Lefty-friendly Traditional?

philllll

philllll

Joined
May 23, 2013
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Hey y'all. I was wondering what some of the more lefty-friendly patterns are. I'm primarily looking for high-quality USA made knives, but not necessarily customs.

Some of the EZ Open GEC patterns look promising, but still have the nail nicks on the "wrong"(right) side for me.

Any other lefties out there with this dilemma?
 
Even being a lefty I've found normal knives to be just fine, open with the left with the handle in the right, and rotate over. Takes all of a second to switch back and forth plus opening with the right hand just feels odd.
 
Muskrat. No matter which side of the knife you are looking at, there's a nail nick. The knife is perfectly symmetrical. Though I guess if you want the blades to hinge a particular direction vis-à-vis the nick, perhaps it's just two right-handed blades mocking you.
 
Glad you brought this up. Most righties don't get that pretty much everything is made for them, including knives. I have a few custom lefties; when I was ordering one from Ray Cover he looked at me puzzled and said, "A left-handed folding knife?" When I explained it, he was like, oh, of course... Of course all of my GEC's are righties, I've just gotten used to it. Heck, even Benchmade used to make lefties when they first started making knives. I guess I'd better take some pics of my lefties for this thread...
 
Being a righty, I've not thought much of this dilemma for a lefty but I'd imagine that one solution for a lefty would be to hold the knife in the left hand, mark side up, blade pivot down, and open the knife with the right hand's thumbnail. If that's what "brets-ftw" said above in his post - sorry, just couldn't untangle your words.

GEC did make a left handed linerlock knife a few years ago. I think that it was just like the right handed ones but had the shield on the pile side so they advertised them as left handers. I don't think the nail nicks were on the pile side. "knifeswapper" sold them. A PM to him might clear up the matter.

Edited for correction pile side to mark side.
 
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Thanks for the replies, guys. At the moment I am digging the stockman pattern because the wharncliffe blade has a left hand thumb nick. I'm looking at a peanut as well since it has a left hand pen blade. For the main blades I open them just like ED said, with the pivot facing down.
 

Single blade sheepsfoot GEC 15, I can pinch open in a normal left hand grip.


GEC 25 and GEC 15 Boys knife single blade clip point both can be easily pinched open, left hand grip.


Buck Duke model #500, as with most lockbacks without overdone swedges, super easily pinched open, left hand grip.
I am mostly right handed :)

A few more to consider are a single blade peanut, Case Sodbuster jr., Aitor Castor, and I am sure there are tons of others with lots of blade above the well to grip. If pinched properly, the flesh from the index finger on the nail nick will give plenty of traction to pull the blade out.
 
I'm not sure if this helps but I find a "un-pinchable" blade can sometimes be much more easily pinched when the blade is carbon steel and has a good patina.

I've noticed this especially on my Sodbuster Jr.
 
The Scagel SFO knives from GEC (and others probably) have nail slots instead of nail-nicks, making them symmetrical except for the shield. They're available on knivesshipfree.com
 
ED reminded me that I own a lefty GEC. Single blade #735109. It's kind of ironic that I don't carry it all that often, I think I'm so used to opening knives backwards, that this one takes a moment to think about. Solid liner-lock, it's a lovely thing...

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Well... I´m a lefty and I never had any problems with traditional knives so far. It me it didn´t matter what knife it was, the nail nick may be on the wrong side for us lefties but I´ve never had a problem with that

You need to open them anyhow with two hands so no big problem at all. IMO!

I think it´s worse on modern knives when the clip is on the right side and can´t be changed on my correct left side, or a thumb stud on one side... ;)
 
Humppa said:
Well... I´m a lefty and I never had any problems with traditional knives so far. It me it didn´t matter what knife it was, the nail nick may be on the wrong side for us lefties but I´ve never had a problem with that

You need to open them anyhow with two hands so no big problem at all. IMO!

I think it´s worse on modern knives when the clip is on the right side and can´t be changed on my correct left side, or a thumb stud on one side... ;)
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Andi, you posted word for word what I wanted to say.:thumbup:
 
Even though I'm a righty, I never use the long pull on my Case Mini CopperLock...

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Case Small Texas Jack and Mini CopperLock

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-Brett
 
Im a lefty...but there are still things I do "Right". One is shoot and the other is open knives. I dont think they make lefty oriented knives. The best you can do is a knive that is an EZ open patter or a knive that can be pinch opened like last years forum knive or the Northwoods Freemont. (ugh...sorry for calling it the Northfield)

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That lefty #73 was exactly what I had in mind. Too bad, it looks like they only made about 60 or so total in 2009 if my research is correct.
 
philllll said:
That lefty #73 was exactly what I had in mind. Too bad, it looks like they only made about 60 or so total in 2009 if my research is correct.
Click to expand...

There are other lefties out there, maybe one of them will start making knives one day. :D
 
Yes, GEC did some true left handed (73) models. I know they did some yellow rose handled ones, and a few others I believe.
 
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