Outdoors Loaner Knives ?

Pointshoot777

Pointshoot777

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Hello everyone - sometimes I head into the great outdoors with hunting or fishing buddies. We make camp and then head out into the mountains or hit the streams & lakes. I was putting together my gear list and, like any good knife knut, plan on taking a knife or two. Some of my favorites are Scandi or convex types with extremely sharp blades and no guard. Some are production and some are custom. These are knives that I wouldn't loan out to anyone unless they were a hardcore knife knut with good sharpening skills. (My buddies are great guys, but not fellow knife knuts.) These knives are just too potentially dangerous to the inexperienced, too expensive, and often too time consuming to replace (waiting times on customs). I don't want to offend my buddies, "What, you think this knife is too good for me ! ?" (Every guy in the outdoors thinks he knows plenty enough about knives !) I also don't want them to cut off their fingers or mess up a blade that I'll have to spend a lot of effort to restore. - - I plan to carry a loaner on me when I head back out. The Kershaw Needs Work fills this need for me. Has a Wharncliffe type blade. Its an assisted opener so adds a little to the Wow! factor. Makes a nice impressive click when the blade unfolds & locks. Its also a good tool that I use alot, even though liner locks aren't my favorites. - - If anyone asks to borrow my pukko style fixed blade carried around neck, I can snap the Kershaw open and hand that to them instead. - - Anyone else carry a loaner with you for friends to use ? - -
 
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According to Ray Mears, an old rule of bushcraft is never to lend your knife: a damaged knife may result in a broken friendship !!!
 
I do not loan knives to non knife folks. Now my knife friendly friends get to use my blades but when a non user asks,I will either do the cutting for them or tell em no. I have seen too much blood and too many chipped knives to take the risk. I remember one time my own Father asked to use my Buck. He them proceeded to run the edge down a ruler across sheet steel so he could mark it!!!! Totally ruined the edge and it took me two hours of hand sharpening to fix :( If folks spout some sorta wise a** statement about me not trusting them I simply tell them "knives are dangerous. Buy your own and find out." :D
 
Pointshoot777 said:
- - Anyone else carry a loaner with you for friends to use ? - -
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I usually ask them what they want to cut, then cut it for them, choosing the correct blade for the job at hand. I'll only lend out my knives to fellow knife-knuts.

Stitchawl
 
I used to carry a combo edge Gerber Fatty just for loaning it out to people. Something like a Mora or a Cold Steel Bushman would make great loaners for the woods
 
When a girl at work were to go on a trip with some school kids she needed a knife.
I thought about lending her a Hultafors GK but I felt it wasnt up to my class of knives, myself using only Fallkniven.
The only solution was to just give her an F1 to keep. Just like that. :)

An Hultafors GK, Mora 2000 or just and Mora knife does the work. If you know you will be with knife-noobs, bring a couple of Moras and when someone asks for a knife, ask them why they dont have one of their own, let them be ashamed for a while and then you just give them a Mora and say something like "now you have one, it is yours".
Then you can use your 300 dollar super special knife yourself and the noob can hack stones, poke in the fire and what not with their own knife.
If it is someone you kind of like, you can give them a premium knife, if it is just any dude, give them a Mora (with finger guard just to be safe).

My Fallkniven knives I use myself, the persons I like gets F1s, the rest gets Mora 2000. Those I know destroy knives, get knives from the gas station (Mora clone 25 SEK).

It is easy. Just because the other guy doesnt plan for being outdoors it should not reflect on MY equipment status and readiness. They can use the spare for the spare.
 
Well said, nodh. :thumbup:

The one word answer to this question is of course: Moras. I'll most often have some Moras around, and if someone needs a knife, I'll just toss them a Mora and tell them: "There, use that. Shoot it, throw it in the lake, eat it, cut yourself to pieces with it, cut nails with it, do whatever you want, I don't care. It's a Mora. But it is sharp, so be careful." :D
 
I'm with nodh on this one.
Give them a mora with fingerguard (511)and a couple of band-aids;)

-jontok
 
I hate lending knives, particularly to people I can moderatly trust, because:
* they might come back damaged
* people might hurt themselves with my knives (most people are used to using dull knives).

That's also to some extend why I hate giving knives away as gifts:
* even if it is no longer mine, I hate see it back mangled a few months later
* I hate the idea of people hurting themselves with a knife I gave, I generally try to give safety minimum lessons before giving a knife.

Here we have a tradition that is when you give a knife to someone, he has to give you some money (generally a small coin) in exchange, sort of saying "I fully accept it".
 
I don't usually carry a loaner but I always offer to do the cutting for them. If someone needs a blade to do somthing that may not be exaclty cutthing, I lend them my beaten up Leatherman.

Right now the only ones I go outdoors with are my dad, my gf and climbing partners. Knives don't see much use at all but anyway we all have a number of them (nice blades I mean) so we all know how much do they cost and how carefull should we use them.

Now that I am making some of my own, I would sweat a lot less if I had to loan one of those. It may return broken but I won't be left out of a lot of money anyway, just a lot of work hours.

Mikel
 
I would never ask one of my friends "What do you plan on cutting" then go and cut it for them. That seems too much like being their Dad and they are likely to get offended. Most of my friends, that would likely be in a situation with me where a knife is need, carry a knfie and use their own for the things they need while we are out and about.

I'm most likely to be asked to loan a knife out at work, to which my response would be "I don't have a knife on me".

But, to answer the OP question. I usually only have one knife on me and don't carry a "loaner" so it's all about the situation and the person asking if I lend it out or not. That being said, there is only one knife that I own I would not lend out.
 
myright said:
I would never ask one of my friends "What do you plan on cutting" then go and cut it for them. That seems too much like being their Dad and they are likely to get offended. Most of my friends, that would likely be in a situation with me where a knife is need, carry a knfie and use their own for the things they need while we are out and about.
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I don't think anyone should feel offended if you ask them what they plan to cut. I usually do that so I can lend them the best blade for the job. If someone tells me that he is going to do any food prep, I lend them an Opinel. If someone want's to strip electric wire, I lend them the Leatherman... It is a matter of lending them the right tool for the right job, just that.

Mikel
 
when i go in the woods with friends they either don't have a knife and know that they are underprepared, they bring a bad knife, or they know exactly what they are doing and come totally prepared.

my friends that either have bad knives or don't carry one know to come to me when they need something cut (which is pretty seldom).

i once handed a knife to my ex-girlfriend about a year ago...a sharp opinel #7. she wanted to cut a candle in half. i handed it to her open, warning sharpness. he decided to start tapping the edge with her finger to test the sharpness. nothing happened. i cringed. she cut the handle and then kept fondling the knife and waving it around (gesturing while talking). when she saw how upset i was (and when i repeatedly asked her to stop and just give me back the knife) she decided that she would try to close it. anyways, after several more minutes of my sweating i got the knife back in my pocket with a resolve to never hand a knife to anyone again unless they carried their own good quality knife with a sharp edge.

anyways, i think its a good plan to carry a spare to hand to your friends in case, but i would second the mora or similar. they are cheap and you don't have to sharpen them to impress anyone-they come razor sharp by most people's standards (which is pretty sharp for factory blade anyways)
 
Actually I was thinking along the same lines when I posted the Thread about the Camillus Pilot's knife. I have in the past lent out one of my Gossman PSKs, but someone posted a link to a Brute, and I am going to get a couple as beater knives, and as loaners. I also have a number of SAKs for loaning. Amoung my other loaners are a Smith and Wesson SAR and a Gerber Steadfast.

My core knives, my Gossman's, my TAK, my Ranger, and some of my SAKS are never loaned out. period. My rule of thumb so to speak is never to loan out anything I care about.

At work I have a bunch of junker Multi-tools I keep there just to loan out. Hell most of the time they don't even make it back, and I have to track the person down to get it back.
 
siguy said:
i once handed a knife to my ex-girlfriend about a year ago...a sharp opinel #7. she wanted to cut a candle in half. i handed it to her open, warning sharpness. he decided to start tapping the edge with her finger to test the sharpness. nothing happened. i cringed.
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Whenever possible I try to demonstrate sharpness (by push cutting paper) before handing the knife, it generally acts as a warning.
 
siguy said:
...i once handed a knife to my ex-girlfriend about a year ago...a sharp opinel #7. she wanted to cut a candle in half. i handed it to her open, warning sharpness. he decided to start tapping the edge with her finger to test the sharpness. nothing happened...
Click to expand...

Given your reputation as a sharpener I was hoping to read that she delimbed herself badly:D

Mikel
 
If I go out with some one who doesn't have a knife than they have one when we by the time we get back.. ususally a mora.. mostly because I don't want them to screw up ,y knife or to cramp my style by constantly asking me to cut something or to borrow a knife ....I'll gladly lay out the 10 bucks for that.
 
A quick recap of the trip my friend did with the school kids. It was her, her boyfriend, some trailertrash type woman, her current boyfriend and a herd of kids with that all lacked some cups in the cabinet :(

Anyway, my friend had in the F1 a knife that, both in value and quality, was better than all other edge tools the other people brought, put together. I knew when I gave it to her that she would treat it carefully. I also sent along a Hultafors and some other knives, in case wanted to borrow HER knife. I would not let a kid with attitude disorders and other asocial tics to touch my knives, ever. They can use the 25SEK crap knives they bought at Shell.... and those really macho "Rambo" knives with matches and stuff bought at the street fair.
 
The buck 119 and buck diamondback are good loaner knives. First, they work pretty swell and I can get a great edge on both of the very easily. Second they are inexpensive, but most people think of a 'Buck' as an expensive knife - hell it goes for about $45 these days! Owing to the 2nd factor they treat it with respect. If its a man they get the 119 - as they usually know (or have a preconceived notion) of what a real hunting/outdoor knife should look like.

Unfortunately, I found through experience that if I hand them a good knife, they have no basis to know if it is good or gas-station trash and will use it like the latter. If I hand them a Buck, they've heard of buck, they've probably lusted after buck, and they treat it with respect. The other thing is I also treat them with respect - because, heck, they are carrying a buck - and I know that baby is sharp!!!
 
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