I completely stopped carrying a locking knife

[afishhunter]

I'll take a guess. The SAK pliers are great for grabbing hot cookware. I wouldn't need them for making tea at home, but some people can be pretty eccentric in the way they like to do things.

I nuke the tea (6 grams) loose in 2 cups water in a measuring cup. (makes the tea stronger than tea in an infuser. )
Use the pliers to hold the infuser to filter the tea leaves out when I transfer to the mug, after stirring and steeping for 3 to 5 minutes after nuking.

 

[maxjeg]

Well after all, a knife is a tool.

It's just one of those quirky things, like how some people will use the word "multitool" to refer only to plier based multitools while calling a Swiss army style multitool a knife. When you think about it, it makes no sense. They're both multitools and they both have knives.

Do you want to talk about it?

Both Victorinox and Leatherman are tool sets for me. I can't say about them - it's a knife.

 

[mnblade]

Curious as to how many of you do this as well. I have stopped carrying any other knife around 100% of the time outside of my swiss army cadet. I've owned many good knives, being from CRK, Hinderer, Medford, TRM, you name it. In the end I just find that a SAK style multi-tool just sees more use in cutting, and other tasks that a normal knife cannot handle. I've yet to need more knife in my day to day life, but maybe I live a fairly easy life. For harder use, I do carry a fixed blade.

I do have some single-blade knives that lock, and carry one from time to time. Nine days out of 10, however, I'm toting a non-locking SAK or some sort of traditional slipjoint.

Truth be told, I've never felt under-knifed with a SAK. And somehow, for 54 years, I've been able to manage the Herculean task of sliding my hand all the way down into the pocket of my pants to retrieve my pocketknife so I can cut something. No pocket clip required.

 

[Steely_Gunz]

i need a one handed knife too often to give up my dedicated folder. There are days when I can get by with just a MT, but it has to be something like a Leatherman Free or something that I can thumb open.

Honestly, OTF autos have spoiled me with their convenience

 

[Stelth]

I prefer a locking blade so I always have one with me.

 

[fullswing]

Thanks for the recommendations on SAKs with one-handed opening. Time to do some research!

 

[fullswing]

i need a one handed knife too often to give up my dedicated folder. There are days when I can get by with just a MT, but it has to be something like a Leatherman Free or something that I can thumb open.

Honestly, OTF autos have spoiled me with their convenience

Also totally agree with this. OTFs are just too nice, it's what I tend to reach for when I am not sure what I am going to need that day. Although I would like to find one with no blade play, but there aren't many yet.

 

[Slice-E]

i need a one handed knife too often to give up my dedicated folder. There are days when I can get by with just a MT, but it has to be something like a Leatherman Free or something that I can thumb open.

Honestly, OTF autos have spoiled me with their convenience

I've been tempted to give OTF knives a shot, but I have a feeling my wife would end up throwing it in the trash after a day of me playing with it...

 

[Steely_Gunz]

Also totally agree with this. OTFs are just too nice, it's what I tend to reach for when I am not sure what I am going to need that day. Although I would like to find one with no blade play, but there aren't many yet.

Blade play is just part of the design unless you get into the big bucks like a Hawk or something. Once you get used to it, its no big deal.

I've been tempted to give OTF knives a shot, but I have a feeling my wife would end up throwing it in the trash after a day of me playing with it...

They really are fun to fidget with, but they are decent EDC cutters as well. Once you get used to snapping it open, making a cut, and snapping it shut without looking at it, you kinda wonder why it took you so long to try one

 

[Slice-E]

Blade play is just part of the design unless you get into the big bucks like a Hawk or something. Once you get used to it, its no big deal.

They really are fun to fidget with, but they are decent EDC cutters as well. Once you get used to snapping it open, making a cut, and snapping it shut without looking at it, you kinda wonder why it took you so long to try one

Do you have any good companies that make OTFs that you trust? Maybe I will dip my toes a bit!

 

[Steely_Gunz]

You really can't go wrong with the classics: Microtech and Heretic are great. Houge seems well respected. I like Benchmade, but I'm not keen on the Infidel line. I think their Shootout is great for the price. I have been floored by the ease of operation and the good pricepoint of Guardian Tactical.

IMHO, you really need to be ready to spend at least $250 to get into a decent EDC OTF.

 

[Guy McVer]

Who knew that every nail nick knife could be one hand opening?

 

[jackknife]

Except for an Opinel number 8 that I rarely carry, I haven't even owned a locking blade knife in decades. Through the 1970's and 80's, my real world EDC was a Buck 301 stockman, backed up with a SAK.. Then in the late 80's, I carried a Buck 303 stockman, backed. up with a SAK. . Then in the 1990's for about 10 years, my EDC was a Case peanut, backed up with a SAK. On and off I fooled around with Opinels, modding them, and giving away a lot of them to non knife people. Theres one Opinel left and that may be going too.

There was a very very brief time in the 1960's that I carried a Buck 110 in the ubiquitous black pouch on the belt. At the time I was still in the army engineers, and they sold the Buck at the PX for a ridiculous low price. But after a few months of carrying a heavy knife that outweighed my Wenger SI, and had none of the mission capacity of it, I sold it to a young troopie just rotating in and good riddance.

If I need a knife that I know will absolute not fold up on me, I use the original non folding knife, a sheath knife. I don't like to call them fixed blades as there is nothing broken that needed fixing. I've used the heck out of the Buck 102 woodsman and a Martini puuko from Finland as my "fixed " blades. They also serve if I need a one hand knife. Somehow I've never in my 82 years of living, found it hard to open my slip joint pocket knives, even on a ladder.

The past decade has seem me using the humble SAK more and more as a daily EDC, and so far its been fine. I'm still alive, the sun is still rising in the east, and my dog still loves me. The past year, my Vic classic has been a steady daily carry, with a batam or cadet carried if I thought I was going to need a bigger blade to deal with food stuff like cutting a sandwich in half for my better half. Since August 24th, my sole carry has been the classic with my old Wenger SI in a belt pouch. I don't see any change in sight.

 

[shinyedges]

Not for me, gotta be able to stab someone (or a dog) if needs must!

My guy. Lol get em.

 

[Danny Linguini]

Up until a few years ago, all I had to carry for most of 40 years was a SAK Spartan. It’s only recently I got into EDCs, but only because they’re cool little tools, not because my needs have changed. If anything, with working from home now since the pangoddamndemic, my needs are probably less now than ever. I could still easily get by with a bunch of SAKs stashed around the house. But flippers and folders are so much more fidgetable!!

 

[hsherzfeld]

I'll take a guess. The SAK pliers are great for grabbing hot cookware. I wouldn't need them for making tea at home, but some people can be pretty eccentric in the way they like to do things.

At my office, I use my SwissChamp or Leatherman's pliers to handle the little metal tray in the toaster oven in the break room when I make my lunch. I'm in Texas and work at a small company with a pretty blue-collar culture, so nobody even bats an eye when they see me pull out the pliers and retrieve my sandwich.

 

[hsherzfeld]

Except for an Opinel number 8 that I rarely carry, I haven't even owned a locking blade knife in decades. Through the 1970's and 80's, my real world EDC was a Buck 301 stockman, backed up with a SAK.. Then in the late 80's, I carried a Buck 303 stockman, backed. up with a SAK. . Then in the 1990's for about 10 years, my EDC was a Case peanut, backed up with a SAK. On and off I fooled around with Opinels, modding them, and giving away a lot of them to non knife people. Theres one Opinel left and that may be going too.

There was a very very brief time in the 1960's that I carried a Buck 110 in the ubiquitous black pouch on the belt. At the time I was still in the army engineers, and they sold the Buck at the PX for a ridiculous low price. But after a few months of carrying a heavy knife that outweighed my Wenger SI, and had none of the mission capacity of it, I sold it to a young troopie just rotating in and good riddance.

If I need a knife that I know will absolute not fold up on me, I use the original non folding knife, a sheath knife. I don't like to call them fixed blades as there is nothing broken that needed fixing. I've used the heck out of the Buck 102 woodsman and a Martini puuko from Finland as my "fixed " blades. They also serve if I need a one hand knife. Somehow I've never in my 82 years of living, found it hard to open my slip joint pocket knives, even on a ladder.

The past decade has seem me using the humble SAK more and more as a daily EDC, and so far its been fine. I'm still alive, the sun is still rising in the east, and my dog still loves me. The past year, my Vic classic has been a steady daily carry, with a batam or cadet carried if I thought I was going to need a bigger blade to deal with food stuff like cutting a sandwich in half for my better half. Since August 24th, my sole carry has been the classic with my old Wenger SI in a belt pouch. I don't see any change in sight.

The only locking blades that I own are Opinels, Leatherman multitools, a Case Mako lockback that I inherited from my grandfather, one of the Victorinox Delemont SAKs that has a really awkwardly placed locking button, and a vintage Schrade Old Timer 180OT "Mighty Mite" that must surely be on of the smallest locking knives ever made. Out of all of these, only the Leatherman multitools and (occasionally an Opinel, but not often) are ever part of my EDC.

I've never purchased a "modern tactical folder". SAKs and traditional slipjoints provide all the cutting capability that I need day-to-day. If I need a locking blade, Opinel and Leatherman have me covered.

 

[allenC]

Do you need a locking folder?
No.
But, locking folders are more forgiving of human error.
That's why I prefer multi-tools like the Leatherman Wave or the Victorinox One-Hand Trekker...because the main blade locks.

 

[Kettleman]

I don't trust the locking mechanisms on folders anyway, so I would rather just carry a slipjoint for legal and safety reasons. I'm always super careful and I can't remember ever having a slipjoint fold up on me unintentionally, but I have cut myself plenty of times with the blade in the fully deployed position...

 

[jackknife]

I don't carry locking knives either. Even when I'm carrying some type of pliers based multitool, I tend to carry a Juice, which is all non-locking. I don't trust the locking mechanisms on folders anyway, so I would rather just carry a slipjoint for legal and safety reasons. I'm always super careful and I can't remember ever having a slipjoint fold up on me unintentionally, but I have cut myself plenty of times with the blade in the fully deployed position...

And that is a great point; the safety factor. I've seen the aftermath of two very serious accidents with locking blade knives, because the young owners never learned any safe knife handling at all, because as one of them put it; "Its a Buck knife, it'll take it". Well, it didn't, and not long after lunch, there was a piercing scream from the sheet metal shop, and his Buck 110 lock failed under abuse, and it very neatly amputated his right index finger at the middle joint, and about halfway through the middle finger.

The shop Forman ran up to the cafeteria and got a cup of ice to put the finger in, and he was transported to the Johns Hopkins hand trauma center in Baltimore. They re-atached it and it sort of worked after, but they fired him for unsafe work practices and not listening to the shop Forman and lead man that told him to knock that off and go get the right tool.

In the early 2000's I had to have some surgery on the tendon on my left thumb for a case of trigger finger, and it was done at a local surgery clinic. On a follow up visit I was sitting in the waiting room to have the stitches removed, and sitting across from me was a late teens kid with his right hand seriously bandaged. His mother was sitting next to him. In conversation, it turns our he was the new owner of a name brand tacticool knife, and was practicing flipping the blade out and stabbing a tree. The lock failed and he cut his hand very severely to the point of tendon and nerve damage. The doctors were trying to restore some use to the hand.

A folding knife is a knife that is already broken in the middle. it depends on a spring loaded mechanism to hold the blade open. Mechanisms fail. A little dirt, pocket lint, wear to tolerances, all can make it less than reliable. If you want a knife that you know is absolutely not going to fold on you, use a fixed blade. Otherwise, practice safe knife handing and theres no problem with a slip joint. I'd rather have a knife that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt will cut me if I act stupid, than a lock that makes me feel I can be a bit sloppy or stupid, because the blade is locked. Kind of like how a safety on gun is supposed to be safe. safety starts with that gray thing between your ears.