What is your primary purpose of carrying your EDC knive?

T

tjpark

Joined
Jun 10, 2006
Messages
1
Hi,

I am a newbie here and looking for my first EDC knife. Knives are cool and tempting me to have one. However, I cannot find any practical purpose of buying one and carrying it.
So I wonder what other fellas are doing with their knives on daily basis.

Let me find a perfect reason why I should have one.

T. J.
 
If you need reasons to carry a knife, you have come to the right place :D

Rat Finkenstein, great post!

I carry one just because I like to, I like knives and I don't need to use it every day to carry one.

The feelling when someone needs a knife and you have one just right there is priceless too.
 
One thing is for certain, if you start carrying a pocketknife, you will use it, and you will come to rely on it, and after carrying it around for a while, you will feel ill prepared, ill at ease, and downright naked when you don't have it with you.

You'll be surprised how often you use it. I guarantee you do a lot of things right now with your fingers or possibly your car keys that are much more easily and neatly done with a knife. A knife is a letter and package opener, fingernail cleaner, staple remover, pencil sharpener, knot untier and lottery ticket scratcher. If you carry pocketknife you'll never have to go looking for a scissors ever again. If you are bored or idle or have to wait around for something any stick you pick up off the ground becomes a source of diversion. You will discover whittling, and you will learn to sharpen a knife, which are both very practical skills.

And if you decide to carry a Swiss Army Knife or a multitool, this principle is compounded, because then you basically have a mini toolbox in your pocket.

There's no disputing that one knife is not too many. I, like most people on this board I'm sure, probably have too many, or at least more than I'll ever need. However, you need at least one pocketknife and once you've carried it for a while, you'll understand why.

Let us know what you get!
 
I carry a knife daily for several reasons. What got me started was a conversation with a friend - he's a couple decades older than I and he served as both an Army SF soldier and an Air Force PJ (pararescueman). He was an instructor in a survival course that I took and we'd often talk cutlery.

One day, knowing that I had a couple of folding knives, he asked me if I carried one. I told him that, no, I'd thought about it but hadn't yet chosen to do so. He said something that's always stuck with me. He looked me in the eye and said in his matter-of-fact, cut-the-garbage way, "Zack, you need to seriously think about carrying a knife with you every day, particularly when you go out of the house." There was something about the way he said it that let me know that I needed to listen to his advice and obey it. He then related an incident that occurred a couple years prior to an Arizona highway patrolman. The officer was involved in a hit-and-run accident and the suspect fled the scene. The officer's car caught on fire and his seatbelt was jammed. He had no knife on his person and ended up burning to death in his patrol car. That was a very sobering account and it verified the necessity of daily knife carry for me.

Since then, I've read of several similar incidents (one here on BF), but with happier results - there were pedestrians or nearby motorists who had knives on their persons and were able to render the aid needed to save motorists' lives.

I hope to never have an emergency such as these, but I also know that it can happen. I wish to be prepared, because one never knows.

Oh yeah, they're useful for less dire circumstances, too ;)
 
Because I want to be on the cutting edge . L:O:L

I am starting to do woodworking . I do a little bit of carpentry , arrowmaking ,
hiking , archery tournaments in woodlands , camping , braiding , traveling , foraging , cooking , scavenging and just about everything I do requires a knife or tool I can make with one . I don,t carry a knife . I carry two .
 
tjpark said:
Let me find a perfect reason why I should have one.
Click to expand...

1. Start small. Buy a low-end Swiss Army Knife.

2. Carry said knife for one month.

3. Realise that, after that one month, you can't understand how you ever managed without an EDC knife.

4. Surrender yourself to a life without money!

maximus otter
 
I started carrying a knife because I need it for work (I work in a newspaper warehouse and need a knife on a daily basis).

To be honest, I do not think everyone needs a knife for normal daily carry. The need for a knife outside of work is very rare. I do not agree with the people saying you will not be able to understand how you managed without a knife before. It is very easy to manage without one.

But the need for a knife does arise sometimes in normal life. And sometimes those circumstances are totally unforseen, and can be very important.

There are many good knives that can be had for very cheap. And many knives are small and light enough that carrying them has no adverse effects.

So the real question is: Even if the need for a knife is a rare thing outside of work and specialized tasks and hobbies, WHY NOT carry one just in case?

I do not think you will find it amazing that you didn't always carry one, but I think some tasks will become easier, and you may find yourself doing things quickly and alone that would have before forced you to get help or look for another tool.

Given how cheap, light, and small some good knives can be, I am sure you will find buying and carrying a knife to be an improvement in your life, even if the need for the knife only comes rarely. Small gain, but VERY small cost.

And of course you may become a knife knut and just fall in love. Then it is a very large gain that goes beyond just having a tool in your pocket and becomes a hobby that brings you great joy.
 
About twenty years ago my wife and I were in a department store, going up the esculator to the second floor. Ahead of us was a young mother with two children. As the esculator got to the top they stepped off, but the little girl's shoelace had got tangled up in the esculator steps folding down. It had trapped her foot and was tightening down on the shoe pullong her foot in, the mother was tugging franticly and the little girl screaming.

I was able to get out my pocket knife and shove the mother aside and cut the laces of the shoe, getting the girl out. Her foot was badly bruised but okay. I still carry that old stockman now and then in rotation with some of my other pocket knives.

Sometimes a small sharp pocket knife is a handy thing to have.
 
Pretty well what everyone else has said:) Yes, you probably could get by without a knife on you - there are many alternate ways to cut something. I didn't carry one for a lot of years. I was also one of those who couldn't figure out why anyone would want a microwave either:D For me, it's stricly convenience, though I do tend to cut something several times every day. Right now, I'm very glade I have my blades and multitool - we are in this panic release schedule - PC's/servers showed at exactly the wrong time, but there are boxes to open, PC's to stage - no time to go looking for a blade or screwdriver - it's flick the blade open, cut boxes open, yank the multi-tool and get covers off PC's to stage discs, extra video cards, etc. so I can get back to testing. Few eyes got opened yesterday - there were three or four of us opening boxes, and before anyone got out of the room, I just handed out a few folders that I had on me, so we could get down to business. One person ran out to get "tools" and by the time he got back, which was only a matter of a few minutes, we had the machines out and covers off:D

- gord
 
Mainly because I can, but "more mainly" because I love knives! I absolutely feel naked without a knife in my pocket. I even have one in my gym shorts pocket when I'm at home. I actually use the knives also. :thumbup: :D
 
UPS and CalOvernight bags, tape, boxes, string, bagels, apples, radiator hose, sharpening art pencils, you name it.

Frank
 
jackknife said:
About twenty years ago my wife and I were in a department store, going up the esculator to the second floor. Ahead of us was a young mother with two children. As the esculator got to the top they stepped off, but the little girl's shoelace had got tangled up in the esculator steps folding down. It had trapped her foot and was tightening down on the shoe pullong her foot in, the mother was tugging franticly and the little girl screaming.

I was able to get out my pocket knife and shove the mother aside and cut the laces of the shoe, getting the girl out. Her foot was badly bruised but okay. I still carry that old stockman now and then in rotation with some of my other pocket knives.

Sometimes a small sharp pocket knife is a handy thing to have.
Click to expand...

That is an awesome strory and illustrates the adviseability of carrying a cutting tool about as well as possible I think. That mother and little girl were very lucky you were there, and well prepared.

Hair hit on the same point, which is that for the most part carrying a knife is merely a convenience, but it's a good idea to carry one because you might actually NEED it at some point, not to open a box but to save someone's life. I guess that's what I mean when I refer to feeling naked without one. When you carry a knife you get used to a feeling of increased preparedness, and when you don't have it you definitely feel vulnerable and ill prepared. Kind of like leaving home without your cell phone.
 
I carry a cell phone with me everyday but there are plenty of days when I don't make or receive any phone calls. But there have been a few times when I had car problems, locked myself out of the house, separated from the rest of my group, got a job offer, etc. when I was thankful I had my phone on me.

The same can be said for a knife. You may carry a knife and not use it for days or you may find days that you are cutting everything in sight. I could get along without a knife by ripping, biting, or borrowing someone else's knife. But it is so much easier to carry and use my own.
 
I'd suggest getting a medium-sized Swiss Army knife, like a Huntsman, Tinker or Spartan.

I carry a SAK and after carrying a multi-tool knife, it's real difficult for me to go back to a typical modern folder. I think they offer a lot of variety in their uses. Here's a few things I've used it for in the past week

-Used the screwdriver to take off and remount my mini-fridge door and to wall-mount a CD rack (Wegner SAK's have a locking screwdriver, it's useful)
-Cut a variety of food and food packaging
-Cut off a shoe lace that was ripped up and needed replaced
-Cut open some CD's
-Open some cans of soup
-Smoking pipe maintenence
-Fingernail trimming (They get in the way when you play bass)
-Expose some more speaker wire when I was hooking cables up to my receiver

Lots of little utility uses basically. SAKs have a wider s cope of utility than a normal folder, so I think they're a good starting point. Most people will make fun of you for carrying a boy scout knife before they get suspicious about it too.
 
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