The disposable knife.

[Hammer67]

I carry, and use, at least one knife on me daily. Often a folder and a fixed blade. With a few exceptions, my knives aren't shelf queens.

Yet I don't like buying anything that is 'cheap and disposable,' no matter what it is. I like buying things of quality, that are made to last, whenever possible. I have found that 'cheap and disposable' is rarely less expensive in the long-run. A $20 knife that last two years is no less expensive than a $100 knife that lasts 10 years or more. I fully expect that the majority of knives I own will last the rest of my life, and then hopefully be handed down to someone else. And I plan on that still being a long time from now.

 

[mnblade]

Today, we don't seem to have as many disposable knives as there used to be. ...

I wonder if we are living in an age of affluence and the day of the disposable pocket knife is past?

I think there are tons of disposable knives. They're made in China and for sale in most every hardware store, sporting goods store, truck stop and gun shop I've been in over the last 20 years or so. They lock and are often partially serrated, usually have a pocket clip and black coating on the blade.

-- Mark

 

[MrFixIt]

It's been around 15 years ago since I sold knives, old tools, swords and whatever else I thought was interesting at a flea market.
I had "good" knives (Case, Schrade, Kershaw) and I had some of the cheap "flea market" items as well.
If there was ever a "disposable" knife, it had to be the ultra cheap small locking folders that had a partially serrated edge. Bought them for 50 cents apiece and sold tons of them for $2 a pop. I was quite puzzled by this until I asked a repeat customer about them. He said that if it got dull and or broken, he would throw it away and come visit me for a replacement.
A trucker bought them by the 1/2 dozen every time he came by, usually once a month. He told me he used them to cut the thin metal straps off pallets of bundled goods. Same story, dull/broken - toss it and grab another.

 

[kc custom]

Christian , That knife may be a 10 dollar beater but it screams TLC and I'm sure it will be ready when you reach for it again.

Yablanowitz
Yes scraping paint off with one of my $400 slipjoints brought a smile to my face. When carried 24/7 its amazing how quickly the years
pile up and how well the knives serve. Thanks for the compliment.
Ken.

 

[rune1279]

I have an embarrassing fondness for cheap knives. You see, I grew up right on the cusp of modernity. When I was a kid, all the grownup men had a pocketknife, and carried them everywhere. And then all of a sudden there were metal detectors everywhere, for some reason, and I lost a number of harmless little pocketknives to mall-cop types with delusions of grandeur. It grated. A lot.

So there is a portion of my collection dedicated to the little zytel-handled lockback. Case, Buck, and even Gerber all make one or two (in the USA, even!) and any of them can be had for less than a $20. When I don't know quite where I'm going today, an 'at risk' knife goes in the pocket -- good enough to use, cheap enough to lose. (FWIW, I admit this practice has never "paid off".)

The thing I find confusing is the existence of a whole other level of cheap -- the no-name gas station linerlock with partial serrations and mystery steel. I wouldn't be too terribly surprised to hear that the average knife nowadays literally never gets sharpened, though, so maybe I can get my head around how the mystery steel junk gets away with it. It annoys me though, since you can do a lot better for not a lot more.

So I wouldn't say the disposable knife has gone away (almost the opposite, since it's not easy to find non disposable-junk knives in the retail marketplace.) It's just that the disposable knife of today is largely invisible to us because they are more towards the modern side of the design spectrum. And that makes perfect sense -- cheap is all about volume, and the volume is all in moderns.

--Mark

 

[db]

My brother inlaw is one of those who doesn’t care or know the difference between a well made knife and a poc. To be fair though he uses his knife very hard and sharpens it on a grinding wheel with sparks flying. Two years would be a very long life for a knife with him. Truth is a very well made knife wouldn’t last any longer either. Just like any other sharpened edge wouldn’t last any longer than his grinder edge. At times I’m even a little envious of his care free knife abuse/use.

 

[Rich S]

Still want to get a canoe pattern. Always thought they were cool with a great name. But they are generally a lot smaller than I prefer now for a pocket folder.

Take a look at the Rough Rider Lockback canoe whittler "cannitler"- way cool knife, small, reasonably well made and inexpensive.

Rich

 

[jackknife]

My brother inlaw is one of those who doesn’t care or know the difference between a well made knife and a poc. To be fair though he uses his knife very hard and sharpens it on a grinding wheel with sparks flying. Two years would be a very long life for a knife with him. Truth is a very well made knife wouldn’t last any longer either. Just like any other sharpened edge wouldn’t last any longer than his grinder edge. At times I’m even a little envious of his care free knife abuse/use.

That sounds like my neighbor, Tom. He sharpens his on the sidewalk curb. Makes me shudder.

 

[Woodrow F Call]

There have always been people who don't take care of their tools and use them quite hard. Probably most people don't think much more of a pocket knife as a means to an end. Still even back then you had Paw Paw who used that same knife for 30 years, he respected, liked and used that pocket knife, but didn't abuse it.

 

[T. Erdelyi]

There's a phrase they used to use when referring to what happens to the old knives from back then.

I was reading an article contains the availability of mint Girl Scout vs Boy Scout, they said the Boy Scout knives were "...used to destruction." Meaning they were used and advised till they fell apart.

 

[r8shell]

When I was younger, we would buy cheap, Pakistan-made Buck-style lockbacks. They cost one or two dollars. Really fun knives to throw at trees and take with you on canoe trips. No worries if they got lost or broken, and would do a good enough job of cutting. I see nothing wrong with that, as they were basically toys.

I think the sad part is that back in the "olden days", "boy's knives" were made out of the same good carbon steel as the fancier offerings, and could theoretically last longer if not lost or broken.


By the way, I wonder about that two year lifespan thing. Mattress companies say you should replace your mattress every eight years, and diamond companies say you should spend two month's salary on an engagement ring. Not an unbiased statement, you know?

 

[pinnah]

This post is about knives. Trust me on this...

When I was young, I saved all my money for my first set of skis. They busted the bank but I loved them. Later, when I moved to Vermont, I found out that the locals all had "rock skis". Rock skis are used to ski in thin conditions where you might hit a ski destroying rock. Save the good skis for good conditions. When I was teaching skiing, I started to hang with a harder charging crowd. This group had a saying....

All skis are rock skis.

This would be said just before doing something stupid, or utterly glorious, depending on how it came out.

Many years later, on this forum, I found this quote by Bob Loveless about knives that captures the freedom of rock skis.

"A knife is a tool, and if we don't treat our tools with a certain familiar contempt, we lose perspective." - Bob Loveless

I have a 2 dot Buck 110 I got when I was a kid. I <3 that knife - too much I <3 that knife. I'm afraid of wrecking it. I just picked up a beater 110 on the used market. It locks up tight, is pretty enough and all that but more to the point, I got it cheap and honestly, I don't care if I wreck it anymore that I care about wrecking an Opinel.

All skis are rock skis. For me, it's the path of freedom and better performance. I'm free to "go for it".

BTW, if the ski connection to knives is lost... trust me... in Vermont, one learns to keep your skis hair popping sharp. Good skiers carry a pocket stone or file!

 

[cuttingboard]

When I "discovered" the Mora Craftline ($12) and the Craftline High Q ($16) a few years ago, I knew I'd found my (almost) throwaway knife. I proceeded to buy 5 of them. Since then, I've carried one hunting and used it to process game from field to freezer. They get the job done, completely, without the need for re-sharpening until I'm done. I keep one in my winter emergency kit in my car and another in my workshop. The rest are waiting their turn in my knife drawer(s) with their higher priced cousins. -cuttingboard

 

[yablanowitz]

When I was younger, we would buy cheap, Pakistan-made Buck-style lockbacks. They cost one or two dollars. Really fun knives to throw at trees and take with you on canoe trips. No worries if they got lost or broken, and would do a good enough job of cutting. I see nothing wrong with that, as they were basically toys.

I think the sad part is that back in the "olden days", "boy's knives" were made out of the same good carbon steel as the fancier offerings, and could theoretically last longer if not lost or broken.


By the way, I wonder about that two year lifespan thing. Mattress companies say you should replace your mattress every eight years, and diamond companies say you should spend two month's salary on an engagement ring. Not an unbiased statement, you know?

As many guys as I've seen sharpening their knives on a bench grinder, I don't doubt it a bit. We who cherish our knives are vastly outnumbered by those who don't care.

 

[jackknife]

Many years later, on this forum, I found this quote by Bob Loveless about knives that captures the freedom of rock skis.

"A knife is a tool, and if we don't treat our tools with a certain familiar contempt, we lose perspective." - Bob Loveless

That quote speaks volumes, if we listen.

 

[chickenfried]

Seems there are many good inexpensive knife choices around. Even my friends that aren't knife nuts have knives that don't suck.

 

[btmccutcheon]

As I always seem to be watching people, I've noticed over the past couple of years guys who were in trades that you would expect them to carry a knife for seem to have gone from the cheap liner-lock, partially serrated, spring assisted, convenience store types to the folding utility blades with disposable replaceable blades. I still see a few of those cheap folders out there, but usually what I see being used are utility knives. I'm still amazed at how most men it seems these days don't carry a knife or often even own one.

 

[jackknife]

As I always seem to be watching people, I've noticed over the past couple of years guys who were in trades that you would expect them to carry a knife for seem to have gone from the cheap liner-lock, partially serrated, spring assisted, convenience store types to the folding utility blades with disposable replaceable blades. I still see a few of those cheap folders out there, but usually what I see being used are utility knives. I'm still amazed at how most men it seems these days don't carry a knife or often even own one.

Yeah, I do see that a lot these days. The guys who I had remodel the kitchen all used the disposable blade folding utility knife. I see them at Lowes, Home Depot, and other hardware stores. I guess it's easy to just pop out the old dull blade, pop in a new one and keep on trucking. With replaceable blades who needs to sharpen?

But I too am amazed at how few men carry any kind of knife these days.

 

[Buzzbait]

I guess it's easy to just pop out the old dull blade, pop in a new one and keep on trucking. With replaceable blades who needs to sharpen?

More to the point, I think we live in an age where sharpening is no longer common knowledge. People don't actually know how to sharpen a knife, or even know that knives need to be periodically sharpened. We stopped passing down this knowledge a generation or two ago. So now we buy knives that don't need to be sharpened, hence disposable blades.

The big question is, if you started selling modern disposable blade razor knives back in the '30's, would they have caught on or been dismissed as junk?

 

[jackknife]

The big question is, if you started selling modern disposable blade razor knives back in the '30's, would they have caught on or been dismissed as junk?

Actually, the modern disposable blade razor was made popular during WW1. By the 1920's, men where shaving much more because of it. IN the Great War, soldiers had to use gas masks, and had to be clean shaven to get a good seal. Gillette donated something like a million of the new safety razors to U.S. troops to shave with. After the war, they just kept on with the shaving because the new disposable blade safety razor made shaving so easy. Look at the U.S. presidents before and after WW1. After WW1 you never saw a president with a beard or mustache again.

The Gillette company and WW1 radically changed shaving habits in America. Now we have the disposable blade Super Knife and Husky brand knives doing the same. I fear knife sharpening will become a little known art.