Sheath knife/fixed blade????

J

jackknife

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Oct 2, 2004
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Okay, since this is the traditional forums, and I'm a very traditional old fart, I have a serious question. When I was a kid, and James Dean was a rising star and GM ruled the world, we had a knife we carried on the belt. In the scouts this was always a 4ish inch blade with a stacked leather handle. A smaller pointier version popular with deer hunters and fishermen was a similar knife called a little finn. But the all were collectively called "sheath knives" since they were carried in a sheath.

Some years ago when I first was shown how to get on a computer and found this place, I saw them called fixed blades. Since they were not already broken like a knife that folds in the middle, I did not understand why they were called fixed blades. To this day, I hate that term. To me, any knife that needs a sheath to be carried is a sheath knife. Someitmes it was called a 'hunting' knife' since it was what hunters carried. This was long before Buck came out with the 110 and convinced the whole world that a folding knife is the end all be all answer to a cutlery need.

I know from the post your age thread that there are some members here as old as me, though not many, and one member who is actually older. Soooooo…

When was the first time you ever heard a sheath knife called a 'fixed blade'???
 
You are 100% spot-on there, jackknife. :cool:

I grew up saying "sheath knife." I didn't encounter "fixed blade" until I started reading Internet forums. And the latter still annoys me. ;)

Tom (another very traditional old fart, with an Eagle Scout Award signed by Richard Nixon) @ KnivesShipFree
 
I'm not sure why it bothers you or anyone. People get annoyed when a revolver is called a pistol, but even before the autoloading pistol was even conceived, revolvers were called pistols and Billy the Kid was the Prince of Pistoleers.

Of course, I get annoyed when someone calls a buggy a shopping cart!
 
The first time I remember hearing/reading the term "sheath knife" was on these forums. They were always "folder & fixed" when I grew up. Even in the Boy Scout's (early to mid 90's), it seems like "fixed blade" was the term used.

What about large folders, like the 110? Is it a pocket knife? The last one I had came with a sheath, and I carried it in one, since pocket carry was not practical. Wouldn't that be a folding sheath knife?!?

On the Wiki page, I'm kind of intrigued about the Aussie definition - never heard of something like that! I guess that's for another forum though....
 
They were sheath knives when I grew up. If I ever gave it much thought, I assumed that the ubiquitous 110 had made "sheath knife" too inspecific.
Fixed blade bugs me less than slipjoiont.
 
Well ... this is an interessting topic. I grew up in bavarian dialect (to me an own language far far away from german per se). We used to say "a Messa" (a knife - to any type of knife in general be it in a sheath or not) and "a Daschnmessa" (a pocketknife - a folder - mostly considered as an SAK "a Schweiza" - but in general a folding pocket knife).

So I can say that the first knives we tended to use as an outdoorsey blade "sheath/fixed blade knife" was a fixed blade.

My great-granny had an old kitchen knife in my greatgreatparents wood shag to make the fire starting wood with it - something I remember foggy from my early childhood.

In most any other language it seems to be another term of knives - depending on the purpose...
 
For me its only been about 6 years since I heard the name fixed blade . up to then it was always sheath knife . but what is even more confusing is the term folding sheath knife . o and who is James Dean :confused: :D
 
I am not sure, but I think when I was a little whippersnapper, a not folding knife was referred to by the adults as a "hunting knife" "Buck" (if it had a black handle) or a "belt knife"; unless it was one of those specialized thin and flexible not folding Rapalla fishing knives, that they called a "filet" knife, for some odd reason, since I cannot recall them ever filleting a fish.

Us rugrats called them the same thing, or maybe a "cowboy" or "indian" knife, if it looked like what Lone Ranger and Tonto carried.
 
Well, "traditional folder" was not a term when I grew up, either. It was "jackknife" for any folding pocket knife. Unless, of course, it was a switchblade or gravity knife.

If not a folder, it was either a "sheath knife" or a "hunting knife". I don't recall when I first heard "fixed blade", but I had no difficulty grasping the concept, and probably found it unremarkable. The first usage to jar my sensibilities was "fixie" as applied to knives. "Fixie" to me refers to a fixed gear bicycle of a type preferred by hipsters (but curiously, not to a track bike).
 
I grew up with sheath knife and hunting knife. I'm no spring chicken either. The term fixed blade was probably picked up here. It doesn't really bother me one way or the other."To-may-to, to-mah-to" I guess.
 
I had always heard them called Hunting Knives or Skinners I really don't remember the term Sheath knife until I was probably in my 40's. I do remember the first time I heard the term Fixed Blade a co-worker told me he had a new "fixed blade" to which I responded "How did it get broken"? Needless to say after that I became the target of many jokes for a very long time.
 
jackknife said:
Okay, since this is the traditional forums, and I'm a very traditional old fart, I have a serious question. When I was a kid, and James Dean was a rising star and GM ruled the world, we had a knife we carried on the belt. In the scouts this was always a 4ish inch blade with a stacked leather handle. A smaller pointier version popular with deer hunters and fishermen was a similar knife called a little finn. But the all were collectively called "sheath knives" since they were carried in a sheath.

Some years ago when I first was shown how to get on a computer and found this place, I saw them called fixed blades. Since they were not already broken like a knife that folds in the middle, I did not understand why they were called fixed blades. To this day, I hate that term. To me, any knife that needs a sheath to be carried is a sheath knife. Someitmes it was called a 'hunting' knife' since it was what hunters carried. This was long before Buck came out with the 110 and convinced the whole world that a folding knife is the end all be all answer to a cutlery need.

I know from the post your age thread that there are some members here as old as me, though not many, and one member who is actually older. Soooooo…

When was the first time you ever heard a sheath knife called a 'fixed blade'???
Click to expand...

Wait, there's someone here older than you :D ?

Woodrow F Call said:
I'm not sure why it bothers you or anyone. People get annoyed when a revolver is called a pistol, but even before the autoloading pistol was even conceived, revolvers were called pistols and Billy the Kid was the Prince of Pistoleers.

Of course, I get annoyed when someone calls a buggy a shopping cart!
Click to expand...

It's a shopping cart! A buggy is something you hitch a horse to. ;)

onespdfrk said:
The first time I remember hearing/reading the term "sheath knife" was on these forums. They were always "folder & fixed" when I grew up. Even in the Boy Scout's (early to mid 90's), it seems like "fixed blade" was the term used.

What about large folders, like the 110? Is it a pocket knife? The last one I had came with a sheath, and I carried it in one, since pocket carry was not practical. Wouldn't that be a folding sheath knife?!?

On the Wiki page, I'm kind of intrigued about the Aussie definition - never heard of something like that! I guess that's for another forum though....
Click to expand...

It was always just knife to me. A folder was a pocket knife, and a fixed blade was a knife. My father always lost his small Schrade pen knives and peanuts in the laundry, my mother told my father to check his pockets for his pocket knives. My father only showed me his Schrade hunting knife, a fixed blade, when I really got into knives, and just called it his skinning knife.

There is a reason we call ourselves knife nuts, we put too much thought into this stuff :).
 
I'm dead serious when I say this. As I learn more about my American Indian/Native American/NDN heritage, I realize that most people of American native heritage prefer to be referred to under their tribal name, which to put it bluntly usually translates as "the people" in their language. At least that's what they've told me. So, I am Blackfoot (Pikuni), Cherokee and Crow, not just American Indian. I am not trying to trivialize that, but maybe we should stick to, hey, that's a dogleg jack, that's a Zulu, that's a Kephart. Learn more about the patterns.
 
I have only known them as fixed blades, personally. I am only 20, though.
 
It was sheath knives for me growing up too, though I first heard the term 'fixed blade' more than 20 years ago. Going further back, they were called 'case knives'.

On a related matter, I think I first heard the term 'slipjoint' about 15 years ago. Growing up, there were penknives, pocket-knives, jack-knives, clasp-knives (less commonly), then, later, lock-knives. The old boys called them spring-knives, which I think is a better term. When I mail knives, I generally write 'slipjoint' on the customs label, since nobody outside the knife community knows what the heck a slipjoint is! :D
 
I'm 30 and only ever heard the term fixed blade. It sounds ordinary to me. Sheath knife makes sense, but many people put folders and fixed blades in their pockets. Speaking of which I like the look of small "fixed blades meant to go into pocket slips and into the pocket, but they freak me out. I've heard of people falling out of tree stands and having their knife cut through the leather and cutting their flesh and femoral artery. I wouldn't place a belt sheath in front of me, any way and this story may be urban legend. I've cut right through a leather sheath putting away a sharp knife if a hurry before so who knows. Small fixed blades in the front pocket sound like a great way to get a free incidental vasectomy!

When talking knives to my father-in-law a while back he had no clue what I was talking about when I used the term slipjoint. I'm not sure where slipjoint came from. In my mind it meant traditionals. Lock backs seem traditional and yet I think of slipjoints as non-locking. The GEC 23 and 73's seemed like they were trying to make traditionals appeal to modern knife enthusiasts with the liner lock, but I'm sure the liner lock is probably quite old.

I've said too much.
 
For me (growing up in the 60's/70's), it was hunting knives and pocketknives.
 
Very interesting! I hadn't thought of that but now that you mention it when I was growing up it was always sheath knife also and I'm only 30...
 
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