very Hot" grade, which is one notch down from the "Incinerate your mouth" level. I've only used it so far in a kimchi fried rice recipe, which was great with a fried egg on top (back to the egg topic).

Thanks, yes I did find it. Interesting, it almost sounds like a miso paste with rice and chillis, instead of fermented soybeans. Yes that stuff they put on the ramen was probably that Very Hot variety, I'm going to have to chase up some, sounds good!

 

[jc57]

miso paste

The Korean variant of miso is "doenjang," which is still not quite the same thing. They are both fermented soybean pastes, but the process of making them is different and the resulting flavors are different. It has a very strong, but pleasant, flavor. A little goes a long way.

 

[jackknife]

Thanks for the comparison, Carl, I wouldn't have guessed the size difference was so drastic. The Vic certainly is a nicely machined and finished piece of steel. Looking at it next to the Sears though, I can see you could get a lot more prying action out of the older 4-way. For light prying though, I tend to employ the SD/file tip of the Classic, as you've also recommended. If I need to go with a stouter tool, it's the flathead/bottle opener on the Pioneer.

I should also thank you, while I'm at it for the tip on picking up old keychain Classics/Secretaries/Escorts/Rallies and the like. I look out for cheap ones at auction and sharpen and clean them up. They make useful little gifts. My old Mum is fond of telling me, when I see her, how she last used her little purple Classic to solve some task or other. It's quite unusual to see a second hand SAK which has had any attempt at sharpening at all done to it. I guess they're used until they don't cut anymore then a new one is bought. One of the other strange treatments of old SAKs which leaves me shaking my head, are the occasionally bent main blades from prying? WHY? When it would've only taken another second to open the screwdriver blade?!! I guess for most non knife folk, a pocket knife blade is the correct improvised tool to use for prying.

Yeah, the amount of light prying I do is so much less than just needing a small screws river that I can put up woththe smaller Vic tool. TheVic has so much nicer machining on the driver bits. Being a retired machinist I appreciate such things. If I need more tool for prying, my Trusty Wenger SI in in the nylon belt pouch on hand. No, I've never understood the bent SAK blade either!

I love finding the little used SAK's for give aways. There used to be a lady that would be at the gun show up at the Howard county fairgrounds. back in Maryland, that had boxes of TSA confiscated SAK's. About 90% of them were the 58mm size and most of them were classics with a few ramblers and mini champs tossed in. All of them almost with no exception were dirty, full of pocket lint, and dull but with original edge grind intact. They had just never been sharpened once the edge was dull.

A little time at the sink with some Dawn dish soap and toothbrush and a touching up on a diamond hone and they were almost like new and ready to go. I can only think that with them being a 10 dollar knife at the big box stores, people consider them a semi disposable tool and just buy a new one instead of sharpening the old one. That's okay as I see it as good for us. Lets me get a supply of 2 or 3 dollar little SAK's to have as give aways when I see someone in need of a knife.

With a vic classic on my keyring and P-38 and keychain screw driver in my wallet, I feel I can go a long way in modern suburbia.

 

[Cambertree]

The Korean variant of miso is "doenjang," which is still not quite the same thing. They are both fermented soybean pastes, but the process of making them is different and the resulting flavors are different. It has a very strong, but pleasant, flavor. A little goes a long way.

Thanks, another thing I'll add to the shopping list to try out, John.

A little time at the sink with some Dawn dish soap and toothbrush and a touching up on a diamond hone and they were almost like new and ready to go. I can only think that with them being a 10 dollar knife at the big box stores, people consider them a semi disposable tool and just buy a new one instead of sharpening the old one. That's okay as I see it as good for us. Lets me get a supply of 2 or 3 dollar little SAK's to have as give aways when I see someone in need of a knife.

With a vic classic on my keyring and P-38 and keychain screw driver in my wallet, I feel I can go a long way in modern suburbia.

Definitely! A little skill in basic sharpening and some elbow grease, and there's an almost unlimited supply of cheap SAKs out there to be gifted away!

I hear what you're saying Carl about Maximum Minimalism... but I don't think I'm personally quite at that wise level of knife user Knirvana just yet. I suppose I could probably get away with most cutting tasks being relegated to a Classic. Slicing and preparing food would probably get a little bothersome after a while. In truth, I just like having my Lambsfoot or Pioneer or a punch equipped Stockman on me, even if I could rationally downsize them.

And I'm half afraid that if I went down the path of the Classic or the Peanut (or Coyote) as my sole cutting tool, that that would just be a prelude to the next stage of minimalism - maybe something like the old poet Basho, who wandered itinerant, up and down 17th century Japan, while boasting that he carried no iron, all the while... And where would the fun be in that?!

 

[jackknife]

Thanks, another thing I'll add to the shopping list to try out, John.



Definitely! A little skill in basic sharpening and some elbow grease, and there's an almost unlimited supply of cheap SAKs out there to be gifted away!

I hear what you're saying Carl about Maximum Minimalism... but I don't think I'm personally quite at that wise level of knife user Knirvana just yet. I suppose I could probably get away with most cutting tasks being relegated to a Classic. Slicing and preparing food would probably get a little bothersome after a while. In truth, I just like having my Lambsfoot or Pioneer or a punch equipped Stockman on me, even if I could rationally downsize them.

And I'm half afraid that if I went down the path of the Classic or the Peanut (or Coyote) as my sole cutting tool, that that would just be a prelude to the next stage of minimalism - something like the old poet Basho, who wandered up and down 17th century Japan, while boasting that he carried no iron, all the while... And where would be the fun in that?!

I can't argue with your premise, as my quest for the maximum minimalism has indeed led me to my slow disengagement from the whole knife thing. Most all my knives have been gifted off but a few, and I find myself not missing them very much. Maybe I've finally in my old age faced who I really am and what I really am. I know I'll never see the wilderness again except from the tourist train for the senior citizens at Yosemite. I'm not hunting, and if I need a food prep knife then I'm probably in my kitchen with a nice rack of Victoriox/Forschner knives at standby.


I do a lot of fishing in my retirement, so if I'm out on some section of river bank, my old Buck 102 woodsman in on my hip. That 102 has served me since 1999, and before that Had one from 1969 to 1999 and wore it down to a sharp toothpick. Very often the woodsman and classic are my cutlery for the day. The Vic scissors do a great job on fishing line.




I've turned in to the 'old guy with the pen knife' character on the courthouse square bench. It's all a question of how much knife do I really need for my life style? Everyone finds their own minimalism in their own time.

 

[5K Qs]

I got one of those Victorinox tools a year or so back and have been playing with it. Like most stuff Victorinox, it's better thought out than the old
sears with really better shaped Phillips drivers. It's a lot smaller than the Sear's, and that is a little handicap when using as a pry tool. But for dealing with the small Phillips screws that seems o hold the whole world together these days, it's a better tool than the Sear's. I've taken to carrying it in my wallet with the P-38 in a rotation with the Sears. Little by little it's gaining. The Sear's is a 50 year habit with me, and with better tools available, old habits are hard to break. So don't dis the Victorinox tool.




It certainly is a compact little sucker. I like compact. Here compared to the old standby P-38. Not as good a mini pry tool, but a better Phillips driver!

Carl, your comparison of the Sears and Vic 4-way screwdrivers was interesting; thanks! Your text and pictures indicate that the Victorinox version is considerably smaller. Does that prevent getting a good grip on it when you really have to apply some torque to a screw, or is there enough "center" to get your fingers on?

- GT

 

[jackknife]

Carl, your comparison of the Sears and Vic 4-way screwdrivers was interesting; thanks! Your text and pictures indicate that the Victorinox version is considerably smaller. Does that prevent getting a good grip on it when you really have to apply some torque to a screw, or is there enough "center" to get your fingers on?

- GT

It works fine on nice clean screws. On rusty old stuff that may need some force, it may be a bit hard, but I haven't been in that situation yet. When I was visiting the last time in California at our daughters place in Mission Viejo, I did a few repairs while she and the son in law were at work. It did fine on light switch plates and fixing a battery powered pencil sharpener that was held together with some pretty small Phillips. The finely ground flat bits worked fine on the Smith and Wesson screw to remove the cylinder for cleaning on the revolver. Nice square edges on the tool to grip the screw slot.

If it's too hard, I guess I could always do what I saw my old man do; use two sticks to make a T handle for more leverage. Improvise and over come!

 

[marsturm]

Carl, it made my day to see your comments.

 

[5K Qs]

It works fine on nice clean screws. On rusty old stuff that may need some force, it may be a bit hard, but I haven't been in that situation yet. When I was visiting the last time in California at our daughters place in Mission Viejo, I did a few repairs while she and the son in law were at work. It did fine on light switch plates and fixing a battery powered pencil sharpener that was held together with some pretty small Phillips. The finely ground flat bits worked fine on the Smith and Wesson screw to remove the cylinder for cleaning on the revolver. Nice square edges on the tool to grip the screw slot.

If it's too hard, I guess I could always do what I saw my old man do; use two sticks to make a T handle for more leverage. Improvise and over come!

Thanks for the additional opinions, Carl.

- GT

 

[r8shell]

One of the other strange treatments of old SAKs which leaves me shaking my head, are the occasionally bent main blades from prying? WHY? When it would've only taken another second to open the screwdriver blade?!! I guess for most non knife folk, a pocket knife blade is the correct improvised tool to use for prying.

I've seen bent blade tips on TL-29s

 

[kamagong]

Those Sears keychain tools are cool, but I really want one of these. Look at that thing, it just screams German craftsmanship.

image by OTS 15

 

[Jack Black]

Think this young feller has lost his mum and dad, can't fly and spent the whole day sat on my fence, Must have been hungry as he took a strawberry from my fingers. Hope he'll make it through the night

 

[black mamba]

What've you been brewing to collect a familiar like that, Jack?

 

[Jack Black]

What've you been brewing to collect a familiar like that, Jack?

It might have been these Jeff!

 

[black mamba]

Yep, I can see how that would work!