Requested! Traditional knives and the Work they do.

NJBillK

NJBillK

Custom Leather and Fixed Blade modifications.
Joined
Mar 27, 2014
Messages
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I know many use their traditional knives to cut fruit, whittle, and other less than laborious tasks. Due to that, I would like to showcase some of the knives that show they have earned their keep, the harder used knives.

-Who uses a traditional pattern as a "Work knife"?
-What do you normally cut?
-Do you carry a modern folder as a "primary" knife for work in the field and relegate the traditional to usage around the office?
-Do you use your traditional patterns for anything construction, labor, maintenence, etc, related?
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I recently received some of the new 85s and the micarta just oozes "user", easy to open, thin grind and a secondary just wants to work for a living. But now it is fighting for Pocket time with my 71.


Cuts everything from cardboard and pallet wrap to bags of sand and concrete, roots and small limbs when in the garden to thinning out the ends of split rail fence when I need a "short".

What do you have?
 
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When I was a young man I carried a Camillus-made Buck 303 for 10-15 years on a daily basis. During that time I worked as a truck driver, several types of construction worker, store clerk, chemist, and development engineer. Aside from my electrician's knife that I carried when I was doing electrical work, the 303 was the only knife I carried and it got used for everything.
Cutting rope. Opening boxes. trimming material.
 
My three work knifes are the gec Barlow, case trapper, and old yellow gec sod buster style knife I am a electrical apprentice so I use my knife a lot for cutting insulation on wire and conductors. I also use it for cutting rope on home runs using Emt
 
I have several "Work Knives" Here are three #15 that I worked pretty hard. They live with Pertinux now.

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Here's a #72 that sees quite a bit of use. Here it is after setting fence posts one day.

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A #79 Montana Workhorse Whittler that had a brush with some tar and JB Weld and subsequently cleaned up a bit.

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Of course, my little Mora gets a lot of work, but I use my folders for whatever I need. Wire cutting, tar paper trimming, trimming wood, etc. Yesterday I cut some small and lighg duty braided steel cable with my Northfield cattlemans knife. No damage to the blade (I do have a convex on that blade though, YMMV.)

Connor
 
Recently I've used my Tidioute 23 to cut cord reinforced rubber to line the bed of my truck.



I used my Queen Ruple trapper to trim peel & stick tiling while retiling a bathroom. I used the same trapper to make my cuts when laying carpet in my basement.



Here's a picture of my Case Sodbuster Jr. You can see a healthy gash across the blade towards the tip where it scraped against a rock while I was chopping thistle out of a retaining wall behind my garage.


I use whatever knife I have on me for whatever task is at hand. I have a modern folder that I carry on occasion, but it's mostly because it's fun to flick open and closed. When I first got it I'd use it for harder use situations because of it's modern steel, but since I've discovered Queen's D2 I've started turning to those knives if I have a task that's going to beat up my knife too bad. The D2 holds it's own very nicely. When I was finishing my basement I had no problems going all day with a Queen trapper. At the end of the day I'd strop it and it would be good to go the next day again. At the end of the week I'd sharpen it up. I don't think I could have done that with 1095 or CV.

That being said, I wouldn't call myself a heavy duty type worker. Most of the work I do is working with kids or IT work. My knives see the most duty in the summers when we're outdoors quite a bit camping/hiking/exploring the woods near our house. I don't ever feel that there's something that needs cutting that a traditional knife can't handle.
 
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I noticed one of the clips holding the plastic under guard on my car was MIA. In order to zip tie it back on I had to cut a new small hole through the thick plastic. I apologize for the poor picture quality but this photo was taken in less than ideal conditions with a flashlight held between my teeth.
The Bullnose is my go to hard use knife. Whoever days you need the world's strongest lock for hard work is full of it. I have a PM2 but I haven't used it since I got the 71.
 
I've never carried anything but a slipjoint my entire life, it would be hard to describe everything its been used
for, lets just say anything I ever needed a knife for.
Ken.
 
Here's my Viper at work. I used it to strip wire that day.




And marking/scribing wood for cuts, in my workshop, building a sign for a local restaurant.




Queen Mountain Man, used that day to cut insulation, strip wire, cut tie-wraps, and whittle some wood molding.




2009 Forum Knife, doing more electrical work.




And, resolza in the kitchen.




:) :D :cool: :thumbup:
 
Beautiful day for a radar repair!
Really, the only thing this knife did was opening the box containing the new parts, but hey... Who can pass up a photo op?? ;)







 
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