EDC - the "Simpler" the Better?

[redsquid2]

When I pick up a knife, I think I have a sense of how generally useful it is. I am talking about EDC.

First time I used a kephart, I was like, "Wow! I could do anything with this!" You look at a kephart, and there's not a lot of sexy curves to it. Same with a paring knife. I find that over the years, I favor a simple, relatively straight handle.

I have a OXO parer in my kitchen. Thin, light, simple. I am tempted to make a kydex sheath for it, throw it in my mess kit, and take it backpacking, just to see how it does.

I've had some knives with a little bit of a drop in the handle, and/or a forefinger notch, but nothing more elaborate.

As far as knives that I have actually carried for everyday chores, it has been various non locking folders, but also a Buck 112, a Air Sog, and now a Buck Vantage.

 

[screened porch]

I'm definitely with you on the handles. The other day I tried to use a small knife with a handle that flares and drops toward the butt, and found it very awkward. My favorite is the long, straight shape of the old Kabar Marine hunter. (Not the Mk II, which is a bit thick for me.)

 

[Ironbut]

Simple works for me. I have "several" folders, but the past six months or so, I've been edc'ing small fixed blades. Currently the Bark River Woodland is my favorite. There's nothing fancy about it, but it's more rugged than a folder, the blade is plenty big for general outdoor use or slicing up an apple, the handle is large & plenty comfortable for my xl hands, I don't have to open it when I want to cut something & it conceals easily with an untucked shirt tail.

 

[Sonnydaze]

I'm on a roll. Three Bradford Guardian3's: CPM-3V and two in M390...one is black DLC.
The only problem is which one to carry... I love 'em all. I also carry a rather expensive customized mid-tech folder, but always seem to pull out the fixed blade. The knife has a 3" cutting edge, but with the choil, it fits in my large hand nicely.
I just really like the horiz carry sheath...
This is a really pleasant type of "overkill."

 

[irona]

I definitely agree with this. Human hands were 'designed' to hold sticks, so I usually agree that the most comfortable handle designs are simple. Think SAK or opinel


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[jackknife]

As much as some people will never admit to it, the modern knife market is artificially driven for sales by marketing all kinds of "new and better" designs. It's all about the money, and all those knives with the curves and different shaped blades are products of knife designers fantacies about big profits.

If you look back all down through history, all the way back to the bronze age, most knives, and swords, are pretty straight forward in the design. And this was back when a knife was actually needed several times a day for cutting. Yet, a knife from the 1800's is amazingly like a knife from the 1500's, and is amazingly like a knife from 1200AD. If they needed a knife for a weapon, the strait dagger was popular for two thousand years, and if a general use knife was needed, something that looked like a regular butcher knife was used.

I had the great fortune to spend three days browsing the British Museum in London. They had artifacts from every age of mankind, and every period of history. Being a knife knut, I did take special notice of the cutlery of ages past. Not much new until the birth of the modern tactical knife fashion of the 1980's.

I can only think if you handed a mountain man, Roman legionnaire, or a civil war soldier a modern knife, he'd wonder what it was. One of the most popular knives of the later 19th century was the John Russell barlow. A very simple knife. The Skinning knives of the fur trade era were basic large butcher knives. Rome conquered all the known world using a strait bladed Gladius.

Strait and simple is always the way to go. People like Kephart actually knew what they were doing.

 

[BladeScout]

Less is more; My Wirkkala Puukko - a favorite.


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You look at a kephart, and there's not a lot of sexy curves to it.

Not many sexy curves on the Puukko though. In fact, pretty much as angular as it gets.

 

[irona]

Less is more; My Wirkkala Puukko - a favorite.


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Not many sexy curves on the Puukko though. In fact, pretty much as angular as it gets.

That's why it's so attractive to me also!


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[BladeScout]

That's why it's so attractive to me also!


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:thumbup:
Great minds think alike

Here the little Wirkkala with its bigger brother - unused and as new after all these years.




Story of the knives here:
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...a-A-brief-tale-of-two-knives?highlight=Puukko

 

[Charlie Mike]

Bowie and slipjoint.