Versatility of a slipjoint

[ShaiHulud]

I had a great uncle who recently passed, he was a construction man, lived a blue-collar life all the way to the end. He would hunt and fish when he wasn't at the job site. With him he always had a swiss army tinker and a case stockman, sometimes pen knife as well. He used these three knives on everything, he cleaned fish and small game with the stockman and the pen knife, the tinker saw most of its use at the construction job. He didn't baby his knives either, he let debris and grit work it's way into the knives, but occasionally he would rinse them out and drop a dab of some kind of machine oil in them. I would always smell oil, metal and fish when he was working with his stockman and pen knife on the count of the "debris" he never cared too much about removing completely. The sheepsfoot knife had small knicks in the edge and had play in it as well, the pen knife wobbled a little more noticeably but these knives seen decades of use and we're still usable up until the end. real working man's knife(s).
Just a story to share

 

[Country_Squire]

Great post, thanks for sharing. As someone who does blue collar work I totally agree. Most times a slipjoint is really all you need.

 

[cudgee]

I had a great uncle who recently passed, he was a construction man, lived a blue-collar life all the way to the end. He would hunt and fish when he wasn't at the job site. With him he always had a swiss army tinker and a case stockman, sometimes pen knife as well. He used these three knives on everything, he cleaned fish and small game with the stockman and the pen knife, the tinker saw most of its use at the construction job. He didn't baby his knives either, he let debris and grit work it's way into the knives, but occasionally he would rinse them out and drop a dab of some kind of machine oil in them. I would always smell oil, metal and fish when he was working with his stockman and pen knife on the count of the "debris" he never cared too much about removing completely. The sheepsfoot knife had small knicks in the edge and had play in it as well, the pen knife wobbled a little more noticeably but these knives seen decades of use and we're still usable up until the end. real working man's knife(s).
Just a story to share

A throw back to a different time.

 

[JM2]

Thanks for sharing.

I do blue-collar work, making furniture mostly. I use my Case 75 pattern stockman a lot during my work. Everything from opening up a crack a bit to accept putty, removing a sharp edge or corner from a board used as a fence, whittling a scrap of wood during a break, sharpening pencils, scoring lines, scraping glue, lifting splinters to accept glue or remove, and of course, digging out splinters from my hide.

Before I carried the aforementioned Case XX stockman, I carried mostly a Schrade Old Timer 34OT stockman. It's still serviceable but the blades are a bit loose. The swinden key construction doesn't hold up as well as a regular pinned construction. I'll likely convert it to pinned construction at some point.