I wanna carry my kitchen knife in the field!

MelancholyMutt

MelancholyMutt

Doggy Style
Joined
Apr 13, 2002
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That's right... ferget about them Striders and Reeves... them Kabars and RTaks!
I wanna bring my 8 inch Henckels!

Wadda ya say to that?
I also wanna leather sheath like the ones that come with the Randalls!

Who can make me one?
 
Full falt grind. Fairly thin. Should work as well in the field as the kitchen. Most knives of the frontiersmen were kitchen knives by todays standards.

IMHO you are far better served by a kitchen knife than by an over hard, over thick pry bar.
 
Nothing wrong with that. The most prized knives in my collection are simply slightly overbuilt variations of a kitchen knife. An article in a "Knives" annual from many years back suggested kitchen knives were ideal for the field. It featured kitchen knives and the custom leather sheaths made for these. The article had a huge impact on the knives I collect.
 
TTKK.jpg
 
I am in complete agreement with you. If you find a good source for sheathing a kitchen knife, please share the info. I got one or two in mind that I think would work great.
Love that TTKK.
 
A most excellent idea, I personally like a wide stiff boning knife in the 5-6 inch range as a make shift camp knife. A straight back utility knife would work well also.
 
Nice idea. I think that most of the knifes out there are pretty much designed as weapons rather than tools (at least for the looks) nowadays. Seriously besides using them to stab (which IMHO is an ultra-rare situation in everyday's life :D), the thickness of the blades pretty-much compromises a knife's cutting ability, which I think is a knife's original purpose. :)

MelancholyMutt, pls take a look at this shop for a leather sheath. It's top-notch. http://vesscollectibles.illusionfxnet.com
 
Yep, as someone else stated, the frontiersmen liked to have a kitchen knife oon them, as the thin profile works very well for game prep. I think that 2 knives in the field is an optimal number. One knife is a small, thin, kitchen or hunting knife, the other a large, thick survival knife. That is my own preference. :)
 
All very good answers, Men. a 5-6" stiff boning knife in carbon steel is an excellent all around utility belt knife. (Add a good small hatchet or hawk and a big 3 blade stock man, and you have a superb kit.) I know that Green River pattern too. Connecticut Valley Arms used to sell a kit with that blade ands scales, rivets, etc to put together. One of the keenest blades I have seen. Mutt, all the Dexter-Russell blades are available as bare blades very inexpensively, and there is not much to adding a handle. Maybe that would be the route to go.
 
Ummm, it might just be me, but in my earlier days, I too thought that a good idea, and used a 6inch Mundial chef's knife as a makeshift camp knife. But once the going got hard, the edge started chipping out excessively - like 1/8inch big chips if anything remotely hard was hit. So in my own mind, unless you can get a nice carbon steel one ...

A friend of mine uses a "Chinese Chopper" or forged meat cleaver in carbon steel (??? unknown type of steel) that is just phenomenal in the field. It is a $10 piece he picked up in a Vietnamese grocery store here in Melbourne and it was probably made in China. It is full height slightly convex ground with a 6.5inch straight edge and is a full 5inches wide, yet only just under 5/32inch thick. He uses it to split wood, slice up camp dinners and also to leg deer !! It looks absolutely crap, but performs exceptionally well.

The "sheath" is just a folded piece of leather which he ties on the blade and he pops the whole thing in his backpack. Jason.
 
Great idea!! This summer I plan on buying a Henkles 4" Pairing knife and pairing it in with my large Western Hunting knife. will make a leather piggy back sheath for them.

BTW I do Leather working on the side. If you want to see some of my work, email me. Am sure I could whip something up for a good price.;)

Heber
 
I saw this (top knife) and thought of Rinaldi's TTKK.

Ebbtide_myrtPJC.jpg

PJTomes' chef/kitchen knife. It isn't intended for 'field' use, but I'm bringing her camping anyway :D

Even toying with the idea of making a double sheath so I can bring my Tomes parer too.
 
Come on now. What are you going to do with an 8" Henckels in the field? It's too thin for heavy work, and too long for fine work normally designated to short thin blades. Give me a 7" combat style knife (Busse SH-E), and a thin 3 1/2" hunter style knife (Gene Ingram).


Although I do think that we, as knifenuts, should spend a lot more money on kitchen knives and less on "defensive and tactical" knives. I've never cut someone with a knife, nor do I plan to, but I cut things in the kitchen several times a day. Wouldn't you want your kitchen knives to be the best, most expensive knives you own?
 
There is nothing wrong with a kitchen knife people forget when they do this historical view on knives they alll think Bowie or trapper the orginal fur traders where usually given a kitchen knife from their mother before leaving the house to go down to the docks and take of in the laker canoes. Parts of North America were sort of built on a kitchen knife.

http://home.cogeco.ca/~aelias/
 
Excellent thread! Here's a voice from the past FWIW:

"The test of a knife is whether or not it will slice bacon. If it is thin enough and sharp enough for that job it is a first-class camping knife. And right there is the chief type of use to which a hunting knife is put. No matter how enthusiastic a hunter one may be, he will slice bacon and cut bread with his hunting knife much more frequently than he will cut up bear or skin deer! Not only is this capacity to slice bacon the test of the style of the blade but it is the every-day test of the condition in which it is kept. Get a knife thin enough to slice bacon and keep it sharp enough to do that job, and it will then be ready and in condition for everything else that will turn up on a camping trip."
from Mason, Bernard. _Woodcraft and camping_. (New York: Dover, 1974), p. 277. ISBN 0486219518. Originally published by A.S. Barnes & Co. in 1939 under the title _Woodcraft_.

Re a sheath: It is not hard to make a sheath. There are some good sheath-making instructions at http://ragweedforge.com and also at http://www.brisa.fi

best,

Andrew
 
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