How did you get to traditional?

I started when I quit smoking and started whittling. I found that the traditional blade shapes were more well suited to doing fine work. Started with an Uncle Henry 897 stockman. It and the Case 3318 are hard to beat for whittling.
 
I guess number one and two for me. When I was a small fry many years ago, traditional knives was all there were. "Tactical knives", one hand openers, thumbstuds, pocket clips, kraton, and all that stuff hadn't even been put on a knife yet. I look at all these modern pieces of cutlery, and they just turn me off. Same taste in guns, blued steel/checkered walnut or bust, I just wouldn't have it in my heart to hunt with a plastic/stainless rifle. I like rear wheel drive cars, blued and walnut guns, traditional "real" knives, real wooden furniture (no paper on particle board for me), wood paneling, wood flooring, brick and real wood siding (no plastic on my old house), etc. A shotgun just isn't right unless it has TWO barrels, and pulling out a Kershaw/Spyderco/Cold Steel/whatever to skin and gut rabbits and squirrels just CAN'T be right!:D
 
I fall in between 3 and 4. I'm in my late 30's, but my first knife was an old Scout knife from my youth. I lost that old knife, and filled with morass, a family friend replaced it with an old Queen canoe. Still have that one. Got into the tactical thing for a long time when I first got into knives, but lately there's a tug inside me yearning for the innocent days of my youth. When I used to run around the woods. When we had to make toy guns out of wood because we didn't have much money to buy toys.
 
I guess I fit the #2 profile. My grandfather was/is my hero. He stormed the beaches on D-Day, fought thru all the major battles under Patton and then returned to live a quiet life taking care of his family. He was a notorious knife buyer. He loved them. He gave me several knives over the years, but even more than that, he taught me to sharpen on stones.

My dad was the same way. Loved to buy and carry lots of knives over the years. He took me once a month growing up to the knife shop to buy a knife with my grass cutting money. He loved the old Case knives, especially the Sodbuster Jr.

Today, I do have some slightly tactical style knives, but not many. They just don't have any real appeal or character to me. I've been kinda stuck in the "old days" all my life. My dad left the farm before I was born. We went back to the farm most weekends growing up to help out. I could never understand why he left. I always wanted to go back. I have old cars, old tractors, and lots of antique things around. I even bought some land in the country and we are about to build a house and me start a small hay farm. My knives are slips and a few heavy duty folders. I carry a Case Sodbuster Jr. in my pocket mostly for sentimental reasons. My grandfather and dad carried one, although they chose the black handle SS type, I wanted a yellow handle CV for myself. Since they are both gone now, it always reminds me of them when I pull it out. Slicing an apple or anything. By the way, I'm only 34, but my wife thinks I am 60 sometimes due to the things that make me tick.
 
I went through many of the buck 110 style "clone" knives, neevr worried about loosing one since i would just find another (REALLY find...or be given. I never bought a knife until i was 30)
I also never sharpened them, and didnt know how.
Then i decided i wnated to make a few fixed blade knives and after reading about opinel's online i decided i wanted one. Possibly I'm unusal in that i taught MYSELF to like knives, since no one else in the family (expt father in law) approves of edged tools....
 
jackknife said:
3. You're a young person in your 30's that was going along nicely with the tactical thing and just got tired of all the knives that looked alike, but got enlightened one day by a older co-worker or family member that the 100 dollar tactical won't cut as well as a 10 dollar Kissing Krane brown mule.?
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That fits me pretty well. I'm glad to see that at least a few other guys around my age are also getting into traditional folders for the first time.

About a year ago, I was doing cutting tests with some of my knives (mostly "tactical folders"). I was surprised by how well my Opinel #9 in carbon steel performed. I started carrying it regularly and found that two-handed opening wasn't a big disadvantage most of the time. There were also occasions where I wouldn't bother to lock the blade open (like when I was quickly cutting a loose thread off a sweater or something), so I thought that a slip-joint with a backspring might actually be safer.

That's what really got me interested in traditionals. I had bought a few slip-joints every now and then, but I didn't look closely at them.

The stereotypical, black-handled tactical knives haven't really held my attention for several years now (though I have to admit that I carry a Spyderco Street Beat and love it). Traditional folders make great EDC knives for many reasons. I currently carry a Case medium Stockman, but I like Copperheads and Sodbusters too. It's also a lot of fun to just read the great stories on this forum and look at the amazing pics! :)
 
I started out with slip joints many years ago and still carry one today, ...and a tactical, ... and a multi tool, ...at once, ...every day, ...every where. I live a happy life.
WOOK
 
1st:
I carry a folder as a tool, not as a weapon, so all these tactical stuff has no use for me.

2nd:
Traditional patterns are time prooven, a farmer a century ago won't buy twice a knife that won't work.

3rd:
I'm a CARBON STEEL ADDICT :) great edge, great looking, cheap.

4th:
Today every new knife is advertised as "super tactical speacial undercover assault force knife"..... I think a 150 - 200 years ago, for example the spanish navaja or corse vendetta saw 100 times more fight's than these modern tactical stuff.

5th:
The traditional patterns I buy are handmade / ot at least hand assambled in Solingen, Albacete, Thiers... I like to support these little companys that resist the mass market.

At the End...

What did a great job yesterday will do it today the same way.
 
Definitely 1 and 2

Born in small town, farming family, my Dad and Grandad always carried a Wostenholm or a Taylor's Eye Witness as a work knife for when they were in the garden or working on the farm.

I had pocket knives from an early age, traded them with brothers, cousins, friends, lost a few in the river, found a few... broke a few.

I re-discovered them (love those navajas) when I lived in Spain about 20 yrs ago, then got back into Sheffield knives about five yrs ago.

Now hooked on traditional knives of all sorts.

Now an old fart, researching family history and still interested in American History (minor subject at Univ)





Hey, Surfer, we should start a Carbon Steel addicts support group !!!!
 
I've not yet come into the old-fart age, but I'm slowly going in that direction.
My hero is my grandpa, and he always carried a slipjoint with a black handle, spearpoint blade and cork screw (no, it definitely was not a SAK). He was born in the age when the beer bottles were sealed with a cork (that's a loooong time ago), and every man with self respect carried a knife with corkscrew to open his beer bottle. I don't know of a single thing he didn't handle with that knife.
Him being my hero, that also made his knife the best knife on this planet.
Slip-joints it is.

Apart from that, I'm fairly similar to surfer.

1. For me, a knife is a tool, not a weapon
2. Traditional is time-proven. What has worked for a long time will also work today and tomorrow.
3. I can get my knife in almost any material I want. Carbon steel and a variety of stainless steels. Brass, nickel silver, steel, silver titanium and so on for liners, bolsters pins and such. Wood, stag, bone, pearl, man-made materials, metal and so on in the slabs/handle. Colouring or no colouring, scrimshaw, jigging, file-work or everything just smooth. The possibilities are endless.
4. I too like to support the smaller, local brands and manufacturers. They often do traditional patterns for the regions they're in.
5. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I simply find the traditional knives to be much prettier than the modern knives.
 
Bartleby said:
I started when I quit smoking and started whittling. I found that the traditional blade shapes were more well suited to doing fine work. Started with an Uncle Henry 897 stockman. It and the Case 3318 are hard to beat for whittling.
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Bartleby, that is what totally tipped it for me too. A slipjoint in carbon steel with multiple blades is a portable set of carving tools. One of those one handed tacticals in stainless is about useless for anything but the roughest sort of carving. They might work well for other applications, but mostly I use my knives for carving. So a stockman or a congress goes in my pocket most often.
 
I'm a young guy (24) that still enjoys life outside the city and never got used to the modern age.

I went the tactical way for a while, then I discovered that the super folder with the ubber lock I was looking for was called "fixed blade", threw one of those into my backpack and started using slipjoints more and more. Besides being practical, those classic designs are a thing of beauty.
 
A combo of options 2,3, and 4 right here.

I'm a younger guy, and I like tactical style knives, however, I also like the throwback that traditional knives provide. There is a feeling that I get from using a traditional folder that I really can't describe otherwiseAlso, I found that the various blade designs provide for versatility, and they do fine cutting work way better than my tactical folders.
 
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