When using your knife, what makes ya smile?

F

Frank Norman

Joined
Oct 2, 1998
Messages
63
One of my favorite things:

Last night, sitting at Austin Cattle Co., Exit 4, I-75 in south GA. My wife of 25 years across from me in the booth. A thick 16oz. prime rib, cooked medium, with horse radish and au jus on the side, sits before me on my plate. Fork in my left hand, Benchmade 710 w/Axis lock, plain blade, shaving sharp in my right. Place fork in the meat, apply the 710 and with gentle pressure I slice. With my right index finger on the spine of the blade I can feel it cutting through the grain of the tender beef. The meat just falls away from the edge of the blade. I realize I'm smiling. Not from anticipation of eating the prime rib, but from the pure enjoyment of a truly great knife and sharp blade.

My wife shakes her head and smiles.

I grin back at her and chew.

What do you do with your knife that makes you say to yourself, "Yeahhh, this is why I like great knives!"?


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Frank
Little River Trading Co.
"Attitude - the difference between an ordeal and an adventure!"
AKTI Member #A000126


 
I'm a collector of butterfly knives, so I'm a bit different.

For me, the great pleasure somes when steel turns to liquid in your hands and the knife seems to flow gracefully and spinning, twirling patterns form in the air. When it looks effortless, when the knife just seems to fall into place as if the artist and the knife are working together, then that's when you smile.

Chuck
 
My smiles usually come from people asking about the knife I'm using, or the one my wife carries. I hate the restaurant "butterknife" they give you with a steak, so, as Mr Norman said, it just makes you feel good when "your" knife just slides right through it, and the wife just sits there, asking "what am I gonna do with you?"
 
Ah yes! I know that look from The Wife!
wink.gif



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- JKM
www.chaicutlery.com
AKTI Member # SA00001
 
I'd have to agree with Chuck. There's nothing like the sweet sound of a Balisong when it's singin'.

Oh yeah.....and, NOT cutting myself with it makes me smile too.

Frank Norman, your story just makes me hungry as all heck! Just the visual I get of that meat on the plate......Mmmmmmmm...... I think I'm going to have to go out for awhile.

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Clay G.
www.balisongxtreme.com

 
Two things make me smile when using my knives. The loud snap the sebenza makes when it locks and the mirror shine razor sharp edge from the edge pro sharpener. Then using it for cutting steak.
smile.gif

Jim

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What? Another knife? Don't you have enough of those things already?
How many does one person need?

 
Oh Man Frank, I had pasta salad for dinner. I think I need some good red meat! My ancestors didn't claw their way to the top of the food chain so I could eat pasta salad!
 
Feeling the knife take itself thru the arcs and curves, making the cuts and thrusts by itself, becoming part of my arm, realizing that you can find nirvana on earth just by digging around in the closet for three minutes for the knife you have not played with in months or years and remembering exactly why you bought it. Seeing the object of your intention melting cleaving just plain disintegrating in the wake of the object of your affection.

That and the looks of "Holy Stuffing Batman" when I use it to open mail at the office or check the barbecue at someone's house...
 
When a customer calls or writes to say how much they like "my knife" (The Uluchet). I put a part of myself into it when it was designed and a little piece of my soul goes into everyone we make.
Anyone who's made a knife knows what I'm talkin' about.

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P.J.
YES,it is sharp, just keep your fingers out of the way!
www.silverstar.com/turnermfg


 
The way my Remington 4466 Muskrat walks and talks...

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Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." John 14:6
 
Snapping my Lg.Vaquero out to nonchalantly slice hamburger rolls at picnics.
smile.gif
Marcus
 
I'm with you, I like when a knife is so sharp that your scared to use it, when you can slice somthing with no effort, it's great!!! I also like a knife that is really a quality knife, you know, not some piece of crap made in china by some guy using a machine. A hand made quality knife that you can be prout that you payed and excess of$200. Sharpness and quality are my two favorites.
-NAN-
 
I agree with everyone that when using a good quality knife, and the knife performs as expected, sometimes too well, it brings a smile into your face, an investment well-done.
smile.gif


Dan
 
When my really good friend/co-worker who gives me a lot of heat about my knife "fixation" needs a knife to cut something. He mutters and curses cause he does'nt want to ask me for the one I always carry (He's always saying "What do you need a knife for?"). I love to watch him squirm then I smile and say "Need to use my knife? Thats why I always carry one, never know when you'll need it."
 
I grin ear to ear when I cut a 20' pine tree down with my big Anaconda II, then cut the tree into foot long sections and it's still sharp enough to shave hair.

The smile gets bigger when I adapt a Tai Chi form to Panga knives with 14" blades and my instructor goes gaga.

Testing my new fighters from Jerry Hossom, hacking and my stabbing my sparring tree to peices. All the while I felt the flow of blades designed for me from beginning to end.

Getting frisked by two Provo, UT policemen, them pulling out two butterly knives out of my pockets, shrugging at each other, giving me my knives back and wishing me a good day.

And the list goes on and on....

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For reality as we have it is only one of many possible realities; it is not inevitable, not arbitrary, it bears within itself other possibilities.
-M. Bakhtin
 
I'm smilin' just readin' Gollnick's post
smile.gif


There is something really special about a big smooth butterfly.

Also, when I pick up a well balanced big fighter, and the blade feels like a weightless gleam of light that dances from your hand.

Mostly though, it is the effortless cut, the result of excellent edge and blade geometry that allows the edge to cut so deep it amazes you every time.

Harv
 
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