Paring knives as lightweight belt knives ?

afishhunter said:
for knife tasks (whittling, peeling and field dressing, deboning, etc.) a little blade flex is desireable. Also, a thin blade slices better than a thick blade.
G.W. Sears (Nessmuk) promoted a blade with a little flex over the (even in his day) gaining in popularity stiff, no flex "Bowie" style "hunting knives".
I don't know what Mr. Kephart's view on the matter was.
Click to expand...
Partly a matter of taste, maybe, and partly a matter of what you expect to do with a knife.

AGR said his white-tail and bird-n-trout were harking back to the days when hunters wanted their knives thin and sharp. Both are discontinued, as far as I know.
Kep and Nessmuk were never without a hatchet or axe, so they didn't do a lot of chopping or batonning with their knives.
Someone once wrote, look how thin a machete is, and what it does. Do you really need a fat spine on your belt knife?
Juan Matus carried a "small, serrated knife" that I suspect was a Vic paring knife, but he lived in a desert.
Our pioneering ancestors used mostly ordinary kitchen/butcher knives which weren't very thick, but people sure liked Bowies.

For myself, as an armchair adventurer, I don't give a knife much chance to break, and I have plenty of knives to spare, but one of my favorites is the CS Master Hunter, with its thick spine ground flat to a sharp edge.
Bigger than a paring knife, though.

[More than anyone will want to read, and written without pretense of authority.]
[Edited dessert to desert. Don Juan didn't live in a cake.]
 
Last edited:
A while back I decided that having a belt knife would be much better to use on my little boat while fishing, to keep from having to dig a knife in and out of my pocket. I wanted something stainless for use on the water, light weight (in case I fall in the water I don't want a bunch of weight) and cheap and easily replaced so if in a moment of clumsiness it ends up going overboard I won't be mourning the rest of my trip over the loss.
I found a 3 pack of Dexter paring knives with plastic handles (red white and blue) cost less than $20. Gave one to my wife to use in the kitchen, dropped the other one in a small leather sheath I had and threw the spare on top of my bookcase.
I absolutely love it! It is the handiest thing, thin flexible blade that is scary sharp and cuts like a lightsaber! I am definitely a big fan of the concept.
 
chevyrulez1 said:
A while back I decided that having a belt knife would be much better to use on my little boat while fishing, to keep from having to dig a knife in and out of my pocket. I wanted something stainless for use on the water, light weight (in case I fall in the water I don't want a bunch of weight) and cheap and easily replaced so if in a moment of clumsiness it ends up going overboard I won't be mourning the rest of my trip over the loss.
I found a 3 pack of Dexter paring knives with plastic handles (red white and blue) cost less than $20. Gave one to my wife to use in the kitchen, dropped the other one in a small leather sheath I had and threw the spare on top of my bookcase.
I absolutely love it! It is the handiest thing, thin flexible blade that is scary sharp and cuts like a lightsaber! I am definitely a big fan of the concept.
Click to expand...
got a picture?
 
I like a thinnish blade for most tasks .080 to .100 is pretty close to just right for me, even for a belt knife. With a belt knife though, even a large one, I am not going to baton it through something unless I am in a life or death situation.
 
I've almost never carried a fixed blade, and I usually don't "window shop" for fixed blades. But I have managed to pick up a few paring knives that I'll occasionally carry in my bag or backpack. (Can't imagine wearing a knife on my belt or suspenders.) Here are a couple of Victorinox paring knives and one from Otter; the sheath will hold any one of them. The serrated red Victorinox is probably my favorite.
3paring+sheath.jpg

- GT
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top