Why oh why?

L

langchop

Joined
Jun 16, 2007
Messages
301
Ok last night im busy drying a kitchen knife when it slipped out my hand. My reflex was to flick my hand out and catch it rather than let it hit the ground and possibly, heaven forbid, get a damaged tip. While nursing my sliced finger I sat there thinking that if I hadn't caught it with my hand I would probably have stuck my bare foot out (with a worse injury) to stop its fall.

My point is: We all loves knives whether its making them, collecting them, or sharpening them. Most normal people people would let the knife drop, but most of the people reading this probably would not! :jerkit:

Someone asked me the other night what it was that I found so intriguing about knives. I know I love knives, but I actually cant explain it in logical terms to others.....I cant pinpoint specific reasons... I JUST LOVE KNIVES.

Would you guys explain to me what EXACTLY it is about knives that gets you excited??

:confused: :confused: :D
 
I have explained to my non-knife friends, that knives to me are useable art. That made perfect sense to my non-knife friends. I love the details that go into each knife. I have a knife by Matt Cucchiara, and this man has an amazing talent for carving titanium!! I have many different custom makers, and each is unique, and very special to me. What can I say, I AM a knife knut!!! And I have been for a very long time!!
 
I tried to catch my seal2000 one day, and heard the skin on my thumb "pop" as it catches.

I like using them, and looking at them, but I'm not much of a collector tho. Ones I don't use I just sell, and only keep maybe 5-10 at a time (including fillet and kitchen knifes).
 
I love knives more than most, but, after many years and many cuts I have learned to step back and get out of the way of a falling knife. Better it should be repaired than me!
 
BM Rant Bowie was one of the first knives I owned, the day I got it I dropped it and didn't bother catching it. The tip broke and the blade lost its mojo. :( Next time I'm catching it.... a ruined knife is worse than a cut hand. :P
 
You raise a good point, just what it is that makes us fondle our various knives.

I'm retired and spend a lot of time on the internet visiting various forums and researching anything that happens to interest me. I find myself sitting in front of my monitor with my strop paddle in one hand and one of my knives in the other, stropping away. One of these days I'll look down and find that all I have left is the handle of the knife.
 
A. G. Russell said:
I love knives more than most, but, after many years and many cuts I have learned to step back and get out of the way of a falling knife. Better it should be repaired than me!
Click to expand...

Yep. I love them all, but they are just things. A little cut isn't a big deal but a bad cut could be something you live with forever.
 
I agree with the 'life as art' sentiment. Take an everyday, useful item, and then perfect it's production, add exotic (or not so exotic) embelishments, and then you have something to talk about, or show off.

There's also something decidedly primal about cutting tools. Through the gift/curse of our physical make-up, we are lacking in the sharp claws and teeth that God gave the animals, but He gave us the intellect to create things more refined and specialized than nature could ever create on it's own, in any one individual creature. If it hasn't been brainwashed out of you, most any testosterone driven guy will have an appreciation for things sharp and shiny.

As well as drawing on our 'hunt and gather' instincts, knives will also appeal to the more cerebral aspect of our minds with the art side. Who can look at a precisely perfect Chris Reeves knife, or a William Henry jewel, and not marvel at its impeccable structure and excellent use of materials? We have a natural tendancy to hoard bright and shiny objects, from pretty pebbles and gemstones, to mirror-polished silver and gold baubles, and warm figured slabs of wood. When all of these things are combined into one beautiful and useful piece, we can't help but desire it. I don't care how washed your mind is by the media of today, no one can look at an art knife with gems, pearl, damascus, anodizing, gold, or whatever, without feeling a tug from deep within.

So, I believe it is both aspects of our mind that are attracted to knives. The practical appreciation of a useful tool, and the cerebral interest in all things beautiful.

They're also just so stinkin' cool!:D

Daniel
 
I was sitting watching TV while rubbing down a muskrat; you think the instant reaction to catch a falling knife is bad, just imagine what the natural instinct is when you drop one in a sitting position (Hurry, close those legs together). Then deciding which leg to ease our friend out of first....

Wasn't a few days later I was putting a balloon jack on a display board and it fell. I didn't try to catch it, but I was wearing shorts it barely caught me on the ankle. You could hardly see the incision, but it was right into that big old vein and before I even knew it caught me I was getting blood on my mothers carpet 10 feet away...

Now, my instant reaction is to jump backwards.
 
To me knives, like y'all said, have a simplistic beauty. They are man's oldest tool and have been a part of us since the beginning of time. With each passing year as technology and metallurgy advances so do they. From flint, to copper, to bronze, to iron, and then steel. They simplify our lives and, I think, bring us further in tune with our history. Man has been given the knowledge to adapt and we've done so; the symbol of that adaptation and our progress is the knife.
 
Last night I was watching a documentary about the construction of Stonehenge in England. My mom grew up in a village about 10 miles from there and I had visited Stonehenge over 30 years ago. It was suggested that people who were living there, during the beginning of it's construction, would also have witnessed the beginning of the Bronze Age. Copper was being mined locally and cutting tools were now being made using metal rather than flint.

Carrying an axe or knife with a metal blade was a sign of status or power. There was a scene showing a man sitting near a fire admiring his crude, metal bladed knife, as he moved it around in his hands. This put my fascination of knives into perspective. I was looking at a reinactment of an ancestor admiring his knife. I turned to my wife and said, "This is why I love knives." I'm not sure what her exact reply was, but I'm guessing it was something like, "Get a life old man."

I still would not try to catch a falling knife, although I might get stabbed in the toe in an attempt to get out of the way.
 
Plato's higher ideals, and the "allegory of the cave" come to mind. There's something about the simple functionality of a knife that makes it hard to resist. There's also a great deal of romanticism surrounding the use of knives, especially now that blade use has fallen out of common custom. Using or carrying a knife suggests that an individual has more interest in practicality and aesthetics than in conformity (or deadly force, if the choice is between knives and firearms). Personally, my profession is art, and I appreciate the symbolism and appearance of knives. They are, quite simply, beautiful things.
 
It's the simplest yet the most versatile of tools. It's the tool that enables us to make other tools. Then there's the elegance of even the simplest knife when the maker gets the proportions and the blade shape just right- the appreciation seems almost instinctual.

One of the strangest things I ever heard:I had a boss who spent a lot of time on that famous auction site. He started going off one day about how many knives were posted there and some of the prices they were going for. Then he said "Who would want a knife anyway?" I wanted to ask him if he was sure he was qualified to use the Men's room! Doesn't every boy grow up wanting a knife?
 
I collect mostly bayonets and military knives, so if it falls I let it hit, I figure if it's designed to withstand combat then a floor isn't going to hurt it. besides my floor is carpet.
 
The knife is man's oldest and most trusty tool. Simple and infinitely useful, that's where my sickness comes from. If I could only figure out what steel I loved the most :)
 
Knives help set off trains of thought about times had and anticipation of times to come.

They are pieces of genius and workmanship to admire.

They are companions and act as worry beads(dangerous in front of a sheeple flock)They are something to be passed on perhaps.

In former times, they were articles of dress and status, perhaps time to bring that back:D But they are beautiful objects undeniably, plus they are art that work.
 
A. G. Russell said:
I love knives more than most, but, after many years and many cuts I have learned to step back and get out of the way of a falling knife. Better it should be repaired than me!
Click to expand...

That describes this old boy's philosophy to a T.:cool:

And if you collect some of the more indestructible knives (such as Busse), you don't even have to worry about that.
 
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