I should never reply on here when I'm full to the brim with beer, but anyway !
Baldtaco am I right in remembering that you are from the UK so folders are all ya can carry anyway ? Sorry bro only messin with ya !!!!
I'm not trying to convince anyone to buy a Tracker in fact I like the fact that I am one of the only ones on here that can post pics of one so let's keep it that way !!!
All I will say is you show me a knife of the same length that will out chop it. You show me a knife of that same thickness that will make better fuzz-sticks. You show me a knife that can make better notches for trap making etc !!!!
Sure an axe will chop better, a chain saw will cope better than an axe !
Sure a Mora will out slice it ( though not by much ) but as a one tool do-it-all knife it takes some beating and I can't thank Horn-dog enough for letting me find this out !!!!
:thumbup:
That's cool, I often post when I'm well stone. I look back later at my language usage and cringe. Your's is fine so you're ahead of me.
I know you're playing but for clarity in the observer. Yes, I live in England. The folder rule applies to EDC type stuff only. When I'm engaged the outdoor stuff I can legally openly carry what I like, and I do.
I have never supposed that you were trying to convince anyone to buy one, what I'm concerned with illuminating is the difference between personal preference and
what is. As I've said before, more than once now, in my opinion people should carry what they like or are comfortable or competent at using. However, when doing that there is also the risk of making absolute claims that are false, or at least can give the reader the completely wrong impression. For simple example take two hitting tools: It may well be my preference to lug a ball pein hammer over a sledge. It may also be true that I can do a lot of work with it. Yet if the reader came away with the impression that the ball pein was every bit as good at tasks the sledge is good at something has gone wrong.
What I was contesting was DOC-CANADA's apparent claims that something had been discovered about the properties of that knife that refute the current wisdom. He's slackened off on that now but that looked every bit to me like where he was going as if an
is had been revealed. My contention was that makes no more sense to me than comparing a ball pein hammer to a sledge for suitability as an ashtray when all I have seen it do so far is make some fuzz sticks. If you really wanted to reveal something useful a better route would be to compare it to a tool of similar weight and see how well at does at the tasks that other tool does well. That's why I stacked it against that ax, which may actually be a shade lighter. Now if it could do nearly as well as what that ax can do but the difference one would happily forfeit for some brilliance at something else then great. I could be wrong, but the state of play as I see it at the moment is it is well short of what the ax can do as a chopping instrument, although it about weighs the same, but that difference has been seen to be compensated for by the ability to make fuzz sticks. I know one shouldn't assume, but I think it is a fairly safe bet that a lot of people here that use knives would have known that anyway just from the look of it. Quite how one could assert something akin to a revelation about that knife, that would improve the status of it in the minds of a lot of people, on the basis of the tasks performed .etc was just too peculiar to evade comment.
As for the rest of what you wrote, You show me a knife of that same thickness that will make better fuzz-sticks. You show me a knife that can make better notches for trap making etc, that's kinda my point. Even a SAK can do that let alone a small fixed blade, why would one drag all the extra bulk and weight unless it had excellence at something else. It is that
something else that has the potential for a revelation for me, and perhaps a lot of others. I have yet to see evidence of that.
Yup, Horn Dog seems a good guy and that was mighty generous of him. As a collector himself I hope he understands that what I seek is evidence that comes closest to whatever the right answers may be, and that personal preferences are quite apart from absolute claims. Whilst we will never fully unpack that, without making at least some effort towards it as a basis no review of anything is reliable.
) is as bad as many people believe.