Reflections on your knifetime!

[DavidZ]

I have been meaning to start a thread on this for some time, and have finally got to it. Being in my sixth decade of life, I do seem to be reflecting more, but am still excited about the future of knives. Let's share a few stories that are relevant to our knifetime.

I have defined Knifetime as your lifetime in knives.​

Hopefully this will be fun, entertaining, and informative!

Let's hear about your first knife!

Mine was a white handled melon tester that I admired for years at the hardware store our family would frequent. I would stand there admiring it in the glass case while my parents got whatever they needed. I hounded them for a long time before they gave in and bought it for me. I think that I was 7 or 8 when I got that knife. It went everywhere with me, and sharpened countless spears, sticks and arrows. It did not last very long, but I was hooked!

Let's hear about your past hunt for the perfect knife, which I am sure like me, continues to this day.

Today the knives we see here, are so much better than as little as 30 or 40 years ago. I remember looking for a Case Mako - which I thought would be the ultimate lock back for an EDC. This was in the mid 1970's - I went to so many places trying to find one that would lock up tight, be centered etc... I bought the best I could find, but in today's world, this level of quality would be laughed at.

Let's also hear about using these knives. Things that may be unheard of and lost today.

I remember playing a game with other kids as a young boy, called mumbley peg. Great fun at the time, but ask anyone today under 40 or 50, and they never heard of it.

OK, now it is your turn. Young and old, let's reflect on our knifetime!

 

[asdf12345]

My first knife was a Manix 2. I was very lucky that this was my first experience with knives because it showed me what a proper, well built knife should be. This was a sprint run in CTS BD30P and I remember the many hours of amazement and enjoyment that it brought me when I found that it could basically cut through anything and retain its edge. I never really gave a thought to buying more knives for a number of years until the tip broke off when I was doing some stupid stuff. I looked for something with the same basic principle of operation as the ball bearing lock and discovered Benchmade's axis lock. This led to the discovery of the knife community and a lot of knowledge about lock mechanisms, steels, etc. I distrusted autos until I got my first one out of curiosity, a Microtech Kestrel. Again I was extremely lucky to have had a good first experience in this regard, as there are some pretty bad autos out there from what I hear. That knife kicked off my beginning to collect Microtech knives and that continues to this day and is likely where I will stay.

 

[davek14]

Grew up in the country and always had a pocket knife.

Toward the end of high school I got less into camping and such and didn't carry a pocket knife for years.

At 40 or so I was conquering an addiction and saw some easy knifemaking info on the I-net. Started working on some on weekend mornings (a "trigger" time) to stay occupied.

After making and trading and ending up with quite a few fixed blades I realized I couldn't carry them anywhere. So then I began the typical journey from one-handers to slipjoints.


♪♫"In my knife, I've loved them all."♫♪

 

[eb1118]

I was into knives since I was younger and my uncle fueled the fire by giving me a leatherman wave. Then my aunt bought me a Benchmade Sequel, when I turned fourteen, which I lost a few years later. My hobby really took off when I started college and had saved up some money. I've since seen the major knives from all the major companies and I'm deciding which knives I really like and which ones I want to let go. I only own about ten knives now, but in total I've owned about twenty five. I learned to sharpen on the Gatco diamond system about a year ago, and that really got me into it.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention my membership on BF which had certainly added to the obsession.

 

[Rare blade]

Got a knife when I was 12 or so from my Grandparents it was/is (as i still own it) a SAK (climber if I remember right). I really wanted a knife bad and my grandfather taught me the right and wrong way to use a knife. I am in my late 30's now and still have the knife, my grandfather has passed away and when my sons are old enough it will be passed along to them with the knowledge of how to use a knife. One thing i will admit to and I joined hoping to lear more is sharpening. One of my co-workers husband is really adept at sharpening and anytime I need a knife sharpened i send it over to him. That being said I plan on visiting his shop to check out his technique.

Fast forward 20 or so years. My SAK was getting battered (red coating looked like hell) and happened to see some replacement yellow scales on the bay so bought them and in doing some research on how to remove the old scales. I happened upon this site. Anyways, I got looking at some really superb knives and though that I should put my SAK away for one of my kids and upgrade to a "high end" knife. My definition of high end is >$100 so i did a lot of research and decided on a benchmade 707, i bought it and used it for a while but then decided that like the SAK the scales are not grippy enough. So enter the Para 2. It was just coming out and sold out everywhere except a knife store that I frequent had one in stock when I stopped in.

And that is what started the addiction, so now I have a small collection which i plan to keep that way. I see people with 50 to 100 and I am not one to judge but fell myself personally that I can only realistically rotate between knife if i have less than 10. So I have bought and traded on hear and met some great like-minded people along the way. I enjoy some of the older models of spyderco's and benchmade ( would like to add an AFCK full-size with the round hole), my favourite is the spyderco lum tanto, and it is the only knife i have a spare of, got a change to pick up 2 and rarely see them come up for a decent price. I daily carry the gray G10 sprint model and it does everything i could ask. I have carried it since i got it and other that the scales being a bit dirty it holds up very well. It is amazing what a difference steel makes in terms of how long an edge will last between sharpening.

Anyway that is the end of my ramble.

 

[22-rimfire]

Dad always carried a slipjoint. I saw the usefullness of a pocket knife living out in the country with use ranging from opening letters to field dressing a deer. I started receiving an allowance in the second grade ($0.50/week) and that opened a lot of doors for me from buying seeds for my garden, to knives, and a Daisy BB gun. My first knife was a tiny Imperial slipjoint which cost $0.50. A year of so later I bought a larger Imperial at the 5&10 for I believe $0.75. This was about all I could afford at the time and I admired the Case slip joints in the glass case at the hardware store every time I visited with my Dad. At about 10, I had saved up and bought a Case Barlow which was my first good knife. Dad never bought any knives or stuff like that for us kids. He thought it was something we should budget for, choose, and buy ourselves.