how do you use your knife

[dogwood dan]

I ask a similar questions a while back and the answers helped me design one of my best knives to date (the trail hiker). Under the idea that if it worked once, I thought I would come back to the well and see what y'all have to say. I will make this a two part question

1) In what way do you most often use a fix blade knife from day to day?

2) In what way do you most often use your fix blade knife in the field?

thank you for your time, help and advice this community is constantly making me a better knife maker.

 

[pitdog]

Practicing Bushcraft skills such as trap making etc. My knife has to be able to carve well, be comfortable when carving for extended periods and also chop reasonably well when removing small side branches from the main sticks I'm using or chopping down smaller bushes. These are snap cuts not heavy camp knife/axe type chops !

 

[Marcelo Cantu]

Lately, aside from the usual fire prep and food prep, I most often use it to carve and shape toys for my kids, slingshots, bows, arrows, hiking sticks, rabbit sticks, spoons, chopticks. I'm kind of all over the knife; sometimes choked up and just gripping the blade by the tip, sometimes in chest lever or drawing in. You'll get as many answers as posts here. I'm not really a hunter and i've never skinned anything except a fish or a store bought pig shoulder so those grip styles don't really come in to play for me.

 

[collecter]

Food prep and wood cutting/carving/bushcraft.

I use my beretta loveless hunter on a daily basis for food prep. If I was to make my own knife I would model it after this one. I'm also a big fane of the ray mears knife.

 

[RatDrall]

1. I don't. I used to carry a small fixed blade, like an ESEE-3, until I realized that I couldn't do anything with it that I couldn't already handle with my Delica or Endura, which take up half as much space and weight.

2. Only fire and food prep. Anything else can be handled with a folder.

I got rid of all of my thin, short bladed fixed blade knives. If it's not stout enough to baton firewood with (in a pinch) with a blade between 4" and 5", I have no interest anymore.

A Spyderco Delica and a Bark River Bravo 1 worked well for me for anything I had to do while camping and hiking last Summer.

 

[dipbait]

Cutting limbs and saplings. I may play with it for throwing sparks and other things but for practical purposes cutting wood.

 

[stabman]

Cutting wood and clearing the hiking path.
Under cutting wood falls wood for fire, wood if making a shelter, spears as skewers or just because, and any fiddling about with cutting stuff just for fun.

 

[schmittie]

To answer question #1 I have no use for a fixed blade edc. Not even a folder while I'm at work. I stopped carrying a knife daily over a decade ago. In the construction field, I've not come across many duties that can't be handled well with a utility knife ie: a Stanley. (I do however have a fixed blade in my GHB behind my truck seat, just in case but have never used it)

For question #2 I always carry a small fixed blade when hunting and fishing. For my own use, I like a knife in 1/8" steel, no more than 4" long. I appreciate having a sharp point for cleaning and gutting fish (a Fiddleback Hiking Buddy is my b&t knife). A small knife works well with cleaning rabbit and pheasant too. When I deer hunt, having a wide blade with some belly helps field dressing. If done soon, skinning a deer is very easy and almost doesn't require a knife. But, if the carcass freezes, again a knife with plenty of belly helps in skinning.

Outside of that, I appreciate having part of the spine squared for a firesteel and wood shavings. Of course, an edge thin enough to hold a razors edge makes feathersticks a joy to carve.

 

[TheGame]

From day to day.. I'd say food prep and carving of wood. In the field, I'd have to say chopping and batoning for a fire, but I do that for fun. Other than that, skinning and gutting game for the smaller fixed blades. Although I mainly buy larger fixed blades.

 

[RWT]

In order of use in Field - I do not use one as an EDC
Food Prep 30%
Cleaning and skinning game- all sizes including breasting out birds 25%
Cutting of all items on a farm - hay twine, feed sacks, concrete sacks, any number of types of straps 30%
digging out staples on a fence post so the pliers can grab them -cutting a notch in a 2x4 to hold it in a spot- need a strong tip-clearing small branches in shooting lanes - I consider this carving- 10% (just today I cut 2 3" size limbs out of the way while bow hunting)
act as a screw driver - hate to do it but walking back to the truck suck sometimes 5%

I like lots of girth in the handle and at least 4 3/4" of handle and 3 1/2" of blade -no choil with a square edge spine to take abuse - yes I am hard on a blade and treat it like a multi tool at times, but I prefer to carry a blade over a multi tool as I have had to clean a Nilgai once with a Leatherman and will never be stuck in that position again. It took 2 hours just to field dress it.