Tell Us About Your Knife Loaning Experiences

I absolutely do not lend any of my knives out.
I always tell the requester to bring me the item that needs cutting and I'll take care of it.
If somebody has to ask to borrow a knife, they definitely aren't a knife person, which
means they don't know how to use one properly.
Lenny
 
Co-worker: Hey do you have a knife I can use?
Me: (niave): Sure, don't cut yourself. (hands over brand new Benchmade Griptilian)
Co-worker: Does this butterfly mean it's a girl's knife? Never heard of Benchmade.
Co-worker then proceeds to cut metal wire, and then drops knife on it's tip.
Co-Worker: Whoops, well at least it isn't a name brand knife right? Not like it's a Gerber or anything like that.

I learned that lesson the hard way. I do not loan out knives any more. Bring it to me, and I will cut it. Otherwise, go get yer own.
 
I don't lend out knives to ANYONE because of what I'm reading in this thread right now. I'd rather have the person bring me the thing they want me to cut.
 
This reminds me of a dream(nightmare) I had where I had just found a brand-new micarta large sebenza. A friend asked to borrow it and proceeded to look at me with an evil smile and throw it onto the concrete. Still makes me cringe when people pick up my knives. :eek:
 
It took me quite a few times before I stopped loaning knives altogether.

The first time, I left a knife at a friend's house by accident. He proceeded to use it, and then tried to make it up to me by sharpening it...
...On an angle grinder. Luckily, it was just some cheap fixed blade that I purchased basically entirely for looks. We were both 15. It was forgivable.

The next time, I lent my Counter Point II to a friend at work, and she proceeded to try to cut metal straps with it. Had to sharpen some dents out.
Same coworker, a month later, I lend her the same knife. She leaves it in the open and locked position, unattended, on a shelf in a retail store, for over fifteen minutes.
Now she complains that I never lend her my knives. This exchange happened verbatim:
Her: "You don't think I'm responsible with them! You think I'll lose them! You don't trust me with anything!"
Me: "Exactly. You've never given me reason to."
This is why you don't work with exes. This is the same person that had FIVE cell phones in a year because she kept breaking/dropping them, and has a daily panic attack trying to find her keys. Sigh.

Anticlimactically, the next one is pretty minor - I took a coworker's knife home to sharpen it, and I lent him my Enlan El-02B just so he had something to use while I was sharpening the knife (our work schedules don't match up too well, so it was going to be a couple days before I saw him again to give his back)
I bring him back his knife, having given it a spa treatment. Took it apart, cleaned it, lubricated it, sharpened out some chips, and gave it a polished, razor-sharp edge. He hands me the EL-02B, and it's covered in dirt and gunk, has chips all over the blade, and now the lock sticks.

I don't loan knives anymore. To anyone. For any reason.
 
In my work bag, I keep an inexpensive knife (KaBar Dozier, which I picked up for $11) for a loaner/beater knife. Basically, it's something that I won't lose sleep over if it's abused, broken, or lost. I also only loan out to people I know (co-workers, or others I work with regularly).
 
flarp said:
In my work bag, I keep an inexpensive knife (KaBar Dozier, which I picked up for $11) for a loaner/beater knife. Basically, it's something that I won't lose sleep over if it's abused, broken, or lost. I also only loan out to people I know (co-workers, or others I work with regularly).
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This, I understand. It's like buying coffee for the guys, just a courtesy among friends. You can buy a batch of SAKs at auction or sometimes in the Exchange here, and you've got knives to hand out. With reasonably responsible people, it is a way of bringing them onboard.
 
I love it when someone asks to use my Paradigm.Not a single soul yet has figured out how to open it,up too and including people with Doctorate degrees.:)
 
skyhorse said:
I love it when someone asks to use my Paradigm.Not a single soul yet has figured out how to open it,up too and including people with Doctorate degrees.:)
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Nice! My favorite 'can't figure it out' story was with my father. I left my Spec Bump over at his place by accident and, while he's not really a knife nut, he appreciates a good blade so he wanted to examine it before he returned it to me. He knows about A/Os, so that didn't surprise him, but he couldn't figure out how to close the stud lock. He later confessed that he played with it for about an hour because he couldn't bear to call me and ask how it worked.
 
I used to let people use my knife, I never was comfortable doing it though. The final straw was when I let a friend use my knife and he handed it back to me after trying to cut through a steel reinforced rubber tube. The edge was GONE, so were the serrations. I was so mad at my self, not him, I knew he was stupid.
 
People who know me well enough to ask to borrow one of my knives, know that I take good care of them. So they tend to be sensible about how they use them. I still only loan folks what I consider to be beaters and I ask what they need to cut.

I usually give out SAKs to friends anacquaintanceses, even a small Classic or Executive is much better than trying to saw through something with a car key.
 
I have learned to never lend my knives anymore because when i got my first quality knife(spyderco delica) i let my friend see it because he asked and then he proceeded to stab it into the dirt... Now if this happened to my ZT 0301, I'd probably kill them so now if someone asks to use a knife ill just say let me do it for you....
 
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