I generally carry a _minimum_ of 3 knives which gives me 5-6 blades. Why?
1. Primary work blade, gets used multiple times daily for any and everything including getting very dirty and/or contaminated. This blade is sharpened to a good coarse working edge, and is the blade that I use constantly on materials ranging from foam rubber or fiberglass insulation to masonite, and from stripping wire to trimming plastic, etc, etc.. More and more I'm favoring stout belt sheathed lockbacks for this blade. For this function I like a knife that I can access with either work or lab gloves, without putting my hand in my pockets. I also like the lock protection from dirt, gunk, dust etc. offered by a sheath for a blade that is gonna get used hard and put up wet.
2. Food blade. Gets used for absolutely nothing but cutting bagels or sandwiches, spreading cream cheese and peanut butter, cutting tomatoes etc. This is typically a clean, thin blade kept with a finer edge. I have at times, experimented with carrying a separate folding filet knife just for this function, but it seemed like a bit of a hassle.
3. Defensive backup one-hand-opening pocketclip blade. Gets used for nothing at all to guarantee a sharp edge if ever I should need it.
Numbers 1 & 2 have recently been on the same locking Browning 609, but I may go back to separate knives since I don't like having my food blade even in the same handle as my (potentially) biohazardous beater blade. I used to combine functions 2 & 3 and that makes sense as long as the lockwork is kept scrupulously clean for guaranteed opening/locking.
Numbers 4 and 5 are the blades on the SAK Tinkerer that's on my keychain.
To be honest, I don't use the main blade much, but the small one gets used for cleaning/triming fingernails and for digging out splinters. Blades 4 and 5 used to be on a mulitool that I carried, but I never could really find a multitool that served the functions that I really want, and so I decided that the space on my belt was better filled with a belt carried folder.
I've experimented a good bit with finding a suitable solution to functions 1,2, 3 and haven't yet found the perfect solution, but there's a lot to be said for carrying at minimum one belt carried stout knife and one pocketclip knife for speed, stealth and just generally as a backup.
The above gives an example for my routine, normal daily work carry. When I'm not constrained to folders to comply with social perceptions, then numbers 1,2,3 tend to be fixed blades.(Sometimes they are anyway.) Also, when the 'work' tends to be chopping things, (as will be the case later today), then look for #1 to be a machete complemented by a belt folder for utility.
I think what throws a lot of folks off is that they may have jobs that aren't really knife intensive. Personally, I don't see how anybody makes it through an average day without at least two blades sharpened to different angles, but obviously many folks do. Of course they often wind up borrowing blades from those of us who don't.
mps
