- Joined
- Oct 3, 1998
- Messages
- 3,264
A couple of Decembers ago, I gave people in my office Ladybugs. Last week, I was doing a bit of show and tell with some new knife, and the "little old lady" in the office said she wanted to buy a couple more of that "little serrated knife - a Ladybug or something like that," that she keeps in the little case that it came with because it doesn't fold. She had shown it to her friends as a handy little knife to have around the house, and her friends thought it was nice, and so she wanted to buy a couple as gifts. But non-folding?
Confusion. Puzzlement.
Show I showed her a Ladybug, and she said that was the knife, and then I showed her that it does indeed fold. It turns out that I had tried to show her how it worked when I gave it to her, and we ran into the same problem. Her hands are too weak to press the release, so she doesn't fold it, and had even forgotten that it can be folded. The "little case" was the black cardboard box it came in, and not a sheath.
The lady is a long long way from being senile, but she is "set in he ways" and her thumb joints bend backwards, and she cannot squeeze things like the backspring of a folder.
It turns out that a lot of folders have the same problem. When the sisterhood ladies in my congregation borrow my CS Vaquero Grande for cutting bread, they'll clean it up and hand it back to me open. The Wife, who is no wimp, can work a heavy backspring release, but she doesn't like it.
Any thoughts about
a) Designing folder lock realeases to be useable by people without much strength in their hands? The same "little old lady" in our office has no trouble operating a Benchmade 3000, which is a full-size "switchblade" with a moderate spring in it.
b) Making more "non-folding pocket knives," like a fixed-blade Ladybug equivalent with maybe a slightly longer handle, for people who have difficulty operating folders?
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- JKM
www.chaicutlery.com
AKTI Member # SA00001
Confusion. Puzzlement.
Show I showed her a Ladybug, and she said that was the knife, and then I showed her that it does indeed fold. It turns out that I had tried to show her how it worked when I gave it to her, and we ran into the same problem. Her hands are too weak to press the release, so she doesn't fold it, and had even forgotten that it can be folded. The "little case" was the black cardboard box it came in, and not a sheath.
The lady is a long long way from being senile, but she is "set in he ways" and her thumb joints bend backwards, and she cannot squeeze things like the backspring of a folder.
It turns out that a lot of folders have the same problem. When the sisterhood ladies in my congregation borrow my CS Vaquero Grande for cutting bread, they'll clean it up and hand it back to me open. The Wife, who is no wimp, can work a heavy backspring release, but she doesn't like it.
Any thoughts about
a) Designing folder lock realeases to be useable by people without much strength in their hands? The same "little old lady" in our office has no trouble operating a Benchmade 3000, which is a full-size "switchblade" with a moderate spring in it.
b) Making more "non-folding pocket knives," like a fixed-blade Ladybug equivalent with maybe a slightly longer handle, for people who have difficulty operating folders?
------------------
- JKM
www.chaicutlery.com
AKTI Member # SA00001