The advantages of a "fewbladed" slipjoint.

N

NirreBosse

Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
1,131
I can tell you I have done a long journey for a Swede between a sheatknife and a smaller slipjoint with a few blades. My interest and facination in folding knifes has been big since my teenages but the journey to trust them has been hard. Its like the folding knife has been a good complement and with a small feeling of being a toy attached to it, the sheatknife being the real knife to back it up. This is the first summer I have been in nature feeling a folder being enough and al I need. Funny enough, is also that this feeling has happened together with small slipjoints. During the time inbetween I have used bouth bigger and sturdier folding knifes bouth with backlocks and linerlocks but still had the need of at least a mora not to feel underequipped.

This summer I have been deep into wilderness with just a Case medium stockman or case small trapper and they had performed the nessisarry. (YAh, I know that a lot of people go into wilderness without knifes, and vith plastic knifes etc and comes out alive but.....) Anyway, making a fire during picking berries or cleening some fish is easy done with a pocketknife. And its carryed in the pocket with such ease.

The european way i say is that a one bladed folder is the norm but I have discowered I want a few blades, Therefore the title, a fewbladed knife. I want the knife to be small enough for the pocket. 3.5 is perfect for me and also what I concider as small as possible to bee to use for me. I want one blade to be pinchable and one to be pointy. Bouth my favorites has these criterias. I like the stockman best but consider the small trapper to be the best pattern for my needs.
Now we are into the moosehunt season and the sheatknifes is back on my belt but there has been a shift of paradigm. Before I carryed a sheatknife for the hunt and a folder for amusement, Now i carry a slipjoint for the woods and a sheatknife for the moose.

Bosse
 
Hi,

It's amazing isn't it what those little slip-joints can do. And it is a testament to your skills in the woods to realize the difference between what you think you need and what you really need to do the work. You seem to have about the same size preference I have. I like the medium stockman and mini-trappers too. And the blade choices are about perfect for general use.

I've never had much use for a fixed blade knife in the field. I've always thought they were cumbersome to carry and awkward to use, I much prefer folders. But I'm no moose hunter either! The biggest game animals I hunt are whitetails and black bear. But mostly I hunt hunt birds like grouse, pheasant, ducks and geese. None of which take very much of a knife.

You are going to have a slip-joint along with for the hunt aren't you?

Dale
 
Good post Bosse.:thumbup:

Dale sums it up better than I could, it's all about what you really do need vs what you think you need. I know that as I got older, I realized my needs vs wants were two entirely different things. A good pocket knife and knowing how to use it makes all the difference in the world. Once we outgrow our youthful fantasies about what we think we need, we end up carrying what we will really use.

Someplace a long time ago, I remember reading an article by the late great Col. Townsend Whelen, about a moose hgunt he was on. The guide didn't seem to be carrying a sheath knife, but when Whelen dropped a nice moose, the guide produced a well worn Remington stockman. He then field dressed the moose, and cut it down to packable size prtions with his stockman. The Col. was very impressed by the skill the guide displayed in his field butchering and dealing with a moose using a 3 inch blade. It was the man, not the tool. As I remember the story as Whelen told it, the guide used all three blades in taking down that moose to packable pieces. Back a the lodge, the guide cleaned the knife at the kitchen sink, a touch up on a sharpening stone, and a bit of gun oil in the joints and dropped it back in his pocket.

With a nice two or three bladed pocket knife and a rifle or shotgun you know well, you should be able to keep yourself fedd well in the outdoors.

Carl.
 
Just to add my two cents. It is about what we really do--and there is not much that we really do that we really can't do with a small slip-joint. I've spent a lot of time with my grandfather, on the ranch and in the hills; his well worn stockman tackles castrating in the spring and elk hunting in the fall (and every Sunday meeting task too).
 
Bosse, your post is great, I would like to sit at a table with you and Carl and just listen ( but participate in the drinking of course )...fantastic.
To be honest my friend, I wish I got out in the great outdoors to realy justify the real use of a three bladed knife, being a town dweller, my knives dont head that call that often, which is probably why I tend to favour ( at this point of my life ) the single, or double blade knife.
Feels a bit foolish "fessing" this up in a knife forum :o
 
jackknife said:
it's all about what you really do need vs what you think you need. I know that as I got older, I realized my needs vs wants were two entirely different things. A good pocket knife and knowing how to use it makes all the difference in the world. Once we outgrow our youthful fantasies about what we think we need, we end up carrying what we will really use.

Townsend Whelen

With a nice two or three bladed pocket knife and a rifle or shotgun you know well, you should be able to keep yourself fedd well in the outdoors.

Carl.
Click to expand...

The first part sums up what I meant about doing a long knifejourney from fixedblades to fewblades slipjoints. There has been no good examples in my outdoor life of good men needing no more than a folding knife in the outdoors. the good men I knew didnt need much, just a small mora but a sheathknife never the less. This place on internet, a small corner of traditional entusiasts, has those good men giving me a push on the way by telling me stories and even helping me with good knifes.
So me realising that a small slipjoint is enough for me in the forests has been a journey I made myself buildt just upon my own discowerys about what is enough to work for me. As a teenager mabye I needed a little bigger knife to make a campfire as the years has improoved my skills and that can probably be said about more situations. Very seldom nowadays i trust my body strength in the wilderness, I,m much more focused on good teknic and taking a while to think how to do before throwing myself into action. Of course walking a mountainslope or rowing a boat in hard wind needs strength but teknic is just as important. Folowing the terrain or using the wind direction can make the job easyer. This also goes for knifes. Its more important to know where to cut than having a perfect knife to do it with.

Carl, In my neighbourhoods you have to take a fishing rod to to be sure that the food gets warried and easy come. Its also easyer and quicker to cook a fish to good bastant food in the nature.

Nice story about the guide and the amasement about what he needed. Its a kind of different manlyness to cope with as little as possible. As I grow older the big and new things looses intrest for me and the skills and what can be done with simple tools increases in interest. Im deeply impressed what people of older times could do with a knife and an axe, bowsaw and a rope. They built houses standing for hundreds of years, being home for generations. fighting bears with one shot rifles and spears to protect the cows and earning some money for the pelth. True survivors.

DEPBID. Great sum up of your grandfather as a knifesersonality. Strong in its shortness.

Dale. I sertainly bring a slipjoint to the mooseforest. I use it for campfire, eating, stearing sugar into my coffee etc and using my sheatknife wether its handmade by myself or a mora 2000 taking care of the mooses. They has the mora size all of them or slightly shorter and is all I ever up until now needed in my knifeusing life. If I have a mora sized fixed blade at hand no situation ever in my life required more. And I start to realise that this also goes for a medium sized slipjoint. Not much Ive seen, or done required more than 6 cm of sharp steel. But its easyer done with a sheatknife so for moosehunt, big fishcleaning work or campingtrips into the mountains or woods, the medium sized, traditional nordic style sheatknife will stay in my use.

Duncan, i dont want to talk to you and Carl by a table, I want it to be around a campfire, after a good day in the wilderness. The drinking could still be done, bouth coffee and something stronger against the chilly evening.

Bosse
 
Last edited:
In case there's still room around that campfire, I'm more than willing to join you guys, and show you the wonders of a 5 kg suckling pig cooked underground with a campfire burning ontop of it, just like my ancestors have done for centuries.

Bosse, I think I have a neat idea of what you meant when you said you have come a long way from a sheath knife to a multibladed folder. I come from a world of single blade folders, and it still seems quite a long run for me to switch to multiblades. Still, just like you did, I am giving it a try, and then we'll see. Either way, it will be worth discovering the differences.
And sharing them with a few traditionalists on this forum of course. :)
Fausto
:cool:
 
NirreBosse said:
Dale. I sertainly bring a slipjoint to the mooseforest. I use it for campfire, eating, stearing sugar into my coffee etc and using my sheatknife wether its handmade by myself or a mora 2000 taking care of the mooses. They has the mora size all of them or slightly shorter and is all I ever up until now needed in my knifeusing life. If I have a mora sized fixed blade at hand no situation ever in my life required more. And I start to realise that this also goes for a medium sized slipjoint. Not much Ive seen, or done required more than 6 cm of sharp steel. But its easyer done with a sheatknife so for moosehunt, big fishcleaning work or campingtrips into the mountains or woods, the medium sized, traditional nordic style sheatknife will stay in my use.

Bosse
Click to expand...

That is what I find so fascinating about the different knife cultures around the world. Here, we admire the knives our grandfathers carried, all the small two blade jacks and three blade stockmen, that was traditional here. But in Bosse's grandfathers time, and even today, the benchmark for the traditional knife in Sweden was and still is, the red wood handled mora knife. Bosse, I don't doubt at the moose hunt, there will be mora's on everyone's hip, unless it's replaced by a nicer knife like a Karesuando puuko or something else upscale. To us, a traditional knife is the folding multiblade pocket knife, to the practical Swedes, it's the sheath knife that grandpa carried. Sweden, like a lot of the Scandinavian countries, never really developed a large folding knife culture. To a Swede or Finn, the 3 or 4 inch blade puuko style of knife is the end all off cutting tools until an axe is needed. While Spain has the Navaja, France has the Opinel, Sweden has the mora.

Bosse, do you ever get ribbed about your carry of the little slip joint folders you carry? Kind of like getting too Americanized in you knife choice?:D

Carl.
 
jackknife said:
Sweden, like a lot of the Scandinavian countries, never really developed a large folding knife culture. To a Swede or Finn, the 3 or 4 inch blade puuko style of knife is the end all off cutting tools until an axe is needed.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Carl, This is a deep understanding of our heritage and still the opinion of people living lifes that actually require knifes being used. I have friends and relativs of different ages that still hunt, fish or do construktion work so much that a knife is a natural part of the hand and i have friends living lifes far from knifeusing developed thoughts about knifes being weapons or an unnessisarry tool to carry.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bosse, do you ever get ribbed about your carry of the little slip joint folders you carry? Kind of like getting too Americanized in you knife choice?:D

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Yes I do. Not because Im to americanized because most people here does not understand that my slipjoints is of american patterns. But its a thing friends of mine would joke about. I think they see I can use them just as good and for the same things as a mora but they see it as using less of a tool than nessisarry and that brings funny comentarys. I can apritiate them also because the comentary can be realy funny after all. I consider this to be a thing that mabye makes me conservative in my choice of a sheatknife for moose, On the other hand I truly feel that if I go out to hunt a moose, traveling a distanse, bringing a rifle, binoculars, comunication radio, map etc I may as well bring a good sheatknife. After all its a big work to take care of a dead moose. Its mostly the big handle, the ease of cleaning from blood and meat and the upsvept point that actually makes my sheatknifes a better extension of my hand when it comes to big game hunting.

One thing I can say further is that a shift here is seen. The mora 2000 has been on 4 of 5 hunters hip the last 15 years. Now a new trend is to carry a EKA swingblade. Almost every second hunter now has one. Its also kind of a trend by serious hunters here to carry bouth a swingblade and a 2000 together on the belt. This is kind of new since it has been kind of a overdoing here to carry more than one knife visible.

Carl.
Click to expand...

Its very nice to talk to you men and we make room around the campfire for those who want to sit and bring a 5 litre coffee pot.

I see that its not obvious I wrote under the qoutes I ansvered from carl and that it looks like I didnt answer! I try to use some lines to separate questions and answers.

Bosse
 
NirreBosse said:
Its wery nice to talk to you men and we make room around the campfire for those who want to sit and bring a 5 litre coffee pot.

Bosse
Click to expand...

And maybe some bourbon or akvavit to go alongside the coffee. ;)
 
Oh, I don't know about a campfire. Maybe a nice wicker rocker on a sagging but shady front porch of an old country store. A gathering of a liers circle where we can drop pearls of wisdom to the younguns sitting on empty crates, listening with avid interest to our talk of things they don't hear at the dinner table. Some beers on ice in an old bucket. :D

The next generation has to get the real scoop someplace, after all.

Carl.
 
I don't know if this gathering will ever take place.
I don't know if it will happen on this or the other side of the Ocean.
I don't know if it will be around a campfire, or under some porch.
I don't know if we'll be drinking beer or coffee, bourbon or filuferru.
But I know one thing.
If that meeting should ever happen, I will do anything to be a part of it.
And I'll bring my traditions along with me. Don't wanna get there empty handed.
Thank u guys.
Fausto
:cool:
 
Very nice sentiments, Fausto. Your contributions to the forum certainly make you most welcome.

Maybe we should just convene in Sardinia. :cool:

Seems like a good meeting point for those of us in North & South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia & New Zealand.

(Plus my wife and I could sneak off to visit our relatives in Sicily again after we're done. ;))
 
Sardinia is a beautiful land that would be very happy to welcome you all. After all, I have seen knives made here by my ancestors like 5'000 years ago as I see knives made here today. So you won't feel in the wrong place at all. And as for nature, shelter, food, alcohol, and traditions, we sure have our cards to play.
Just don't expect to get back home weighing less than when you left...no way that can happen. :D
Fausto
:cool:
 
Sometimes, being on this forum almost feels like being around that campfire or on that porch...
 
NirreBosse said:
Dale. I sertainly bring a slipjoint to the mooseforest. I use it for campfire, eating, stearing sugar into my coffee etc and using my sheatknife wether its handmade by myself or a mora 2000 taking care of the mooses. They has the mora size all of them or slightly shorter and is all I ever up until now needed in my knifeusing life. If I have a mora sized fixed blade at hand no situation ever in my life required more. And I start to realise that this also goes for a medium sized slipjoint. Not much Ive seen, or done required more than 6 cm of sharp steel. But its easyer done with a sheatknife so for moosehunt, big fishcleaning work or campingtrips into the mountains or woods, the medium sized, traditional nordic style sheatknife will stay in my use.

Bosse
Click to expand...

Hi,

Some how I knew you would bring it with. Kinda like putting your pants on, you just do. It's soon getting time to hunt here too. Me and the dogs see and hear the flights of geese and feel the coolness in the air. There is anticipation by all of us for the up coming months. It's an ago old cycle. There will be a Gunboat on my hip and a Stockman in my pocket too.

Quattromori, every time I pop in here I see Carl sitting on his porch either enjoying a sweet tea or sipping a bourbon while whittlin'. A fishing pole leaning against wall. I see Elliot sitting in an over-stuffed leather chair with a good scotch and cigar, discussing the subtle differences in different eras of Sheffield's Best knives. I can smell the smoke of Bosse's camp fire and see the dark northern forest in the background. The cold quiet makes me never want to leave. It is a lifestyle I have been fortunate to have tasted myself. And I don't forget you. Standing there in a bright sunny garden with a big smile. The sound of the ocean and it's cool breeze is so inviting. And yes, the smells of cooking coming from an open window are unbelievable.

I may never get to actually meet anyone here face to face, but I do get to spend some time with each and everyone of you at your home, and doing the things you enjoy doing!

Dale
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top