Do we expect too much from pocket knives?

[SilverFoxKnows]

I wasn't just talking about you, Vivi. It's a trend I've noticed. We want it all. A super wear resistant, super tough folder that slices onions and can pry the door off a car. We want powerful SUVs that get good mileage, can tow a boat, go offroad and zip through traffic like a Miata. We want the hot wife that never grows older and buys too many shoes. I haven't observed any of that to work out too well.

We must live in very different places, never camped up where you are. I've never needed shelter and fire when I'm close enough to civilization that somebody could call the cops. If an axe is going to get a police call so is making fire and building a lean to, at least down here. When I need shelter and fire there's not a building, car or phone to be seen. I guess we have different ideas of a day hike. If you can build a shelter with it, my hat's off to you, you're more daring than I am. Adaptation is a good thing and I'm not saying I've never been caught with my pants down.

But I still maintain, that as consumers, we need to take advertising hype with a grain of salt. That it is safer and more efficient to use a tool that was designed for the job and not just one that can do the job in a pinch.

Frank

 

[Vivi]

Hype very much should be treated how you put it. Those comments relate to knives very well.

A lot of the places I go to around here I walk to. If I can walk somewhere I prefer that to driving, but there isn't a lot here where I live in Ohio. I'll upload some photos from Google Earth at some point and show you. But on more extended stays starting a fire with just a SAK or an Opinel isn't a difficult task. Unless it's raining it's rare a knife is even required for a fire in this area and climate. Many outdoors tasks traditionally done with a knife can be done with alternative methods, but knives make it easier and more enjoyable. Whittling is a good task to set yourself to when you want to appreciate the nice edge you just put on your folder.

 

[Vivi]

Here are some of those places I was talking about. I don't build fires and shelters at all of them, but some I do. You can see they're all next to busy roads and thriving neighborhoods.

This is a public park, where I got the cops called on me when I scared a lady by sitting on a bench whittling a figurine out of some wood with a 110.

The first time I went here I got the cops called on me simply for walking around on the public paths. There's a thread somewhere in the W&C backlog about it. I had an Opinel on me but never took it out....much less a hatchet. On the bright side I did happen to see two deer back there that morning while I deviated off the paths and into the "thick" for half an hour.

This is where the infamous Opinel threads were shot at. 3 whitetails live back there. I've made about 5 shelters there and numerous fires.

Really I don't have much better than this unless I drive across half the state to Southern Ohio or head to West Virginia. If I had something of a decent size within 20 miles or so, I'd be spending a lot of time there.

 

[SilverFoxKnows]

There's nothing like that walking distance from my house. A few big state parks about an hour drive. They have trees but not like that. Or there's the desert. Looks like we have very different needs in a blade. Pretty place. Have you tried the Opinel saws. I've looked at them but never handled one?

Frank

 

[Vivi]

No, I was planning to post a review request for the Opinel saws in the Knife Reviews section. They had me curious as well. I bring saw equipped SAKs with me a lot of the time. They work pretty good on smaller branches.

 

[Cliff Stamp]

But if you go marching into the woods for the week with the intention of building a log cabin with a pocket knife you deserve to be wet and cold.

Most of the wood craft with small knife are done for the purposes of survival experience, simply because you can't carry an axe everywhere makes this obvious.

Do you believe everything you see on TV?

I don't believe anything any saleman tells me about a product and I tend to be skeptical about any claims made by anyone unless they are definate and specific and correlate well to both my own observations or are supported by relevelant known properties.

However in circumstances where I don't have the experience and the properties are not known to me then you end up having to often go with what you are told.
Do you really want to claim that you never have to do this for any decision you make.

If you can then excellent on you. But it isn't unreasonable to realize that someone people may not be so univerally experienced/education and thus can be mislead by a salesmen. Educate those people because someone did it for you and be vocal critizing the salesmen and exposing the hype.

And yeah, Vivi has a point that you are expect way too little from an Opinel. There are dozens of 1/16" thick Mora's in stainless steel that are intended to chop and baton wood. Many people will carry them and not an axe simple because the amount of wood you need to cut or chop isn't of enough volume to make the axe worth carrying.

-Cliff

 

[sogguy]

Ray, don't sugar coat it, tell us how you really feel.

If a grown man doesn't have better sense than to use a six-by bumper for a cutting board, he deserves to tote a dull knife. I don't give a fat rat's butt who made it, or how they advertised it.

Sarge

 

[Sylvrfalcn]

Ray, don't sugar coat it, tell us how you really feel.

If a grown man doesn't have better sense than to use a six-by bumper for a cutting board, he deserves to tote a dull knife. I don't give a fat rat's butt who made it, or how they advertised it.

Sarge

Um, Ray who? My name's Greg, or Gregory Michael Sikes if I'm in trouble
As far as the comment quoted above, I still stick by it. If folks don't take care of their tools, or use them correctly, then they need not whine to me about the sorry condition of their tools. If they use advertisor's claims, any advertisor's claims, as an excuse for failing to exercise good judgement, I'm quick to remind them that the maximum effective range of an excuse is zero meters. If they are honestly just plumb ignorant about knives, I'll help 'em and teach 'em what I can, but I will not walk around holding grown up people's hands for them.

Sarge

 

[cliff355]

Yep, alot of grown men are toting what they deserve. Also, their lawnmowers won't start, their gun barrels are dirty, their flashlight batteries are dead and their spare tire is flat. Don't see how some people make it through the day, but every day they seem to do it.

 

[Sylvrfalcn]

I got a fortune cookie once that really cracked me up; "He who expects little, is seldom dissapointed".
The difference between reality and some people's expectations of reality is a vast gulf that's tiresome to swim across. I realized long ago that we are our brother's keeper, but we should not be held responsible for tying his dadburn shoes for him. Want to go around stabbing your knife through car doors 'cause you saw somebody do that in an ad? Well Bubba, if you think that's what a knife is for, then by all means, knock yourself out.

Sarge

 

[Cliff Stamp]

If they use advertisor's claims, any advertisor's claims, as an excuse for failing to exercise good judgement...

You are presupposing they have the required knowledge to make such judgement and then refusing to give it to them while ignoring the fact that this was done for you. What about if those who taught you didn't actually teach you the right things, is this just your fault as well. Hardly.

It also isn't just claims made by salesmen, the same propoganda gets repeated by users constantly. And again, why are you critizing people who are being lied to rather than the people who are doing the lying. Is there really no area of which you are ignorant so you have to take the advice of someone else.

I was at a friends house recently when they were getting some shelves put in. They wanted them to hold very heavy boxes so they made this a requirement. The contractor told them it would hold. If they then buckled would you then blame the guy who got the shelves made or the contractor who lied to him.

This is no different than someone wanting a knife for a set of tasks, asking a maker/manufacturer for a knife which did them and then complaining when they fail to do so. Critize the people who are lying and help to educate the people who are falling for the lies.

-Cliff

 

[Sylvrfalcn]

I was at a friends house recently when they were getting some shelves put in. They wanted them to hold very heavy boxes so they made this a requirement. The contractor told them it would hold. If they then buckled would you then blame the guy who got the shelves made or the contractor who lied to him.

-Cliff

If your friends did not verify that contractors credentials, did not get any references as to his reliability and quality of his work, and simply just took it on blind acceptance that he was what he represented himself to be, I wouldn't go putting the baby's bed under them shelves.

There is a certain bit of shared responsibility in all aspects of life. School kids that make an effort to learn generally do much better than those that expect to sit passively on their butts and be taught. By your assessment of responsibility, the teacher, being a teacher, is solely responsible for the academic achievements of both groups. But, I maintain that there is a difference, that difference being the level of effort and responsibility any individual is willing to assume to ensure his/her own success.

Sarge

 

[Kevin the grey]

Gentlemen put away the sharp stabby things . Go out and play with your knives . L:O:L

It doesn,t seem so much that we are talking of crossed purposes here as bandying about in a circle brandishing our particular take on things . My take is its not the blade its the person behind it .

There I have had my say and now I,m gonna go hunt deer .
Its easy to hear them as they have started to snicker when passing behind my stand........... Its very humbling .

 

[Vivi]

I got a fortune cookie once that really cracked me up; "He who expects little, is seldom dissapointed".

Sarge

I keep a fortune cookie fortune in my wallet.

"Nothing is so easy as to deceive one's self"

 

[Sylvrfalcn]

Gentlemen put away the sharp stabby things . Go out and play with your knives . L:O:L

It doesn,t seem so much that we are talking of crossed purposes here as bandying about in a circle brandishing our particular take on things . My take is its not the blade its the person behind it .

There I have had my say and now I,m gonna go hunt deer .
Its easy to hear them as they have started to snicker when passing behind my stand........... Its very humbling .

Kevin, I ain't going to argue with you by saying I haven't been a bit argumentative regarding the subject at hand, that would just be doubly redundant.
Like Cliff, I strongly agree that people should stand behind their products/services, and any claims they may make regarding them, with honesty and integrity. But knowing that that is the ideal, and not necessarily the general reality, I maintain that we as individuals have a responsibility to use our own noggins a bit so as to not wind up buying a pig in a poke. Caveat emptor.

Sarge

 

[SilverFoxKnows]

Kevin, I ain't going to argue with you by saying I haven't been a bit argumentative regarding the subject at hand, that would just be doubly redundant.
Like Cliff, I strongly agree that people should stand behind their products/services, and any claims they may make regarding them, with honesty and integrity. But knowing that that is the ideal, and not necessarily the general reality, I maintain that we as individuals have a responsibility to use our own noggins a bit so as to not wind up buying a pig in a poke. Caveat emptor.

Sarge

"Caveat emptor". That's what I was trying to remember yesterday.

Frank

 

[Runs With Scissors]

Yup. What Sarge has said. :thumbup: Common Sense has just got to be a factor.

If my 9 yr. old son did half the stupid stuff with his knives as some of these supposed educated adults, I'd take away his knives.

 

[Kevin the grey]

Sarge . I just saw a group of men saying relatively the same thing to disagree with each other .

Its tough for me to say that I agree with you about us being accountable for our own actions . If we held ourselves responsible for what we buy then by god we are going to be more careful about what we buy .

The cumulative effect may be that we would hold those who sell to us more responsible for their words . The extension of that would be less wild claims would be made .

There will always be suckers . I do not agree to "never give a sucker an even break" Sometimes its the only way they will learn .

 

[Cliff Stamp]

The cumulative effect may be that we would hold those who sell to us more responsible for their words . The extension of that would be less wild claims would be made .

Yes exactly, just like Munk said, Bill's products did what he said they could do, require everyone else to be just as honest and when they are not, and they mislead people, don't condemn the people who were scammed, go after the guys that did the scamming.

-Cliff

 

[o1Alex]

Most of the wood craft with small knife are done for the purposes of survival experience, simply because you can't carry an axe everywhere makes this obvious. .............And yeah, Vivi has a point that you are expect way too little from an Opinel. There are dozens of 1/16" thick Mora's in stainless steel that are intended to chop and baton wood. Many people will carry them and not an axe simple because the amount of wood you need to cut or chop isn't of enough volume to make the axe worth carrying.

-Cliff

Dont folks like the sami and otehrs like to carry two knives? A big leuko for doing the heavy cutting and a puko for the little jobs?
I dont doubt that you CAN do lots of stuff with knives like opinels like battoning and building shelters. On the other hand you dont over rev your car and burn rubber off the tyres everytime you get going-how long would the tyres and engine last if you did?
I love opinels, and i know that their not fragile the crup, but as with all my knives i favor the blade when cutting- they last longer like that.