"Poking and digging" knife.

L

Lavan

Joined
Nov 8, 2000
Messages
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Does anyone make a knife for poking and digging? Ideally it would have a good blade and another "blade" that you could poke and dig with for gardening or archaeology stuff.

Guess you could always sacrifice one good blade and use the other for cutting. :confused:
 
I garden with my BM 810 Contego. The big flat blade is awesome for digging in soil.
 
Sunyata said:
I garden with my BM 810 Contego. The big flat blade is awesome for digging in soil.
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The contego is an amazing knife but I believe it would not be a good choice for this kind of work. First of all, soil is typically moist and can promote corrosion on the edge of the knife (CPM-M4: not stainless). This isn't a huge issue for most people. Secondly, digging and poking around (at least in my area) results in chips to the edge from small stones or something in the sand. In my experience, CPM-M4 is more difficult to sharpen than a steel such as 1095. Thirdly, a folding knife will collect dirt and grit very quickly (in this application). For these reasons I would recommend you use a fixed blade like the Becker bk2 for this kind of job.
 
Mora carbon steel. $12. Awesome knife. Then you wont feel bad about ruining one of your pricey blades.
 
I use a Mora for cutting sod. Gardeners in Costa Rica use short (10" blade) machetes for digging, cutting roots, etc. Or if you want to go more high tech and dig out mines, Fallkniven makes a tool especially for that*. (*Let us know how that goes:D.)
 
I would personally use a shovel but if you want a knife then go with a Ka-Bar heavy warthog. It has a wide blade and the overall shape is very 'shovel-like'. It also has a softer steel helping it resist chipping and overall edge damage. Since you suggested that it would have multiple blades. Most knives that fall under this category are slipjoints and those are too beautiful to use in that role. Additionally, the blade is too small to be effective at diging. I mean if i came down to it, then really any knife could do it.
 
If your looking for a folder to dig with Benchmade Adamas i think would work well for that. Heavy and very solidly built.
 
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Ethan102399 said:
I would personally use a shovel but if you want a knife then go with a Ka-Bar heavy warthog. It has a wide blade and the overall shape is very 'shovel-like'. It also has a softer steel helping it resist chipping and overall edge damage. Since you suggested that it would have multiple blades. Most knives that fall under this category are slipjoints and those are too beautiful to use in that role. Additionally, the blade is too small to be effective at diging. I mean if i came down to it, then really any knife could do it.
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Awesome suggestion.
 
Morrow said:
I use an Ontario SP8 for this kind of work.
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Good choice. :)
Doesn't chop the world's greatest, but it is stout as all hell.
It just begs "Shove me in the ground and dig/cut/pry a stump out!"

If you manage to break it, you deserve your own monster movie.
They are stupid tough.
 
Trowel would be my choice for small jobs around the garden... Digging is time consuming though so I would be moving up very quickly to shovels, ploughs, and excavators.
 
M.FREEZE said:
Like this?
View attachment 440363


http://shop.waycooltools.com/Lesche-digging-tool-Gardening-Knife-digg-tool.htm
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This. Or this:

zenp_k245.jpg
 
Get a marshalltown trowel. I've used them on excavations before and they are not expensive but very strong.
 
I use an old short bayonet that ironically my friend dug up in his yard and gave me.
It's a later model bayonet for an M1 Garand ( not the long one).
Maybe a Glock Field knife with the sawback would work too?
 
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