Who else is CHEAP?

There' quite a difference tween "cheap" and "broke"....I be the latter.....:barf:
 
I don't know if I've become cheap, or just got to be very pragmatic in my old age.

I used to drop a good bit of money on a knife. At one time in my younger day, my woodswalking knife was a Randall number 14, and my edc pocket knife was a custom. Then soomething happened about 50 years of age.

I started to think "what the heck am I doing with all this stuff?"

I sold off my custum collection, gave away alot of my production knives to family and friends, and kept just regular medium to lower end production knives for edc carry. Knives like Case and Eye-brand sodbusters, opinel, Mora sheath knives, the more basic sak's like the tinker, Wenger SI, bantam and keyring classic. And my favorite edc pocket knife, the Case peanut.

I think I started to think a little like my father and grandfather; that a knife is a cutting tool first and formost, and no sense getting too obsessive over it. If it gets too used and beat up, or lost, or whatever, I want to be able to replace it easy without taking too much out of the grocery budget.

I've yet to find anything my Frosts number 1, or my pocket knife, or push comes to shove my 12 inch Ontario machete, won't handle. A sharp knife is a sharp knife. If a 12.99 mora does the job, I can't see how a 200 dollar knife is going to be any better. After a certain point, it gets to status symbol land. In my day to day life, I've found the expensive super steels don't give me any advantage worth the price over plain old carbon steel like Case CV or whatever the Frost's mora number 1 is made out of.

But then, you can have alot of fun catching fish on a cane pole as well as an expensive rod and reel.
 
scraphogg said:
I am pretty tight with the coin. Its a good thing these days I think. I buy what i need not what i want. May be wrong for bein that way, but i ain't never hurt no one doin it.
Click to expand...

Ouch !!!!!
I needed to hear that I think........ :thumbup:
 
Inexpensive knives sometimes are the best knives for what is needed. Sometimes, I buy a knife I anticipate using where dependability is of greater value than "just getting a job done" and do not mind spending more for appropriate quality. Every once in a while I buy a fine knife from a skilled knife maker for no other reason than it is important to support those that excel in their craft. Very luckily, I already have my dream knife, it was about two hundred dollars. Mostly, I use knives that cost less than thirty dollars, and my go to knife lately has been a SAK. I found it.

I have a nice fly rod outfit and love to cast with it. But, if I am just going to catch fish, I use a cane pole.
 
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I wouldn't call myself cheap, however most of my skinning chores are done with a blade under $30. Albeit, they do need more work usually, that is all in the fun of the trade :thumbup:
 
If all you want is to cut, then thinner is better. Fortunately, thinner is also cheaper. Moras, Old Hickory, Opinel, Ontario's work knife series, cheap imports, RADA kitchen knives, and home made fixed blades are all options for the thrifty. I have a Mora style blade in the garage right now that was free for material and cost me $10 in belts, but will hold an edge longer than any other knife I have. You want a knife to experiment with or that you dont have to worry about taking care of? Get some of the $1 paring knives from the Dollar General and put a polished 20 - 25 degree per side edge on them. They are thin, cut easily, and hold a polished edge pretty well for a buck each. They will probably hold a coarse edge for a while too, but I didnt try that. I dont recommend thinner edges, for those of us who are inclined, because they seem to be just a step above 410 stainless in terms of hardness and will bend easily if thinned too much. If you have some tools or a boat load of time, you can make some usable blades from worn out circular saws for cutting concrete. The hardness will be in the 45-50 HRc range, but the material is free and you dont have to re-harden it, as long as you grind off any over heated material from cutting the shapes. Dont forget to watch the temperatures during grinding too. The will hold an edge about like the $1 kitchen knives, but are thicker and you can make a lot of knives from a 3' diameter saw blade. I got 2 free after the diamond inserts started coming off. They were both about 2.5' in diameter, and if the guy had turned his back for a second, I'd have taken that 5' diameter one. After I asked him about the small ones and he said I could have them, he kept an eye on me though.
 
Not so much cheap as poor. My EDCs are Boker slipjoints & SAKs. My machete is a Tram bolo. My choppers, an HI khuk and a Reflections of Asia bolo. My mid sized fixed blades are a Camillus USMC and an HI Kumar Karda. Nothing high dollar but they all work.

Frank
 
Cheap and broke.

I'm really jones'n for a shiny new Case slippie, but I settled for a Vic cadet about a week ago.

That's going to have to hold me for a while. :)
 
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