Knife recommendation for tire guy

DMG said:
I have been a mechanic and owned a shop for decades. An auto repair shop is a torture chamber for knives.

I suggest a cold steel folder or a griptilian. I usually use a HK folder made by benchmade. No super high end steel. m390, s110v, M4 all dull or chip the same as CPM154 if you hit a brake rotor opening a box or the frame of a car removing a zip tie. But a more common steel is way easier to sharpen or regrind. And less brittle.

A partially serrated blade is great for mechanics because the serrations strip wire, cut zip ties and cut plastic better than a straight edge. Nothing too fine point. I nave broken a couple of spydercos.

Take the pocket clip off or cover it with a couple of layers of heat shrink so he doesnt get in trouble for scratching cars with it. Get him a good pocket screwdriver so he doenst use the knife.
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Yeah. Going to loan him my beater partially serrated Vantage this weekend and see how he likes it. Will go shopping for a utility knife tomorrow as well. I think once he sees how well a utility knife cuts whatever else I get him will stay in his pocket.
pyreaux said:
Buy him a valve stem puller and maybe some other tools and a reasonably priced spyderco, Benchmade, crkt, or something you think he'd like. Banging a harder tougher steel into customers rims is not cool. He shouldn't need to cut valve stems. If he's going to be a mechanic he's better off slowly acquiring tools to do the job right. Cutting boxes or the odd object here and there is one thing, but using the knife for everything is a good way to get seriously injured and that may have repurcussions for his career depending on how professional of a place he works at.
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Yeah. When he told me he was cutting valve stems I was puzzled. They must have tools there to do this stuff.
 
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When you have the tire dismounted, the easiest and safest way to remove the old valve stem is to cut the rubber part inside the wheel.
To remove it from the other side without cutting it, you will likely have to pull extremely hard and possibly use the wheel as a fulcrum to pull it all the way through as it is made to stay in with potentially 150+ psi pushing it out.

I have used utility knives and found that the HK (benchmade) folder is faster and less likely to break than the utility knives. YMMV
 
Have you considered a multi-tool? Seems like some pliers based multi-would cover a lot of ground, like having side cutters, scissors, a fire, a knife, often a serrated knife too, and so on. There are some one-have open options as well if you wants quicker deployment of the pliers and cutter but usually the rest of the tools are more hidden, at least on the one-hand-openers I've tried.

Something like a rebar or wingman seems like it would be good.

For much of those task, I really like a hawkbill but those are not as easy to sharpen. If you mostly want something for boxes, pretty much anything thin-ish and that has a reasonable amount of straight edge, like a sheepsfoot blade. I would also recommend a larger grip and non-metal scales so it doesn't slide around with dirty hands if he uses it for everything. Beyond that, I think he would probably be happy with anything better than what he has if he only has "junk" knives.

I like the CS tuff lite recommendation.
 
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