I made a post over in the general forum, but I wanted to share something with my special traditional family.
I'm getting along great post surgery, and already can open some pocket knives, if they are easy. Sal classic, sak bantam. The smoothness of the Victorinox helps.
But it's about the young guy I talked to at the surgical center.
While waiting for my name to be called, Karen and I were sitting across from a woman and her young 20 something son. He had his hand bandaged up, and was waiting to go back to an OR. Karen asked him what happened, and it came out. The kid was a fellow knife knut, and was into tactical knives. I didn't make any comment about any of what followed. He had one of the super duper locks fail at a bad moment when he was doing some heavy duty cutting, and it severed some critical tendons and nerves. His right hand was pretty crippled up, and they were hoping for the surgery to restore some use to his right index finger and middle finger that were dead out of action. They'd already opperated on it once, and were going at it again.
He named the knife that bit him, and it was one of the tactical crowds popular ones. He trusted the lock, and now he has a crippled right hand. So much for mechanical devices.
I feel a little sad more of the young guys today didn't have a seasoned grandad to guide him growing up. I wonder with a slip joint that he knew would fold over on him if he was stupid, would he have been more careful? I think with a slippy, we do tend to be more carefull, think about what we are doing. I think a grandad or even a good dad would have taught him to go get the right tool for the job. A fixed blade, hatchet, or saw.
We love our stockmen, barlows, and soddies, but we know they have a limitation. We know if we push the wrong way, we're gonna get hurt. I know they had lockblades in the old days; John Wilkes Booth had a locking foldiing dagger on him when he was killed at Garrets barn. But I think of all those cowboys with stockmen, sailors with sheepsfoot rigging knives, farmers with sodbusters, and day laborers with simple barlows. They managed to go through life without crippling a hand. They knew how to use a tool. But then, most slip joint patterns come from an era where there was no warning labels, and nothing was idiot proof.
I feel a bit sad for that young man. He believed what he read in some magazine, and so trusted the tool to insullate him from his own mistakes because it was supposed to be thr strongest lock on a folding knife.
I recall my dad telling me, that the more complex you make a mechanism, the more likely it will fail. Then I think about old Bill B. up in Frederick county who has used a yellow sodbuster for the past 30 years to skin everything from muskrat to deer, and still has all his fingers.
Maaybe simple is good. We know not to push it too far.
Please, lets be carefull out there!
I'm getting along great post surgery, and already can open some pocket knives, if they are easy. Sal classic, sak bantam. The smoothness of the Victorinox helps.
But it's about the young guy I talked to at the surgical center.
While waiting for my name to be called, Karen and I were sitting across from a woman and her young 20 something son. He had his hand bandaged up, and was waiting to go back to an OR. Karen asked him what happened, and it came out. The kid was a fellow knife knut, and was into tactical knives. I didn't make any comment about any of what followed. He had one of the super duper locks fail at a bad moment when he was doing some heavy duty cutting, and it severed some critical tendons and nerves. His right hand was pretty crippled up, and they were hoping for the surgery to restore some use to his right index finger and middle finger that were dead out of action. They'd already opperated on it once, and were going at it again.
He named the knife that bit him, and it was one of the tactical crowds popular ones. He trusted the lock, and now he has a crippled right hand. So much for mechanical devices.
I feel a little sad more of the young guys today didn't have a seasoned grandad to guide him growing up. I wonder with a slip joint that he knew would fold over on him if he was stupid, would he have been more careful? I think with a slippy, we do tend to be more carefull, think about what we are doing. I think a grandad or even a good dad would have taught him to go get the right tool for the job. A fixed blade, hatchet, or saw.
We love our stockmen, barlows, and soddies, but we know they have a limitation. We know if we push the wrong way, we're gonna get hurt. I know they had lockblades in the old days; John Wilkes Booth had a locking foldiing dagger on him when he was killed at Garrets barn. But I think of all those cowboys with stockmen, sailors with sheepsfoot rigging knives, farmers with sodbusters, and day laborers with simple barlows. They managed to go through life without crippling a hand. They knew how to use a tool. But then, most slip joint patterns come from an era where there was no warning labels, and nothing was idiot proof.
I feel a bit sad for that young man. He believed what he read in some magazine, and so trusted the tool to insullate him from his own mistakes because it was supposed to be thr strongest lock on a folding knife.
I recall my dad telling me, that the more complex you make a mechanism, the more likely it will fail. Then I think about old Bill B. up in Frederick county who has used a yellow sodbuster for the past 30 years to skin everything from muskrat to deer, and still has all his fingers.
Maaybe simple is good. We know not to push it too far.
Please, lets be carefull out there!
