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The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is ready to order! See this thread for details: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/bladeforums-2024-traditional-knife.2003187/
Price is$300$250 ea (shipped within CONUS). If you live outside the US, I will contact you after your order for extra shipping charges.
Order here: https://www.bladeforums.com/help/2024-traditional/ - Order as many as you like, we have plenty.
The knives I kept.
- Thread starter jackknife
- Start date
- Joined
- Jan 12, 2007
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- 4,186
- Joined
- Oct 2, 1998
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- Joined
- Mar 7, 2006
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Yep. When I joined the forum back in 2006 my standard carry was a Kershaw Ken Onion 1550 blackout. But the old fart & country boy inside started pulling me back towards traditionals. Once I actually started using some thin bladed, excellent blades I relearned just how great a cutter a traditional knife is. Went crazy acquiring new knives, carried a constant rotation, and eventually got tired of trying to keep up with them all and thinned the herd some.
What I've found is that mostly the knife has to meet a few simple criteria for being a carry knife. First, it has to ride easily, to the point I don't even notice it in my pocket. It has to feel good in hand when using it. It has to not need to be coddled. Last, but not least, it has to be sharp and be fairly easy to resharpen.
I have knives that meet the above criteria that range from single to multiple bladed. The few that have proven the very most easy to carry but do most everything come down to three or four. None are huge. None are larger than a SAK Tinker.
The aforementioned Tinker is one of those special few. Another is the venerable peanut in a few guises. The mini-trapper is an exceptional EDC that is large enough for most uses and small enough to carry easy, even as a two blader. Easy to hold too. However, the one knife that has become the regular carry in my pocket as my main knife is that simple, Queen single blade jack with the Delrin Winterbottom scales (including the tiny crack) that was a gift from a forum member a few years back. Simple. Carries like it isn't there, yet is just right to slip your hand in your pocket and fondle a little (be careful who's watching, they might confuse things), and it cuts darn well. Sharpens easy too. Great walk and talk with crisp half-stops.
Nothing fancy about it. No exotic, stag, bone, or otherwise classy scales. Simple Queen stainless steel blade. It is a simple working knife. 3 1/2 inches overall. 2 3/4 inch blade or thereabouts. Slim with rounded edges. It rubs around with the Morgan dollar that rides in the same pocket with it. Sometimes the keys end up in there too. Simple truth is this simple knife really is all I need for general, everyday carry. I appreciate that a lot. Fancy is nice. All the great patterns and lovely handle materials, the different steels are certainly things to make songs inside you. But for me this simple, small, single blade folder says yes, Carl, I've noticed some changes.
I prefer simple, honest, working stuff for my companions. I've moved from the soft, mellow, and to me a bit single noted taste of Benchmark bourbon to the more complex, fuller taste of Knob Creek. While I like (liked, as I've quit) quality tinned pipe tobaccos, there is something comfortable and downright enjoyable about a cob pipe stuffed with Prince Albert that can be enjoyed day in and day out, whether you are paying attention to the smoke or just puffing idly while your mind is somewhere else. There is a warm and confident quality in carrying a relatively small, simple knife that you are confident will do for you what such a knife has done for generations before who used a knife much more than we do today in ways that were very much part of their quality of life.
I don't need to impress others or get into show off battles. I am not impressed by what some gear whore is waving around to make sure everyone sees or by someone who drinks a particular drink or smokes the latest cigar as touted by the in cigar magazine because they think it is the way to look cool and THE stuff. I am impressed by things that do their job without fanfare, simply, reliably, quietly. Things that work. I'm impressed by people who work the same way. I'm impressed by the simple, well crafted, but I am sure, economy knife that rides daily in my pocket. Lowly stainless steel, no fancy blade pattern, just boring, old, and basic. A synthetic handle. But walks and talks with the best of them. Strong backspring with out being too much. Crisp half-stops that speak of quality and that extra step when being made.
I've noticed some changes in me. I'm even more the folksy, old fart and cantankerous, unrepentant reprobate than I ever was. I'm good with that.
What I've found is that mostly the knife has to meet a few simple criteria for being a carry knife. First, it has to ride easily, to the point I don't even notice it in my pocket. It has to feel good in hand when using it. It has to not need to be coddled. Last, but not least, it has to be sharp and be fairly easy to resharpen.
I have knives that meet the above criteria that range from single to multiple bladed. The few that have proven the very most easy to carry but do most everything come down to three or four. None are huge. None are larger than a SAK Tinker.
The aforementioned Tinker is one of those special few. Another is the venerable peanut in a few guises. The mini-trapper is an exceptional EDC that is large enough for most uses and small enough to carry easy, even as a two blader. Easy to hold too. However, the one knife that has become the regular carry in my pocket as my main knife is that simple, Queen single blade jack with the Delrin Winterbottom scales (including the tiny crack) that was a gift from a forum member a few years back. Simple. Carries like it isn't there, yet is just right to slip your hand in your pocket and fondle a little (be careful who's watching, they might confuse things), and it cuts darn well. Sharpens easy too. Great walk and talk with crisp half-stops.
Nothing fancy about it. No exotic, stag, bone, or otherwise classy scales. Simple Queen stainless steel blade. It is a simple working knife. 3 1/2 inches overall. 2 3/4 inch blade or thereabouts. Slim with rounded edges. It rubs around with the Morgan dollar that rides in the same pocket with it. Sometimes the keys end up in there too. Simple truth is this simple knife really is all I need for general, everyday carry. I appreciate that a lot. Fancy is nice. All the great patterns and lovely handle materials, the different steels are certainly things to make songs inside you. But for me this simple, small, single blade folder says yes, Carl, I've noticed some changes.
I prefer simple, honest, working stuff for my companions. I've moved from the soft, mellow, and to me a bit single noted taste of Benchmark bourbon to the more complex, fuller taste of Knob Creek. While I like (liked, as I've quit) quality tinned pipe tobaccos, there is something comfortable and downright enjoyable about a cob pipe stuffed with Prince Albert that can be enjoyed day in and day out, whether you are paying attention to the smoke or just puffing idly while your mind is somewhere else. There is a warm and confident quality in carrying a relatively small, simple knife that you are confident will do for you what such a knife has done for generations before who used a knife much more than we do today in ways that were very much part of their quality of life.
I don't need to impress others or get into show off battles. I am not impressed by what some gear whore is waving around to make sure everyone sees or by someone who drinks a particular drink or smokes the latest cigar as touted by the in cigar magazine because they think it is the way to look cool and THE stuff. I am impressed by things that do their job without fanfare, simply, reliably, quietly. Things that work. I'm impressed by people who work the same way. I'm impressed by the simple, well crafted, but I am sure, economy knife that rides daily in my pocket. Lowly stainless steel, no fancy blade pattern, just boring, old, and basic. A synthetic handle. But walks and talks with the best of them. Strong backspring with out being too much. Crisp half-stops that speak of quality and that extra step when being made.
I've noticed some changes in me. I'm even more the folksy, old fart and cantankerous, unrepentant reprobate than I ever was. I'm good with that.
I have always liked 2.5 to 3" blades, they seem to get the job done. I cut my teeth on SAKs and although I have purchased modern folders of late, a SAK is usually riding in my LFP. I never saw the need to carry a tactical blade that I didn't have the training to use "just in case". My blades tend to be used for more practical uses, food prep, letter opening and passing the time whittling. In the Great White North our porch talks are accompanied by beer. It seems that my street sometimes seems like a scene from King of the Hill.
51 here, I guess I'm a bit weird as I kept a Buck 303 in my pocket for the whole journey of knife life. Started with one as my first knife, a gift from my Grandpa. I carried a KA-BAR my uncle gave me when I worked for him as a young man but kept the buck in my pocket as much as I could. Had one folding lockback(110 mostly) or another on my work belt for a bunch of years but the 303 was always around on the weekends. Went thru a " tactical" phase searching for my youth then a expensive CRK fad and still relied on those old fashioned bucks for most of my cutting chores. ...then not long ago I finially realized id had the only knife I need in my pocket all along. Now the 303 is all I carry and mostly all I collect...it's nice to be old enough to figure some stuff out.