RAT Knives do break!

R.A.T. said:
Kudos to you! It doesn't matter if it's "hard core" as long as you get out there and practice something that may be useful. The way I look at it, unless you're just a collector there is no sense in having all these knives if we don't at least use them and learn from them every so often.
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I agree. My kids never enter the woods without a knife, even if going for a short hike. I do teach them, however, sometimes instruction is more effective if not coming from a parent. I believe that the guy who I took some wilderness survival and rappelling courses with some 25 years ago is still teaching...
 
Murphyslaw said:
And because life, family, work, etc. got in the way, in the past 10 years or so I have not spent as much time in the woods as I used to.

On the plus side,this may be turning around...as I have a wife that loves the outdoors (and she's a Jersey City Chick), and have a daughter and two sons who are becoming of age to really enjoy the outdoors, camping, hunting and fishing. In fact, I have become somewhat re-invigorated, as my 6 and 11 year old sons have joined the Boy Scouts. While this is not really hard-core, my oldest son's troop goes camping at least once a month. Also, my wife and I are looking into some wilderness survival classes or us and our kids.

Its a good start...
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Amen, brother! My wife and I are in a similar situation. We're two long-time urbanites recently relocated to some beautiful country. We're trying to get out and actually do some of the outdoor things we've been dreaming about for years. It's a little disconcerting; as much as I love the idea of the outdoors when I'm indoors, actually being out I clearly feel out of my comfort zone. It's taking some adjustment. But it's very exciting.

I actually feel a sense of accomplishment at this point when I successfully spend two nights in a row in the woods. :)

Kinda pathetic compared to, oh, I don't know, spending a couple of weeks in the jungles of Peru or something (not that we know anybody who does crazy stuff like that :D ), but as was so eloquently posted earlier: It's a start.

As an example, we have plans to make a sort of "family activity" out of the shelter building contest. End goal being that our children will grow up a lot more comfortable in the outdoors than I am right now.
 
I must have hundreds of knives. I need to get out and use them more. Heck, if buying a new knife motivates me to get out and walk in the woods and do a little chopping and stuff, it's still cheaper than golf or most health clubs. I have been known to go on hikes just to take pictures of a new knife and post them on the internet. But I do appreciate the no bs approach RAT takes to selling their gear. I refuse to call myself a gear queer. I'm much too old to turn homo now. I am an independent outdoor products tester. Yeah, that's the ticket. :D
 
I gotta say, I always enjoy Horn Dog's posts ;)

Along those same lines...I also have probably a hundred knives. I don't use them all but I guess I am somewhat of a collector. I also like to buy from fellow manufacturers and makers just to say: "this industry can do better and not have to always be cutting each others throat and competing!"
 
R.A.T. said:
I don't have a probably with gear queers. I buy a lot of gear myself. What I do have a problem with is someone thinking gear can replace experience. We all need to realize that probably about 80 percent of the people that buy an RC knife (or any knife) really don't need the knife at all. Again, for the most part we are selling bullshit simply because we are selling un-needed items. How do I know this? All you have to do is take a look at a lot of the knife photos in this forum and most of them are all pristine laying beside something in the outdoors. With all that said, we truly appreciate people buying our knives if that's what they want to do with their money, but if I could magically have my way about things, this forum would be more about hard-core survival training and edgecraft than the every day run-of-the-mill thread about RC knives. I realize everyone here can't get out and train. I also realize that a lot of folks here live in an area that just does not offer outdoor experiences. Trust me, we're not trying to run off our core group of buyers / users because we appreciate every one of them more than most people realize. I am just sayin' I'd like to see this forum be different than the average knife forum. I want people (of any experience level) to walk away informed and realizing that they get the unvarnished truth when they read this forum. No bullshit. No hype. And yes, that is one of the main reasons we do so many contests. We want to encourage folks to use their knives and learn something.
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I've only had my RC-5 for about a week now, but I sampled one for a week in the passaround earlier. I chopped down a couple of trees my new 5, dug out dry roots for firewood, etc last weekend, and I still couldn't get a scratch on the finish. However I was in a sand environment so I was able to get some scratches on my izula because of the sand that got in the sheath. I need to work on beating up my 5 a little more though....congrats on making a tough coating though!:D
 
Grump said:
Funny coming from a guy in the cutlery biz. :D
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:) Although I gather from what I've been reading, Jeff doesn't consider himself in the cutlery biz so much as being in the Survival / Training biz, and getting dependable knives into peoples' hands is a part of that :D
 
Hi, owner of the infamous blade here.
Sorry I don't have pictures to share, but I'll elaborate on what led to the breakage.
I was batoning a notch in a piece of Australian pine, and not too hard, when I heard a sharp pop. I just kinda stood there for a moment before I realised that a piece of the knife was still in the wood and not in my hand. Some contributing factors may have been some past stress I put on the blade or the fact that it wasn't exactly razor sharp.
That being said, I love my RC-3 (my absolute favorite fixed blade EDC) and this experience and the things posted in this thread have earned Rat Cutlery a lifelong customer (I'm thinking RC-4 next for more appropriate woodland use).
 
Mindset > Skills > Gear.

I think one of the most important aspects of mindset is having no illusions about your gear: that is, realizing that it cannot make up for a lack of competence on your part. Being one of the "enlightened" who buys better gear than the other guy does not make you an epic hero; there are no magic, indestructible knives that baton sequoias and slice rocks in half. Even if there were, they wouldn't be of any use to an armchair commando. It's refreshing to see somebody who makes money from knives pushing that philosophy.

I've personally been in a couple of situations where my skills were lacking and my gear was marginal (now my gear is way over-the-top), and it was only my mindset that carried me through. The folks at R.A.T. obviously are in touch with reality, and are more interested in promoting mindset on this forum, and training at their facility, than the knives themselves. I'd love to see more of this in the knife industry and the forums. Thanks for picking up the ball, Jeff.
 
After 32 years in Scouting I have hundreds of nights camping and hundreds of miles hiking. I have years of deer and elk hunting. In Scouting I tought summer and winter survival (amature/kid level). I have spent many nights in debree shelters (some in the rain) and 7 nights in igloos. I did all of that without an adequate knife (often no knife at all). Once I "retired" from active scouting I found the knife internet. I now have +/-100 "adequate" knives. I usually carry 5-10 on any outting. I have several "RAT" knives (RC-4 favorite). I just love going into the woods knowing I have several "perfect" "indestructible" knives with me. I once spent 2 hours plus taking a fatwood stump apart by batoning my 9 inch 5160 bowie through the stump using a steel ax as the baton. Knife still is in use years later.
Sorry. I will continue to think of my RAT knives (and several of your competitors) as "perfect" and "indestructible".
My wife thinks I am a "stuff" junkie. She is correct. While gear will not replace knowledge, it sure will help implement your knowledge.
Try reading my post without a computer or other internet access device.
I have had several very experienced friends suffer seriously when they got lost hunting with NO gear. One spent three days in intensive care. Asimple canteen would have spared him that.
As a Scout I follow their motto "Be Prepared". To me that means training and GEAR.
I also really like Horn Dog's posts on the many forums he habitates.
 
Any tool can and will break (given the right situation). :eek:

Nothing is perfect. :eek:

From what I have been reading on this forum the % of returns on the RAT knifes is very low. :thumbup::)
 
Does this mean Rambo wasnt real?
I was wondering why RATs dont have hollow handles!

J/K :jerkit:

The reason I love my RATs... no BS, its just a good knife made of good metal
I prefer 1095, learned to sharpen on an old Barlow as a kid... a LONG time ago!
 
Barlow manufactured a small knife the was very well liked.
It had a clip point blade about 3" and pen blade about 1.5".
All carbon steel with hard plastic handles and a bail ring.
These were very common in the 50s and 60s, every self respecting teenage boy had one! :D
They became known as barlow and soon every knife company made a version of it.
(it was even mentioned by Mark Twain in Huckleberry Finn, dont ask who that is!)
 
Necrodamus said:
Barlow manufactured a small knife the was very well liked.
It had a clip point blade about 3" and pen blade about 1.5".
All carbon steel with hard plastic handles and a bail ring.
These were very common in the 50s and 60s, every self respecting teenage boy had one! :D
They became known as barlow and soon every knife company made a version of it.
(it was even mentioned by Mark Twain in Huckleberry Finn, dont ask who that is!)
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They were very well built, and lasted from what I have read. :thumbup::)

I found one in a antique / pawn shop years ago. It was in pretty good condition, but was stolen about two weeks after i got it in a break in along with all of my other "toys" about 15 years ago now.:mad::(:grumpy:
 
Barlows are much older than the 50's, as our good friend Bernard Levine will tell you over in the identification forum. IIRC their main reason of initial popularity was that the extended bolster increased their durability, making them a good "hard use" folder for the time. The oldest models had integral bolsters and hailed from before the days of plastics. :)
 
read that again folks! I said COMMON in the 50s and 60s. I think the design predates the civil war... by about 200 years!
 
R.A.T. said:
... All you have to do is take a look at a lot of the knife photos in this forum and most of them are all pristine laying beside something in the outdoors. ..
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Stop making them so freaking tough, and It'll be easier to make them look used. Seriously though, I've carried and used my izula every day for about two months now, and aside from being sharpened, it looks day-old fresh. The only thing I've found to really work the coating is chopping and batoning, and even that it holds up well to.
 
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