4 utility knife
SAK
Stanley knife with a bunch of blades in the handle with the first aid stuff.
The utility knife and the SAK are obvious but the Stanley knife perhaps less so. First I just like the utility of a Stanley knife probably for a lot of the same reasons they are ubiquitous on building sites and across the gamut of manual tradesmen. Second, if I'm in the first aid kit the chances are I don't care about pretty, or sharpening, or whether the tool is optimal, I'm jut going to want something that cuts brilliantly. Third, I've yet to see a neck knife or tin knife that I thought was any better than mediocre, and frankly I think most of them really suck. True, I'm sure someone could knock up some kydex for a Shun paring knife and stick it on a necklace and that probably doesn't, but in the common sense I stand by that. I genuinely believe there is an epidemic case of The Emperor's New Clothes sweeping knife consumers. What are essentially blade blanks are being gobbled up at breakneck speed by punters only too keen to be on the next best thing and of course marketers are only too keep to fuel that. Hell I'd sell you a pillowcase and call it a rucksack you've just got to wrap bits of string round to make shoulder straps and a hip belt if I thought you'd buy it, that's what sitting ducks are for. In contrast to most of those back up knives a Stanley knife has a proper size handle and one that can be easily used with gloves to boot, and you can really apply the power with one. In short, if I want to pare down the weight of a back up knife a Stanley makes much more sense to me, especially with a clutch of replacement blades, than what is ostensibly a half finished knife sized for a child under 5yrs. Outside of an emergency there is of course the fact that a Stanley knife is darn handy thing to have and fills a genuine niche brilliantly.
Those three are the meat and potatoes of what I take pretty much irrespective of the event. On top of that there are event dependent tools to pick from. 6/7 though it is just those three, but also I use:
Golok
Hatchet
Big fishmonger's knife or butcher knife
Folding Saw
Bow saw
Assorted folders but not so much on those.
Of these the fishmonger's or butcher knife are the ones I take most seriously and all the rest are for play. I love the golok but it would be a lie to say I need anything like that. Perhaps 90% of my time that I am in the sticks I am there to observe nature not to meddle with it, and modern methods and materials mean I don't have to. I don't need to hack at it or set fire to it or anything like that, I am just the observer marvelling at the wonder of it. That's how I like it, au natural, and not how I would engineer it. That said, I do get out and play a few times a month too and I'll make nests and whatnot, forage for foods, that kind of thing. It's a bit of a pointless and fanciful release from what needs be I guess but I've been doing it for a long time and I like it. In most instances I'll take a golok and a folding saw for that too. Winter time is a bit different because I'll often take a hatchet in exchange for the golok and scale up to a foot of bow saw. May be counter intuitively I am much more likely to do that if I'm going to be amongst softwoods than hardwoods. Good hardwood is always easy to find but softwoods tend to be up high out of reach or on the ground and already manky, And it often takes a bit of chipping away to get to something useful. The folders I don't take that much notice of. They're bucket friendly Syperdcos or Mokis either for small game for just because a Delica is a handy thing to have on a pack strap for the one handed slice and return.
