Remember your newbie days?

Kershaws

Kershaws

Joined
Aug 3, 2013
Messages
592
So i'm thinking back to when I knew nothing about blades, and I remember going through my parents closet as a kid and finding this chinese knock-off of a SAK, and at the time it felt powerful in my hand, I felt dangerous :cool:. I remember carrying it in my pocket the following days and felt like a real tough guy. I wish I still had it just for giggles.
They certainly are fun memories, it's funny how I was so amazed by such a cheapie, the dang thing probably couldn't cut cardboard.
I thought it would be a good time for you guys to reflect back to when you were a newbie, I ran across this ad a few minutes ago, and i'm sure if I saw that back when I didn't know any better, my jaw would drop to the ground.
[video=youtube;ummrGi7Ua1g]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ummrGi7Ua1g[/video]
It would be cool if you guys shared your stories about how you got into the hobby
 
That video was........F R E A K I N A W E S O M E!!:triumphant: The one knife said POLICE! on it WOW!! :highly_amused: Doesn't get more high speed than that how is it even legal?! :eek: Where can I buy??? Take my money Tacky-Force!!



Seriously though it will probably cut string and slice apples just as well as $200 knife. :very_drunk:
 
A guy at a local flea market sells the one with the spider on the handle as a new model "spyderco". My son came home all excited the he got a spyderco. He was with his Grandpa who knows nothing about blades(except a few case knives).
No one was there to tell my son any better. I hated to have to explain to him that he got "hoodwinked".
I bought him an ambitious the next day, because I felt so bad for him.
 
I remember looking through bud k with drool running down my chin quite some years ago.

All that 440, 420, and "abc-xyz-steel":D

Now if I see a bud k catalog in my mailbox I use some kind of CPM steel to banish it to my recycle bin.
 
"But dude!, it's got a glass breaker, strap cutter and tanto blade!"
"Oh yea? What kind of steel is it?"
"It's stainless steel man, this thing is sharp" *facepalm*
 
Ah the good old days. Not too old either. Just a few months ago last year, i knew next to nothing about knives and was carrying an Mtech POS with a thin spear point style blade, dragon design-covered handle scales, the worse liner lock in existence, belt cutter, and glass breaker. Dull as a butter knife, but I thought it was THE SHIT.

It looked a little something like this, but with even stupider handle scales.......

1-97__46921.jpg


Then I got a tenacious........and joined this forum......

......And now I have over ten quality folders....... And no money......... I kinda miss being a newbie tbh :(:D
 
I remember being completely satisfied with my gerber paraframe for several years. Then I tried to sharpen it. Then I discovered bladeforums and bought a skyline. It was all downhill after that.
 
My dad used to get a shit ton of those little 75 cent knives that you get for free if you work at a company for so long. Well needless to say he had worked there for probably 15 years and he had a little collection so I snuck one when u was about 8. I think that's where it all started for me but eight years down the line I know what goes into my stuff. And I know what good stuff is
 
When I was a kid, one of my mom's cousins was in the Navy and brought back a bunch of knives he'd bought while in Asia. He gave me this Chinese folder, sort of a Buck clone, that seemed gigantic to me. Of course, my mom wasn't going to let me run around with it in my pocket, so it ended up in a desk drawer. I went on to buy a few other knives for myself, ranging from a cheesy United Cutlery "Black Widow" boot knife to a pretty nice Explorer tanto. Years later, well into my `20s, I found that folder and started carrying it in my car, but probably never cut anything with it until a year or two ago.

I should have left it in that desk drawer, imagining that it was awesome. Instead, I proved otherwise. It couldn't cut flimsy cardboard without a struggle, and was scratched all to hell in no time.

The other big newbie moment was not all that long ago, when I was just getting back into knives. I bought a Smith & Wesson Extreme Ops something-or-other thinking that "a respected gun manufacturer won't put their name on a crappy knife," and of course was proven wrong quite soon after. The thing fell apart in my hand while pulling it out of my pocket.
 
My story is really typical I feel, I needed to cut something, there was no-one around to do it for me, I found my Old Man's pocket knife.and I cut something.

I noticed it worked pretty well and my mother's warning that I'd cut my fingers off if I ever used a knife didn't come true, so I kept on using them. Somewhere along the line I actually looked at one I had and realized that it was more than a piece of folding steel with a sharp edge.

I've never looked back.
 
Someone told me that titanium was the ultimate blade material never rusted holds and edge forever and all that other good stuff .I believed it until out of curiosity I read a few articles on BladeForums and that's how it all started .
 
Damn! Those 2 operators just walking down the alley...looking for trouble...gives me chills! :D
 
How many of you guys remember when rec.knives was the only game in town? How many remember when Mike Turner was at the helm of BFC? Can you be a newbie if you were around since the beginning?

How many of you folks remember carrying your knife in grade school, using it to cut up your lunch, sharpening your pencil or playing mumblety peg in the school yard during lunch?

Maybe I'm just old but before this was a hobby that you were able to be new at, it was a necessity and part of daily life. When did it go from something normal and common sense to something we have to learn about?

When I grew up everyone from a 10 year old kid (boy or girl), to old women and men knew how to sharpen a knife. My mother can sharpen a knife as well as the most proficient member here and probably better than 70% of the members here. Little girls learned how as part of running a kitchen, little boys as part of taking on and learning the then traditional roles of being the provider and man of the house.

So when did it turn from a life skill for everyone to a hobby for the interested few. I can't honestly answer the question "...when did you get into knives?" I never really got into them as much as became more aware of a change in direction of the knife buying public. Maybe it was the 70s when traditional knives became a description of a type of knife that previously had only been described as either fixed or folding. Those two categories were it and everything fit neatly in either one.

Maybe it changed when knives started coming with instructions, when was it determined that people as a whole were too stupid to operate a knife without instructions?

I apologize for my rant but this subject makes my head hurt because in my life I can't remember when having a knife in my pocket wasn't completely acceptable and I didn't need to explain to anyone why I would have such a thing in my pocket. Of course as always this is just the rant of a crazy old man. ;)
 
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It's hilarious thinking back - some of my first knives were those dragon handled, hole through the blade Tac-Force knives. I though they were the coolest things. Then I bought a Kershaw Leek and couldn't even look at them. I knew right away they were junk - didn't even try to sell them, I literally threw them away. From there, I worked my way up with different Kershaws, some higher end Leeks, and then a ZT 0801. Then I was hooked for good.
 
To be honest I'm still a n00b.... When I was ten my dad gave me an old boot knife - no idea what kind - from when he was in the army, and it wasn't even sharp. I never really used knives anyways, I was just a kid. When I got into fishing, my dad gave me an old Eddie Bauer leatherman, mainly for the pliers and blade. As I got older and really started using knives daily, I bought many cheapos and my grandfather gave me a few boxes of Frost Cutlery knives. I know, I know, it hurts me just as much to type it as it does when you read it... I was a dumb kid. So those take up about half my sad excuse for a "col-lec-tion". But over time I've gained some vital knowledge and wisdom regarding blades, and put good money toward REAL knives. I'm totally new to the forums, but I've been around.
 
I remember when I was a young snot nose kid in the late 80s and early 90s and my knife nuttiness all started because the older kids on my street carried switchblades and I wanted one and literally dreamed of owning one, but it turns out that all of those kids had cheap switchblades that were bought from Mexico, they didn't even have the quality stilettos.

Then when I first started buying knives I thought serrations were cool, and then I realized that plain edge is much better
 
Rounic said:
Same here
Click to expand...

I've got a lot more to shudder about than you. I only got my first quality knife two years ago. Before then it was nothing but flea market junk because I literally didn't know any better. Everything is still fresh and tender with me.
 
Here's my story. I just got out of high school. All through high school I was on a rowing team, and we'd travel to Tennessee for spring break. We went to Hammers (any Tennessee residents know what I'm talking), which is a very fun budget store. I had one of the older guys buy me a knife and it was the coolest thing ever. I actually got two things. I got a Fury EMS folder. HUGE, heavy, "glass breaker", serrated, the real deal I thought. I also got a northwest trail blister pack with a small knife (gerber paraframe clone) and a cheap multi tool in it. When I got home I looked online for Fury knives and found Bladeplay.com, which sells a lot of cheap stuff. I made an order or two from there.

In the following months I bought a few leatherman products and a new Swiss Army knife. I was looking around for a nametape and stumbled upon uspatriottactical. I ordered a catalog from them and saw the benchmade nim cub II in it. I ordered it from a different site and from there, my blade craze began!!
 
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