First knife for 12yr old.

most kids have swiss knives i guess... so if your kid shows an izula to his friends they (and your son) would think you are the greatest dad ever... :D

Actually, my nephew tells me one of his friends has a fixed blade and he thinks is cool...

Just like it was mentioned... whatever you get him will do just fine...
 
I second the officer sussie, that was my first knife when I "graduated" into boy scouts from cub scouts. Still use it to this day.

-Alex
 
A problem I see with some folders is that sometimes the blades can be hard to get out with the child's smaller fingers/thinner fingernails.
 
@stormstaff you know... that's true... it is sometimes hard for me too :D but i guess what it is attractive to kids is the fact that it's a multitool you know?
 
I don't want to be a buzzkill here but I think a fixed blade is the better choice for today's twelve year old. It is a sad story but I think it should be considered.

We find ourselves in the world of "zero tolerance" where the tiniest infraction in a school can come real close to ruining a kid's life. When I was in school, being a farmboy among farmboys, every single kid had a pocket knife and he brought it to school, everyday. You knew where a guy carried his knife because his blue jeans wore around it. In those days, I carried a Sodbuster Junior in my back pocket (still got that knife too). Kids had Case, Ka-Bars, some traditional boy scout knives although I never saw a Swiss Army Knife...I thin red may have been un-cool.

Today, having the smallest SAK found on you at school would get you expelled and probably prosecuted...no college, no military, no nothing...sad but true.

Therefore, my vote is for an IZULA or and RC-3 or a HEST for a 12 year old because he is much less likely to forget he's got it when he heads off to school.

A real consideration IMO in this era of PC madness. Plus the kid'll love it!!! Plus plenty of grown men and hunters and outdoorsmen rely on an IZULA everyday. Get him the IZULA kit with all the survival stuff...how cool it that!
 
I would get them a mid sized SAK.

Light and portable so they will carry it out in the woods. Bright red handles so its hard to loose. Relatively inexpensive in case of loss or breakage. Endless uses.

I know we have a tendency to overgear. The other day I purposely went out with nothing except my SAK and lo and behold it did everything.
 
I would def. give them an Izula....it is about the perfect size for anyone, big or small hands.

!!!!
 
My first knife was a SAK and I still carry it and use it. I would get them that and an Izula, the Izula could be their woods knife and the SAK could introduce them to the world of EDC :p
 
HoosierQ said:
Today, having the smallest SAK found on you at school would get you expelled and probably prosecuted...no college, no military, no nothing...sad but true.

Therefore, my vote is for an IZULA or and RC-3 or a HEST for a 12 year old because he is much less likely to forget he's got it when he heads off to school.

A real consideration IMO in this era of PC madness. Plus the kid'll love it!!!
Click to expand...

Wow, Hoosier, that is very wise. I'll second that. Yeah, Bark River!
 
For some reason, I never really felt my Swiss army knife was anything more then a gimmick. I mean sure the blade was fairly sharp out of the box but I always though that it was never strong enough to stand up to any real cutting and would bend/break when I really needed it to do anything more then open letters. Now after seeing that guy on youtube cut thru a 4X6 with an izula in like 5 minuets and then shave paper with it... that is very impressive and inspires confidence. The Swiss army knife, even the small ones, have also been much too bulky for me to actually carry around. I think they are nice novelty items, espeically the ones which are thicker then they are long and have like 50 different tools in them but I would personally never really use one.
 
Got my first when i was 4, from my dad of course haha ;), i dont know the brand of it... but was a combo edge small folder, probably less then a 2 inch blade or so... he wouldn't let me keep it on me till i was about 6 or 7 when i was around 7 he gave me a bunch of swiss army knives, about 5 or 6 which i thought was awsome, now im older of corse and buy my own knives ;) but my father started me out to love knives haha... i'd say go with a knife that he could get most use out of, so he dosn't "just have a knive"... he acctually gets to use it and that is what will stick in his mind as he grows :).. goodluck! and be safe
 
My first knife was also a SAK - very much right of passage. However, when my kids come of age, their first knives will have locking blades. I just think that's an important safety feature for a kid. I never needed one when I got my first knife (10) but I had some close calls.

Of course, Victorinox does makes some locking SAKs.
 
Barlow. Got my first one when I was 5. Got made carrying it so often in elementary school that they quit griping after a while. :-)
 
my first knife was a hatchet. grandma gave it to me when i was 3. had a hammer poll, a nail puller, and about 4 inches of cutting surface. i still remember climing trees with that thing.
 
i would say get him a decent size SAK to carry for a while, then in a couple months or even a year move him up to an izula. Pretty much the way my dad did it when i was about the same age. He never really gave me my own knife but he never objected when i would grab one of the little swiss army knives we had lying around. Eventually i started carrying his old delica on the weekends, but i always made sure not to bring either to school.
 
I subscribe to HoosierQ's line of thinking. It's funny, I was just having this same discussion with a coworker who's the pack leader for his son's cub scouts. I know that the Boy Scouts have that "no fixed blade" policy, but I think that needs to be revisited. The fixed blade is a far safer option for use, can be used in many more ways, and is not likely to be inadvertently carried to school.
 
I'd say the Iz, can't even remember how young I was when I got my first knife. I know I have carried a lighter and folder everyday since junior high.
 
Get a 12 year old a good fixed blade with a 5 or 6 inch blade. It should be large enough so that he is less likely to lose it, and a large no nonsense handle for safety when being used by young hands.

I was 10 when my dad gave me my first good fixed blade, that knife I did not lose until I was much older. I had several cheap folders when I was younger, but I lost most of those. It was probably because I lost the small cheap knives, that Dad bought me a big knife of decent quality.
 
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