Snark it like you stole it!

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Doc_Savage said:
Heck if you were fishing up there in that fetid water in New England I don't blame you. If it had been me, I'd have carried bayonet too, or better still, a big machete. What with all them venomous brown blind mullet, Jersey whistles, bio hazard waste, toxic chemical spills, body parts, and what not in that putrid swill you call "surf"... Hell, I might even have wanted a haz-mat suit and a machine gun....

ewwww... yech.. bet you got an extra arm growing outta your ass, too.


Doc



KRANS
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Hey now. Eat a stuffie. Maybe some johnnycakes with maple syrup. Sip some cider. You'll feel bettah.
 
DerekH said:
I think that he makes several valid points. Thickness, he is probably right, Scouts, at least most of the ones I've interacted with, have no need of something bigger than 4" or thicker than 1/8"...
but if I look at the tasks we ask of our scouts, we do give them the tools to do the job, namely a saw, an axe, and they should all have a pocket knife of some sort on them. With those tools already with them, a knife like he describes would work for anything those other tools wouldn't. ...
Whittling or cutting cordage, again, that thickness would do better more often than naught. Now he has a few thoughts there that I disagree with, but overall, even though it isn't what I would tell parents at one of our meetings, or what I would hope they were told if I wasn't there, it is a far sight better than the alternative.
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Some disconnected thoughts from when I read the article...

My boys are pretty heavily into scouts, and while fixed blades aren't banned by BSA, there is a de facto ban. Many scoutmasters discourage or ban them outright, and every camp put on by the BSA that I've been to explicitly states no fixed blades. I sat in on the safety lecture for the Woodcarving Merit Badge at a council camp this summer and nearly blew an artery from the misinformation pontificated there.

I don't have an issue w/ Cliff's recommendations in general. Boy scouts are taught to use a folder, axe, and saw. Those are pretty good tools for camping and hiking.

In specific, though:
I hate that the goto recommendation for a folder is swiss army or the bsa equivalent. I find that slipjoints are very difficult for kids to open, because their fingernails aren't strong enough. I've always pushed opinel because they have no spring and they lock.

It's true that many fixed blade sheaths suck, particularly for low-priced knives. However, most axes don't even come with sheaths, and most that do have crappy sheaths too. Why is it OK to discourage one for a poor guard but not the other?

Most axes available to scouts look like a hammer at both ends. Therefore, they teach the scouts that excessive force is necessary. The scouts learn all the wrong things because the tools are terribly constructed.

I only have a few axes and hatchets, and they all arrived with a crappy edge. I thinned them out and ground a new edge, though I don't really know what a correct edge is supposed to look like on an axe. Still, they do a pretty good job of splitting wood and don't go dull immediately. When I allow others to try them out, they're stunned at the difference in efficacy between my axes and theirs. It's like a lightbulb goes on and they realize, "That's what an axe is supposed to be like."
 
Ray Settanta said:
Hey now. Eat a stuffie. Maybe some johnnycakes with maple syrup. Sip some cider. You'll feel bettah.
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A stuffie... I had to look that up. My best buddy is from Mass, and every july on his birthday he used get lobster and some steamers and have a New England style dinner. I went one year and th esteamers were bad. I had eaten a bunch (beer was involved) and didn't taste them all that well. Well, I have never gotten so sick in my life as I did the next day. I was down for 2 days. thought I was gonna have to go to the ER...

He blamed bad handling. I blamed the water up there. They were flown down here, we don't have that kind of clam here. They were always good before, but that day... no.

And I always bust on him for being from there... He gives it back... doesn't matter.. he's still from there..

heh heh

KRANS

Doc
 
Doc_Savage said:
A stuffie... I had to look that up. My best buddy is from Mass, and every july on his birthday he used get lobster and some steamers and have a New England style dinner. I went one year and th esteamers were bad. I had eaten a bunch (beer was involved) and didn't taste them all that well. Well, I have never gotten so sick in my life as I did the next day. I was down for 2 days. thought I was gonna have to go to the ER...

He blamed bad handling. I blamed the water up there. They were flown down here, we don't have that kind of clam here. They were always good before, but that day... no.

And I always bust on him for being from there... He gives it back... doesn't matter.. he's still from there..

heh heh

KRANS

Doc
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Let me get this straight. You guys ordered steamers from NE to be sent to FL in JULY? I have done some crazy and/or foolish things in my life but nothing like that!:D
 
pretty

manix_nebula_3.jpg
 
Got home and unpacked. Had a blast. Noticed a Radio Shack on the way there, and stopped and got some PCB Etchant on the way home.
 
Ray Settanta said:
Let me get this straight. You guys ordered steamers from NE to be sent to FL in JULY? I have done some crazy and/or foolish things in my life but nothing like that!:D
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Not youse guys. Him. I thought it was bizarre, too. But he gave me that New England assurance it would be okay... I don't see how the North won the damn war.

Doc
 
tradewater said:
Yeah, I think so and I think Terrio nailed it. If you look at tropical people around the globe, they all have some kind of indigenous big ass parang or machete or whatever. Nowka and Doc were talking about this on a recent podcast. Jim's opinion was chopping knives and batoning are relatively recent developments. When I was a kid you just didn't hit your knife with stuff and nobody had a knife longer than four or five inches. I frankly think flailing the shit out of a small tree with a big chopper is a blast. I love big thick tough knives. May not be practical in a lot of cases but damn, neither is a flamethrower. You know?
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I'm a little behind on the podcasts, I'll have to get caught up soon. The more experience I get using my knives, the more I tend to gravitate to a knife of that size for just about everything I regularly use a knife for, if not smaller. Of course, I like a giant knife as much as the next guy, but I rarely get a chance to really use one unfortunately. Might need to work on getting ahold of a flamethrower now though. You sir are a trend setter. ;)

mac_heath said:
Some disconnected thoughts from when I read the article...

My boys are pretty heavily into scouts, and while fixed blades aren't banned by BSA, there is a de facto ban. Many scoutmasters discourage or ban them outright, and every camp put on by the BSA that I've been to explicitly states no fixed blades. I sat in on the safety lecture for the Woodcarving Merit Badge at a council camp this summer and nearly blew an artery from the misinformation pontificated there.

I don't have an issue w/ Cliff's recommendations in general. Boy scouts are taught to use a folder, axe, and saw. Those are pretty good tools for camping and hiking.

In specific, though:
I hate that the goto recommendation for a folder is swiss army or the bsa equivalent. I find that slipjoints are very difficult for kids to open, because their fingernails aren't strong enough. I've always pushed opinel because they have no spring and they lock.

It's true that many fixed blade sheaths suck, particularly for low-priced knives. However, most axes don't even come with sheaths, and most that do have crappy sheaths too. Why is it OK to discourage one for a poor guard but not the other?

Most axes available to scouts look like a hammer at both ends. Therefore, they teach the scouts that excessive force is necessary. The scouts learn all the wrong things because the tools are terribly constructed.

I only have a few axes and hatchets, and they all arrived with a crappy edge. I thinned them out and ground a new edge, though I don't really know what a correct edge is supposed to look like on an axe. Still, they do a pretty good job of splitting wood and don't go dull immediately. When I allow others to try them out, they're stunned at the difference in efficacy between my axes and theirs. It's like a lightbulb goes on and they realize, "That's what an axe is supposed to be like."
Click to expand...

I've seen what you're talking about with the Swiss Army knives. The first one I got the boy he still rarely uses because it is so hard to open. I agree with what you are saying about the misinformation present in Scouting these days though. Used to be a completely different world in which the boys got to take part. Hopefully though with the prevalence of all the outdoors shows as well as the massive increase in "bushcrafters" there will be a reduction of the stigma that surrounds fixed blade knives in Scouts.

The axe the troop uses has definitely seen better days, but we do try to keep most of that stuff maintained properly. It has been awhile though so I might need to check on that here soon to make sure it is all tip top.
 
And the infamous double tap strikes again! I think this is a first. Might have to smoke a cigar to celebrate this.
 
ac700wildcat said:
Got some new tire put on my Tundra today. I ended up going with a p rated Cooper Discoverer AT3.......hoping I don't end up regretting not going with lt tires. I don't ever pull anything too heavy, so I'm hoping the will be OK.

Winter seems to be setting in here.......its not looking like we will get above freezing today.
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At work we partol in 1/2 ton pickups with P tires on them. Obviously they don't haul anything but we have to check a lot of dirt and gravel roads and paved roads that are in bad shape with lots of potholes. Flat tires are fairly common. Then again, you have a bunch of people driving trucks that aren't theirs for 12 hours...
 
bigghoss said:
At work we partol in 1/2 ton pickups with P tires on them. Obviously they don't haul anything but we have to check a lot of dirt and gravel roads and paved roads that are in bad shape with lots of potholes. Flat tires are fairly common. Then again, you have a bunch of people driving trucks that aren't theirs for 12 hours...
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I'm definitely not hard on it. It will see a lot of dirt roads and some plowed fields, but nothing too harsh.
 
gmoneyluv and Silverthorn... I liked the NB Minimus trail shoes so much that I picked up a pair of zero-drop Merrell Road Gloves. Just ran a mile in them, and they felt great.

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And no, I don't shave above my ankles (although that would be kind of kinky hip).
After years of wearing work boots and rubbing that leg hair off, it just stopped growing in that spot. On the plus side, I'm more aerodynamic there.
 
LMAO i got bald spots on both legs and arms from knives, Before i read the bottom i was going to say what ever you used got CLOSE. :D
 
So I was digging thru some old stuff and found over 5 grams of luminol powder. There has to be something cool i could do with this stuff... Any suggestions?
 
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