I went to a knife show yesterday.
It's been a long while since I did go to any knife or gun show, as I'm quite content with where I am and what I am doing, and what I do it with. For the last several months, my edc pocket knife has been the damascus peanut. It's been very good at cutting what I needed cut.
But sometimes it was not enough, and I needed a little something that was heavier duty or a little longer. Or maybe something I could lean on a little bit more. I thought of my dad and his fellows of that generation, and they all had the same little two blade jacks in the 2 3/4 to 3 1/4 range. If they needed something else, they had a small sheath knife around. Sometimes stashed in a car glove box, sometimes in a truck emergency kit. Usually a little finn pattern in the 1950's. Not much bigger than a pocket knife, but you could subject it to heavier use than a pocket knife with a hinge in the middle. And if it got grungy with blood and guts, it was easy to rinse off in a creek.
A few years back, when my hand was being operated on, I did the pocket fixed blade trip and liked it. It was handy to just pull a knife out, cut, and put it back. I guess a lot can be said for the Scandinavian outlook of just carrying a puuko. If your in the city, carry a smaller puuko. Certainly easier to keep clean, safer with nothing to fold, and for old farts with arthritis, no problems pulling a blade out against a spring.
So, for the past few years, I've been increasingly attracted to the idea of the pocket fixed blade. Roaming around the knife show yesterday, I noticed that many more knife makers are offering very small little sheath knives with kydex sheaths, for the neck knife/pocket fixbladed role. Unfortunately, most of them seemed to be the tactical stuff, with bead blasted micarta handles and stainless steel blades, looking like a hide out weapon from a sci-fi movie. But I found a few that had real wood or stag handles. If I'm going to carry a knife, I want a nice looking knife. Life is too short for black plastic or bead blasted micarta. I want it feel hand friendly.
So I ended up picking up a Norse puuko with a nice rosewood handle, blade about a peanut size but thicker, very sharp scandi grind, and some silver pins set in the handle in a nice pattern. It disappears in a shirt pocket of my flannel shirt, with a lanyard from the sheath to the button hole. I've still got the Mike Miller pocket fixed blade, with the giraffe bone handles with mosaic pin work.
I'll still be carrying my peanut, I'm too much a fanatic to stop. It's my public use knife, and to be frank, male pocket jewelery. I've never had another knife get noticed by the manager of a Tiffany's, or called exquisite by a lady librarian. But I have a feeling that from now on, my peanut is going to be backed up by a pretty little pocket fixed blade in case a little heavier cutting is needed.
Or I get too damm old to pull open a slip joint anymore. :grumpy:
Carl.
It's been a long while since I did go to any knife or gun show, as I'm quite content with where I am and what I am doing, and what I do it with. For the last several months, my edc pocket knife has been the damascus peanut. It's been very good at cutting what I needed cut.
But sometimes it was not enough, and I needed a little something that was heavier duty or a little longer. Or maybe something I could lean on a little bit more. I thought of my dad and his fellows of that generation, and they all had the same little two blade jacks in the 2 3/4 to 3 1/4 range. If they needed something else, they had a small sheath knife around. Sometimes stashed in a car glove box, sometimes in a truck emergency kit. Usually a little finn pattern in the 1950's. Not much bigger than a pocket knife, but you could subject it to heavier use than a pocket knife with a hinge in the middle. And if it got grungy with blood and guts, it was easy to rinse off in a creek.
A few years back, when my hand was being operated on, I did the pocket fixed blade trip and liked it. It was handy to just pull a knife out, cut, and put it back. I guess a lot can be said for the Scandinavian outlook of just carrying a puuko. If your in the city, carry a smaller puuko. Certainly easier to keep clean, safer with nothing to fold, and for old farts with arthritis, no problems pulling a blade out against a spring.
So, for the past few years, I've been increasingly attracted to the idea of the pocket fixed blade. Roaming around the knife show yesterday, I noticed that many more knife makers are offering very small little sheath knives with kydex sheaths, for the neck knife/pocket fixbladed role. Unfortunately, most of them seemed to be the tactical stuff, with bead blasted micarta handles and stainless steel blades, looking like a hide out weapon from a sci-fi movie. But I found a few that had real wood or stag handles. If I'm going to carry a knife, I want a nice looking knife. Life is too short for black plastic or bead blasted micarta. I want it feel hand friendly.
So I ended up picking up a Norse puuko with a nice rosewood handle, blade about a peanut size but thicker, very sharp scandi grind, and some silver pins set in the handle in a nice pattern. It disappears in a shirt pocket of my flannel shirt, with a lanyard from the sheath to the button hole. I've still got the Mike Miller pocket fixed blade, with the giraffe bone handles with mosaic pin work.
I'll still be carrying my peanut, I'm too much a fanatic to stop. It's my public use knife, and to be frank, male pocket jewelery. I've never had another knife get noticed by the manager of a Tiffany's, or called exquisite by a lady librarian. But I have a feeling that from now on, my peanut is going to be backed up by a pretty little pocket fixed blade in case a little heavier cutting is needed.
Or I get too damm old to pull open a slip joint anymore. :grumpy:
Carl.
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