The Thinner the Better...

[Wowbagger]

New member here.
I been lurking for months, mostly watching the thread
Ranking of Steels in Categories based on Edge Retention cutting 5/8" rope
I am most appreciative for all the great info there.
THANK YOU

Soooooooo
I starts looking at the what’s new thread, found the new whacha carrying thread, read a bunch of it but not all and just had to jump in . . .
sure is a lot of big expensive alloy there.
I keep coming up against my ultimate tests for an everyday CITY BOY pocket knife though.
Before I mention that I will say with all humility I am such a newbie up until recently I thought serrated blades were just for show.
yah I’m that dumb . . . or was. I might even one day buy a Cold Steel Lucky.

Still though, one of the funniest things I ever saw was a guy trying to cut up a large cardboard box with a serrated tactical knife. That sucker sawed, and sawed and sawed some more and there was paper shreds allllllll over the place.
The little SAK Bantam (see photo and comments bellow) would have been done in a flash (and no mess). Unless the serrated knife guy made an errant pass with Mr. Bantam and found his leg off.

My ultimate tests for an everyday CITY BOY pocket knife is
Drum roll . . .
will it cut up a large corrugated cardboard box and will it cut through medium plastic wire ties without busting a gut (or the edge) ?
I find almost every knife I have to be a sorry _____ (deleted for delicate sensibilities) failure up against those tasks.
Between the back being too thick or the steel so hard it chips (think Spyderco ZDP 186 I still love my Dragonfly though) I keep coming back to the super thin smaller blades to geeeterdun.

So now we come to what’s in my pocket. Well the pocket that clips to my work belt any way.
Go ahead . . . have a good laugh . . . I can’t blame you one bit.
OK now that is mostly out of the way and you have stopped rolling on the floor.
Three SAKs ? you ask.
Surely you’r joking. I’m not joking and don’t call me Shirley.



Being a wannna be hand tool woodworker the large blade in each of the larger knives I reground to single bevel. One right one left. For marking out knifed layout lines (and of course slicing sushi (ha, ha, ha) ).
The little super precise pliers in the one knife I can not live without. Saved my mechanical bacon many a time.
For my work I use BOTH phillips screw drivers depending on the close quarters situation. One “end pivoting” the other one “center pivoting” T-handle like.
The Little Bantam single blade SAK is reground basically flat to the edge plus a very shallow secondary bevel. I have no idea the angle. Less than ten degrees per side though. Made me start questioning the usefulness of most knife sharpening jigs. I am wanting an Edge Pro sharpening jig for Christmas. I know it doesn’t go that shallow though but shallower than about anything else obviously. I hate hand sharpening though I can get hair whittling. From my wood working I appreciate the precision and economy of movement a jig offers.

For any one who cares the channel lock looking pliers poked through the black pouch is a Knipex pliers wrench. If you don’t have one, trust me, you need one. The one in the photo is the smallest they make (125mm) and boy are they proud of them but worth every penny.

The last photo is mostly recent additions to my pockets.

Except the blue SAK ( has the minuscule ball point pen, light and my favorite finger nail file) which is pretty much the last knife I set aside when I empty my pockets.
The Case Swayback is about a week old. DAG NABIT WHY IS IT SO HARD TO GET ONE IN CHROME VANADIUM ! ! !! Drives me crazy. Oh well maybe one day I will find an old one.
I wanted to try out the handle and I find about all the good ones have been snatched up. I would have bought a GEC but they just have the single blade talon. I really wanted the two blade jack but in CV (or 1095).
Been trying out the Gerber Artifact to see if it is useful or not. I like it.
The red bone Case (CV) has been on me for weeks. Building up the patina. It seems to like tomatoes better than apples.
I sharpened the blades but did not reprofile and a few days ago tried a medium wire tie.
She said Nah Dude, Nah.
The SAK Bantam would have said “That was nothing . . . what else ya got ?”

One day a customer asked me to lend him some diagonal cutters so he could cut off some fairly large wire ties on some product packaging. I pulled out my little plastic handled Swiss Army Bantam and he said “THAT aint gonna do it ! ! ! I just tried my ninja knife (((what ever a ninja knife is ))) and EVEN THAT wouldn’t cut ‘em”.

I went pop, pop, pop on those wire ties and his mouth fell open.
I sure can appreciate all the beautiful knives here but I just know that if I had one in my pocket most of my cutting would be done with my old faithfuls.

I will say my Cold Steel Holdout III in CTS-XHP goes after wire ties pretty well if I hold my tung just right.
PS: what IS a ninja knife ?
PPS: I never bought an alox because I was afraid of wearing off the anodizing. Now, from looking at all the cool alox here I got the bug to get one. Yah . . . thanks guys . . . thanks a lot (as if I haven't spent too much money this year on pocket knives already.)

 

[Wowbagger]

Remember when Sydney Greenstreet said to Bogart “I like to talk to a man who likes to talk to a man who likes to talk” ?

Here is another set up I have not far from hand on a daily basis; at home and at work.


Taking the thin blade obsession as far as I could :
The first Gerber folder has Stanley’s thinest box knife blade at about .4mm. (I have to take a diamond grit file to the slots in the blade to get it to fit around the set screw in the knife). I resharpen the blades so I don’t have to do this very often. The blade is some how designed different; shorter in length and for a nonretractible handle. Story of my life and my motto :

Buy the damd tool and take it home and turn it into something useful for your self.

I don’t break these in use so again I find the killer thick blades on so many of the popular knives to be kind of comical for a City Boy to carry. At least for THIS city boy.

Obviously the second Gerber has the Carbide edged blade in it for high wear resistance when cutting abrasive junk.

Of these I use the Gerber with the hook blade the most. I have tasks at work where I have to cut off worn out rubber coverings from metal surfaces without causing stress risers in the metal.

As far as sticker pickers; note the last knife in that photo, a retractable “pen knife”. I have to remove metal splinters, wood splinters and fine cactus from my paws all the time so I go for a knife used only for this and keep it so sharp you can carve your initials in a hair. (removing the metal splinters (that have usually been in there for a few days) often requires slicing down into my skin around the metal before I can hook up the winch to it and drag it out).

Some one mentioned in another thread “the sharpest blade I have had in a factory edge”.
I have two things to say along those lines.
1. That’s not exceptional; this box knife blade is very usefully sharp (shave sharp) for less than a dollar. (and SOME HOW they can sharpen them that way nearly every time).
2. That’s pretty exceptional; most of the edges on the knives I buy are far from useful, on the order of a dull super fine saw blade.

Why I can pay $70 for a “cutting tool” and get a dull, less than useful one . . . and pay $7 (for a Stanley box knife) and get a shave sharp very useful one . . . well . . . words fail me here. It’s just one of those paradoxes I have had to get use to.
Ha, ha, ha