Buzzbait
Gold Member
- Joined
- Feb 25, 2001
- Messages
- 6,684
Well, Ive been knife collecting for just a year now; and I must say that its been an evolution. I started off last Christmas with a nifty CRKT Point Guard, and figured that it couldnt get any better. Then I found all of you at BladeForums, and you quickly dashed my air of knife superiority. Little did I know that a knife could possibly cost more than fifty bucks. How naïve I was!!!
Fast forward to today, which was spent soaking and drying all of my stag knives in mineral oil. What a messy job!!! I sure am glad its winter here in the Northeast, and I have no outdoor plans for a few months. All of my knife handles are more slippery than a wet brook trout!!! Ill tell you one thing I learned today. Stay away from stag!!! Using a sharp knife can be dangerous, but soaking a stag knife can be downright hazardous. Image trying to clean all of the slippery oil out of a fully opened 4 blade congress slipjoint. Its a lopped off finger waiting to happen. Oddly enough, I only got one cut today, and that cut came from the roughly cut plastic water jug I soaked the knives in.
Im getting away from the subject here. That happens in the winter. You get that cabin fever and start to utter odd things. Next thing you know, your wife catches you knifesturbating with a bottle of mineral oil. How embarrassing.
Anyways .. Ive learned a lot about knives in the last twelve months, and figured that Id shed a bit of my profound knife knowledge, and make a few knife observations. Here goes.
1. Save up your money. Buy good knives. Dont just buy cheaper ones while you try to save for that someday great knife. Youll never have the money for that great knife. Youll just keep buying more cheap knives. Get something usable, and then buy just a few very good knives. Ive managed to collect a ton of knives over the last year, and only really use five of them. If I hadnt bought all of those sub hundred dollar jobbers, Id have a couple of Darrel Ralphs by now. Ill do better this year.
2. You always here these wackos on BladeForums, endlessly praising those cult knives. You know what Im talking about. When a folder is mentioned, some loon posts about how his Sebenza is soooooo superior to everything else. Then his acolytes begin this scary chant, finally brainwashing somebody into actually spending 300 bucks on a pseudo production knife. Dont listen to the chant!!! I finally stopped buying Spydies and Columbia Rivers, and paid out for a Sebenza. Now Im ruined on folders. I compare every folder I see to my Sebenza. I havent picked up a new folder in four months!!! Nothing is good enough. Sebenzas will ruin your production folder collecting. Now Im stuck dreaming of customs, which are sure to leave me divorced, homeless and poor.
3. And then some poor sap posts, asking about a good fixed blade. Another cult starts chanting, Dozier, Dozier, Dozier ... Again, dont listen to the chant. My Dozier pretty much ruined me on fixed blade collecting. I feel the shapely stag handle of my Dozier K-4 and this feminine voice in my head tells me that Id be cheating on her if I ever used another fixed blade. Ive been brainwashed I tell you!!!
4. But the darn SharpMaker already!!! You post every single week, asking what sharpener to get. And every darn week, you get 932 replies to buy a SharpMaker. Im sorry that you didnt finally get one for Christmas, getting some crummy electric knife sharpener instead .. Which just ground down all of your blades to ¼ long. Pay the fifty big ones and quit asking for a ten dollar compromise. Im sick of it.
5. Dont learn a single thing about steel. Knowledge is the sure path to unhappiness. You get this tiny tidbit of truth that says 440A or AUS-6 isnt as good as BG-42 or D2. Next thing you know, you dont care about a how the knife feels in your hand, or whether its the wrong size for what youll use it for. All youll care about is whether the knife is made of this mystical wonder steel, and heated treated by Paul Bos. Just look at the picture of the knife and the price. If the price is exorbitantly high, and the knife looks like exactly what you need, get the knife. I cant tell you how many nice customs Ive turned down just because they were made of a meager ATS-34.
6. Again, knowledge sucks. Dont listen to anything you hear about locking mechanisms. Liner locks are every bit as good as Axis and frame locks. Im now filled with terrible untruths, forcing me to only use certain locking mechanisms. It doesnt matter that my dad used a slipjoint for 50 years, and managed to keep all of his fingers. Im scared to death of even holding a liner lock or slipjoint, knowing that the knife will mysteriously close at any moment, severing a much needed artery in my arm.
7. And forget that whole fending off the badguy thing. It isnt a good enough excuse to buy some machete sized folding tomohawk. Were all over 40 and have a beer gut wider than the size of the biggest blade. We couldnt stab a purse snatcher with our arm fully extended if the had to.
8. Last, but not least, dont listen to a word Ive said. Remember that Ive got cabin fever. A sane man does not spend an entire day soaking stag in mineral oil, and then sharpening every blade until they cut cheap copier paper across both grains. Sane men actually have time to use their knives, instead of just rubbing and cuddling with them all weekend long.
So why did I write all this? All of my knives are now perfectly preserved and sharpened, leaving me without a damn thing to do. Maybe Ill listen to the wife and pick all of the copier paper confetti out of the shag carpet. That should keep me busy until spring.
Fast forward to today, which was spent soaking and drying all of my stag knives in mineral oil. What a messy job!!! I sure am glad its winter here in the Northeast, and I have no outdoor plans for a few months. All of my knife handles are more slippery than a wet brook trout!!! Ill tell you one thing I learned today. Stay away from stag!!! Using a sharp knife can be dangerous, but soaking a stag knife can be downright hazardous. Image trying to clean all of the slippery oil out of a fully opened 4 blade congress slipjoint. Its a lopped off finger waiting to happen. Oddly enough, I only got one cut today, and that cut came from the roughly cut plastic water jug I soaked the knives in.
Im getting away from the subject here. That happens in the winter. You get that cabin fever and start to utter odd things. Next thing you know, your wife catches you knifesturbating with a bottle of mineral oil. How embarrassing.
Anyways .. Ive learned a lot about knives in the last twelve months, and figured that Id shed a bit of my profound knife knowledge, and make a few knife observations. Here goes.
1. Save up your money. Buy good knives. Dont just buy cheaper ones while you try to save for that someday great knife. Youll never have the money for that great knife. Youll just keep buying more cheap knives. Get something usable, and then buy just a few very good knives. Ive managed to collect a ton of knives over the last year, and only really use five of them. If I hadnt bought all of those sub hundred dollar jobbers, Id have a couple of Darrel Ralphs by now. Ill do better this year.
2. You always here these wackos on BladeForums, endlessly praising those cult knives. You know what Im talking about. When a folder is mentioned, some loon posts about how his Sebenza is soooooo superior to everything else. Then his acolytes begin this scary chant, finally brainwashing somebody into actually spending 300 bucks on a pseudo production knife. Dont listen to the chant!!! I finally stopped buying Spydies and Columbia Rivers, and paid out for a Sebenza. Now Im ruined on folders. I compare every folder I see to my Sebenza. I havent picked up a new folder in four months!!! Nothing is good enough. Sebenzas will ruin your production folder collecting. Now Im stuck dreaming of customs, which are sure to leave me divorced, homeless and poor.
3. And then some poor sap posts, asking about a good fixed blade. Another cult starts chanting, Dozier, Dozier, Dozier ... Again, dont listen to the chant. My Dozier pretty much ruined me on fixed blade collecting. I feel the shapely stag handle of my Dozier K-4 and this feminine voice in my head tells me that Id be cheating on her if I ever used another fixed blade. Ive been brainwashed I tell you!!!
4. But the darn SharpMaker already!!! You post every single week, asking what sharpener to get. And every darn week, you get 932 replies to buy a SharpMaker. Im sorry that you didnt finally get one for Christmas, getting some crummy electric knife sharpener instead .. Which just ground down all of your blades to ¼ long. Pay the fifty big ones and quit asking for a ten dollar compromise. Im sick of it.
5. Dont learn a single thing about steel. Knowledge is the sure path to unhappiness. You get this tiny tidbit of truth that says 440A or AUS-6 isnt as good as BG-42 or D2. Next thing you know, you dont care about a how the knife feels in your hand, or whether its the wrong size for what youll use it for. All youll care about is whether the knife is made of this mystical wonder steel, and heated treated by Paul Bos. Just look at the picture of the knife and the price. If the price is exorbitantly high, and the knife looks like exactly what you need, get the knife. I cant tell you how many nice customs Ive turned down just because they were made of a meager ATS-34.
6. Again, knowledge sucks. Dont listen to anything you hear about locking mechanisms. Liner locks are every bit as good as Axis and frame locks. Im now filled with terrible untruths, forcing me to only use certain locking mechanisms. It doesnt matter that my dad used a slipjoint for 50 years, and managed to keep all of his fingers. Im scared to death of even holding a liner lock or slipjoint, knowing that the knife will mysteriously close at any moment, severing a much needed artery in my arm.
7. And forget that whole fending off the badguy thing. It isnt a good enough excuse to buy some machete sized folding tomohawk. Were all over 40 and have a beer gut wider than the size of the biggest blade. We couldnt stab a purse snatcher with our arm fully extended if the had to.
8. Last, but not least, dont listen to a word Ive said. Remember that Ive got cabin fever. A sane man does not spend an entire day soaking stag in mineral oil, and then sharpening every blade until they cut cheap copier paper across both grains. Sane men actually have time to use their knives, instead of just rubbing and cuddling with them all weekend long.
So why did I write all this? All of my knives are now perfectly preserved and sharpened, leaving me without a damn thing to do. Maybe Ill listen to the wife and pick all of the copier paper confetti out of the shag carpet. That should keep me busy until spring.
