It would be real REAL easy for any of us to sharpen some pry-bars, have them coated with bed-liner material, call them "tactical" and sell a bunch of junk to kids and "mall-ninjas". In fact, there's a glut of manu's that do just that. If I wanted a piece of that market, I'd invest in a machine shop overseas.
Which is not to say there aren't some really fine, truly tactical knives on the market; I'm not picking on that genre... it just springs to mind when I think of trends.
Once again, nicely said.
And I wasn't going to get into that, but... since you brought it up...
I am old enough to remember (52 - first knife 48 years ago, one a birthday and at Christmas for years!) when no one in their right mind would carry some of the knives that folks buy here. No one. Not a soul.
I can imagine someone pulling out one of the bar stock knives so popular here when we were hunting back in the 70s. The ribbing would have made him throw it in the creek. I didn't have any hunting partners that carried knives with blades over 6" unless it was a Buck. We took apart deer with a sharp knife and a tree saw. The fastest skinner I ever saw (not me!) used a Case Sod Buster, Jr. It had a carbon blade that he sharpened on sand paper that gave it enough tooth to slice right into bloody meat.
And NO ONE would have carried a knife with a painted blade. It screamed crappy workmanship hidden by paint. Those were characteristics of crappy knives from third world countries. They usually came with the black vinyl sheaths with contrasting white stitching.
I can imagine selling another explanation around the camp fire, too. "No man, it's a tactical grade material used on SWAT gear, the space shuttle, and CIA equipment. They call it Kydex." The 1970s reply: "I dunno. Seriously. It just looks like f'in plastic to me. And it has holes all over the outside where it's just riveted together - it isn't even sewn! And when you got it by the fire, the end did melt a little.. really.. I think it's just plastic! " We never saw tactical/ballistic nylon, plastic, or any other kind of sheath on a good knife except oiled leather.
Another example: "Honest, it's called a paracord weave. That actually replaces the handle with a more sure grip and gives you 28 feet of paracord as well that you can use in a survival situation. And if it is a seven strand paracord, you will have a couple of hundred feet of string you can unravel so you can go fishing." Reply: "So you are in a desperate survival situation and you take the string off the handle to so you can use it one something else? What in the hell do you hang onto if you take the string off the knife? The blade blank? Why didn't you get a knife with real handles? How screwed up would you have to be to go fishing with your knife handle? Is there a fishing hook in there somewhere?"
Imagine the discourse on plastic handles in the 70s. "It's called G10. It is a glass embedded product made under high pressure to give better grip on the knife under all conditions, but to be impervious to wear." Reply: "Looks like fiberglass to me".
Try explaining in the 50s through the 80s to someone why their knife was screwed together with plain screws instead of peened rod or pins in nicely fitted scales. Then think about this; in the early days of screwed together pieces, they even used slotted screws!
And of course, the finale would be trying to explain the tactical/survival advantages of having certain knives. Knives worn around the neck with tiny blades; knives with large serrations; knives with saw teeth; knives with sharpened swedges; knives with blackout coatings on them; knives with micarta handles that are completely impervious to wear but are put on quick rusting carbon steel blades and sold as all weather survival knives; knives with any kind of blade over 6 inches; and worse, any kind of knife that couldn't be used for every day work, skinning a deer or cleaning a fish.
But look at what we have as a norm in the market now. All those things mentioned above were laughable trends not that long ago (to me!). Now they are not only the norm, but they are the expectation.
I agree with Sr. Terrio 100%. Knives that are well made, well designed and sell for a good price will NEVER go out of style or practical use.
But will a knifemaker in general survive long enough to make just "their" knives? Not unless he makes sales. And making sales means that you have to either cater to some extent to a trend, or start your own. As long as you just stay the course, you will only make your bills.
As a small business man, I make decisions I don't want to so that I can stay in business. I would rather be making cabinets, but since they aren't selling right now, my company is doing roof repairs. Roof repairs... and the sad thing is they actually pay better than when I am building cabinets.
But in the end, it's all about survival in business. You can't eat pride or pay your water bill with it. Sometimes you just have to get over yourself and call your work that you are less fond of "my experimental stage".
Robert
