Fellow Lefties - How to increase your cache of lefty-friendly folders!

T

thombrogan

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Nov 16, 2002
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The short version:

Right-handed, tip-down carry acts quite similar to left-hand tip-up carry.

The long version:

While Mikemck2 is really to blame for all of this, I'm going to level a fair share at STR.

Steve let me try a few of his folding pocketknives a few months back and all of them were framelocks with right-handed pocketclips. I'm generally paranoid about linerlocks and framelocks, but these all locked up securely so I wanted to wear them on my pocket. They had the option of tip-up/tip-down, so I tried them tip down in my left front pocket. Worked like a charm and was very convenient. Learning how to lock and unlock a right-handed framelock with one's left hand is very easy. Even I could do it.

Not too much later, Thomas W sent me Kershaw brand Leek folding pocketknife. Well, if it worked with those knives Steve lent me.... Hmm....

Hey! It worked! And assisted opening is fun!

Now the floodgates have been opened! Spyderco and Kershaw both make a wide variety of knives I like which feature righties-only pocketclips, but ambidextrous locks and tip-down carry. My buddy Chad once gave me a Boker SubCom and while I love it, it has a stupid, right-handed pocketclip. That stupid clip can be set for righty tip-down and it was last night! My father-in-law gave me a Kershaw brand Blackout a few years back because he got hooked on assisted opening. What a comfortable knife, but I'm a lefty. Well, its reversible thumbstud is now set up for lefty carry and its righty tip-down clip is simply mahvelous!

I prefer knives with ambidextrous tip-up carrying options (thank you, Spyderco!), but if you, too, are a lefty tired of waiting for the world to change, such things can increase your enjoyment of previously seemingly unuseable knives.
 
Hmmm - will have to think about this some. I usually have no problem fumbling around with a right handed liner lock, but cannot handle right handed frame locks. For years carried a right handed police spyderco as my edc, but still preferred the left handed version when I was finally able to get one (easier to open). I also carried a right handed BM CQC7 with no problems. Now I solve the problem with a left handed sebenza as my edc. :)

How does the fact of whether it is tip up or down get around the fact that the frame lock is on the wrong side of the thumb - i.e. instead of pushing the lock out of engagement ( away from the palm) with the thumb you are pulling it out (pushing it in towards the palm)?
 
In my experience I can use a knife that has either a right-only lock (liner, frame, etc.) or a right-only pocket-clip but not both. I have tried and tried to adjust to right-only knives but they are just too slow and cumbersome for me to use and I usually end up dropping them much more. This is not a light risk when hanging off a roof 80 feet in the air or leaning over a fast-moving river or sewage.

This is a shame too because a lot of companies have quite a lot of knives I would buy if they didn't have that gosh-damned right-only pocket clip.
 
I maintain, as a lefty, that a tip-down, right hand clip, with dual studs or an opening hole, worn in the left side pocket, is ideal. I have no need for a left-hand clip. It is a simple matter to draw it by placing the left hand with fingers down and back of hand toward the body, and it is also perfectly placed for a right hand, across the body draw. Being somewhat ambidexterious, I use my knives with the most convenient hand free at the time, but prefer the left.

I also find it easier to do a one-hand close on a framelock with my left hand, and have not yet nicked myself doing so.
 
Strider's folders are all tip-up carry. However, the AR and GB have ambidextrous clips and you can buy left-handed SnG's. You can carry right-handed tip-up folders in your left front pocket, they'll just give you lots more love bites (says the voice of "done that; stopped doing that").
 
Well, reminds me on the first Mini AFCK, i had. Right hand tip down only, set in my left front pocket and with some turn was out and open nicely. But that didn´t healed my wishes for a 100% lefty folder. Has eaten my money fast... fu....g AXIS :D

A righty t/d folder in my jeans back pocket works a bit better for me.
 
A while back, The Spyderco forum had a thread on Deployment of multiple blades. I am a righty, but often my left hand is the only free one. I like liner and frame locks, and have a bunch. My left side carry knife was always a Spidie, and the right varied (usually a liner or axis lock). With a little bit of practice (at the recomondation on Spyd. forums) I became proficiant with liner/frame locks in my left hand, now I don't even think about hand exchanges to close them.

I admit I feel "sorry" for the southpaws out there, But with a little time in hand, almost all knives are ambidextrious.
 
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