Always excited for more of your stories friend. That old Randall of yours is worth some money now, it's a sure darn shame that Camillus, Imperial, schrade, hen and rooster and queen all sold to China, a sure damn shame. They produced some real fine cutlery. I think leatherman discontinued their smaller models in favor of large models fit for a burly man who's a big rig mechanic. Least that's what the story of theirb dirty hands in the ads of theirs tell me
A year and four months.
- Thread starter jackknife
- Start date
Only thing left to do is wear a permanent smile and wave relentlessly at passers-bysYep, domestic flights.
The rest of the world doesn't have much appeal to me anyway, and costs too much, so it works out for me.
Blade also has "Love, Peace, Friendship" etched on the blade.
Extra insurance to be able to carry it.
All my Randall collection was sold off many years ago, 1990's. Made good money on them but are glad they are all gone. I wish I had never wasted the time or money on that knife collection crap. Just as well served with a SAK in the pocket, and my old Buck 102 woodsman in the pack. Mora fixed blades and Spinel's are good value cutting tools as well. The wife and I used the money from the knife sales to take a month long road trip around the country and camped out at all the big national parks like Yellowstone, Bryce, Arches, Grand Canyon, Mesa Verda. Have great memories forever.
I had a towering collection, it officially became bad to me when I would rediscover knives I previously bought and completely forgotten about, brand, new never used, would just buy them then put them away for the "just in case the world took a dump" or the "this knife will do everything I could ever think to need it for" or the best excuse was convincing myself some how that the latest knife purchase was unique and different than the rest and will do tasks the others can't. So I sold them all off, rebought then sold, now i don't even own a fixed blade. I will never believe that folding knives can replace fixed blades but I also don't believe I need the strength and durability of a fixed blade for my lifestyle, I'm not a bushcraft expert, and I doubt the army will parachute me behind enemy lines any time soon
yeah, I went through all that as well. The whole "the world as we know it is gonna end" and the "Gotta be ready when it all falls apart" thing. I fell for the whole 9 yards prepper thing. The Ruger mini 14's and crates of ammo in the basement, the crates of freeze dried food, and other stuff. I had the awakening and sold off all that crap, kept the food items and used them up on family canoe camping trips.
A major breaking point was visiting some in laws that lived in Sweden. My son-in-law, my daughter's husband is Swedish, but born in the USA in California. His dad, Bill, is my age, and was born in Sweden and came here as a kid, but has kept close ties with family. So some years ago, they were having a big trip back to the family turf, and Bill (Son-in-law's dad who lives in Costa Mesa Ca.) invited us along. Took advantage of the opportunity to see Sweden with some real residents. They were country folks, about 100 and some miles north of Stockholm. It was yet another eye opener. Here were real woodsmen, living in nice cabins, wearing a 10 dollar Mora fixed blade on the belt, with a SAK in the pocket. In Sweden, a 'pocket knife' is always a SAK. They fished and hunted with just that combo, with maybe a small hatchet or saw added.
They call Elk an Alg or something like that, and they have no trouble taking one down with an old but well kept 8mm Mouser. Butchering is done with the Mora's and a small saw or Fiskars hatchet. No high end 200 dollar knives, just that 10 dollar Mora. And it sliced through that elk like hot knife through butter. We later fished a small river, and fish were cleaned and cooked up with mora and a few folding fishing knives by Eka, a Swedish knife company. I did come home with a black p[lasitci handle Eka that can come apart for cleaning. Nice thin flexible blade slices like the dickens.
That trip was yet another blow to my fading knife obsession. It was some very rugged country covered by thick forests yet not a single "Bushcraft" knife in sight. I saw these people process and work with all kinds of wood, food, and meat, and not a single other knife in sight but the old Mora on the belt, and a SAK in the pocket. Some of the kitchen knives were Mora as well. Aside from the ubiquitous SAK's, the only other non Swedish knives I saw were some various Opinels.
I came home after a few weeks with a very different view. If the world ever does really end, there's some Swedish guys I know that will just keep on doing what they do with mora's and SAK's.
Excellent. Yes moras are very budget friendly HARD use and great cutters, I had a few in carbon because they run the stainless at 55 HRC, way too soft and rolls,dents too easily --- unfortunately the carbon moras kept developing rust spots that I couldn't keep off despite keeping them clean and dry. It just goes to show us that people who live in deep dense forests aren't signing onto eBay or another retailer and buying some 300 dollar super steel knife that will cut a mean mark. Not like here, in the USA where people convince themselves that knives with super steels and thicker stocks are better than slipjoints with thinner stocks made in C75 or other type. And then those people will call slipjoint users traditionalists and living in the past with a nostalgic heart, at the same action paroozing the stores online for yet another 150-300 dollar soldier they want just to have. These people feel secure in their ownership and possession of a thing, it feels good for them to hold a mid tech knife with limited edition hard anodized titanium coloring that's theirs and no one elses.
A combination of personal experiences in daily life plus the great stories shared on BF by
J
jackknife
made me eventually sell or give away all the other knives. I have zero regrets. I don't much use for anything but a Classic. I did find an old Bantam in a drawer that I thought I had lost. So that one stayed and is used only once in a while for food. But the main EDC is the Classic.
My sweet spot in terms of range is 1.5 to 3 inches, I think 3 inches is perfect to allow for all manners of needs and use. It's not too big, especially if you look at it in terms of a ruler and it's not too big that it becomes unwieldy or cumbersome to use. Before My range was 3 to 4.5. With a 4.5 inch blade you can do everything under the sun, light duty and heavy duty. Fish camp hunt shelter building, even fight; 5 inches was getting up there in length for me and what I've discovered is the OAL is usually twice that of the blade edge, so if a knife is 3.25 blade length it's usually just under 9 inches overall. Now I find great use in. 2.75 inch blade--- it does about 88% of what I'd ever call upon a knife to do
Quick search yielded no results, I'm sure the answer is out there however
Can't say as to factory edges, but as to resharpening, J jackknife has already made clear his findings on the matter.
Boattale
Gold Member
- Joined
- Nov 27, 2019
- Messages
- 2,003
I prefer a Rambler to a Classic. For my keychain. Also carry a Compact in the pocket, Case or Buck of some description in the other pocket, either a CRK Inkosi or BM 940 in the tool pocket and knipex Cobra in a belt slip. So I guess I don't much belong in this discussion.
Daedric Panther
Gold Member
- Joined
- Apr 27, 2019
- Messages
- 447
Update: Iāve continued going out of my way to use my classic instead of my āreal knifeā. Iāve not kicked the ZT from my back pocket (yet) but so far the classic has handled everything Iāve thrown at it. Itās very capable of opening boxes of parts, cutting tire patches, gaskets, the screwdriver/nail file is a good general poking tool, the tweezers were nice when I got a sliver of metal lodged in my hand. Even the scissors for a snagged finger nail. Itās been so handy Iāve tossed an extra classic I found in the work toolbox in case I forgot to put my usual one in my pocket in the morning.
Iām surprised, for all the time spent obsessing over the latest and greatest steel and the newest designs the humble SAK seems to do just fine in my daily life. The only time I wanted āmore knifeā and used my ZT was cutting an old air hose for repair, and even then a full size SAK like a Spartan or tinker would have been fully capable of that task.
Maybe Iāll do a little test. Use some of my reward points at the sporting goods store and pick up a tinker, toss it on my pocket and put the ZT on a shelf when I get home. See how long it stays there.
Iām surprised, for all the time spent obsessing over the latest and greatest steel and the newest designs the humble SAK seems to do just fine in my daily life. The only time I wanted āmore knifeā and used my ZT was cutting an old air hose for repair, and even then a full size SAK like a Spartan or tinker would have been fully capable of that task.
Maybe Iāll do a little test. Use some of my reward points at the sporting goods store and pick up a tinker, toss it on my pocket and put the ZT on a shelf when I get home. See how long it stays there.
Might stay there for a spell, locking knives are good for those emergency situations you can't forsee that requires a locking blade and deployed faster than a slipjoint, but those situations have been known to exist in the minority atmosphere, nevertheless...
This equals my experience. A Classic can do 98% of what it is needed in an urban setting.
I have a desk job and only need a few centimeters of sharp steel to open boxes, cut some twine, open a lunch wrapper, open boxes at the discount supermarkets where they leave most items in boxes, cut a wrapper of six pack Coke cans when I only need one or two, open my mail and sharpen a pencil. All of these non-heroic tasks can easily be performed with a Classic. So why carry anything larger?
That only 'hard job' that rarely occurs is when I have to cut up some large furniture boxes or something similar. Thick cardboard. I've successfully used a Classic a couple of times for such a job, but a utility knife like the Stanley 199 in my toolbox, is a better match. And I have never encounter such jobs while and about so no need to carry a larger knife for that either.
What is also often overlooked is the amount of cutting that is actually done on a given day. The actual act of cutting something is mostly a matter of just a few seconds. On any given day, it will be a matter of 1 or 2 minutes in total in 24 hours involving perhaps 5 to 8 or 10 'cutting jobs'. So why obsess over it? Why do I then need anything more than a small pen knife made from a simple carbon or stainless steel that is easily sharpened?
I don't live a life like in the movies. I'm not 'Harmonica' living a life on the frontier in Once Upon a Time in the West. When time travelling becomes a thing and they warp me back to times in the old west, I may consider a larger knife. Until then, a Classic will do.
Panther, you're going down a road of discovery, and it's going to have you feeling some very mixed feelings. I know, because I once traveled that same road from knife nut to Sakkist, and found enlightenment. And a dash of regret on the side.
Once u[pon a time, I was in search of the latest and greatest. I bought expensive customs and high end stuff because it was supposed to be "better", but what I found our was...in real life in the real world, it made almost no high end stuff when it gets stollen or lost, or...surprise, surprise...it breaks because you used it a bit hard in the blind good faith that it was "better' stuff so more capable.
It was eye opening, but I found that an out of the package SAK or Case Peanut, or Buck 309 companion, opened packages, cut twine, sliced a bit off the block of Tillimook cheddar in the fridge, just as good as a 200 dollar whiz bang. Yes, if you break down cardboard boxes for a living, you'll have to sharpen your knife more. But then if you break down a lot of boxes, that's what replaceable blade utility knives are for.
I took the road to enlightenment and found that I regretted all the time I wasted reading gun and knife magazines, and wasting time going to the shows and spending money that would have been better spent investing in my retirement accounts. In all my years as a machinist, the Humble Stanley 99 was a work bench stable.
Last edited:
When I carried my classic for the time I allowed it to stay in my possession that pen knife took care of the task lot it was assigned and because it was smaller than a zero tolerance or sebenza i could use it for nail grooming and the like. A minichamp is something I'm looking at because it has 2 blades and I find it useful, I wish they would make a swiss army classic with another blade that's ever so slightly longer and a tick thicker and I'd call it a home run
They had a chance with the 74mm line, but they were scarce as unicorn teeth and priced to a point that you could buy a recruit and a classic for the same cost. I'd love to see Victorinox come out with a simplified executive, and do away with that orange peeler and replace it with a combo tool like on the rambler. And make the nail file the same SD tip job that's on the classic.
Yes, a slightly upsized classic would be nice, but I guess I can keep on going with the present size. It does work at its intended mission as a city mini tool.
The orange peeler is tacky, as is a handful of other silly tools like the magnifying glass, I can't remember the last time I needed one of those, not even for desplintering. A large blade and small blade, a scraper, mariner spike, small curved blade and designated Phillips flat blade screwdriver are some of the tools I'd get plenty of use out of
My guess is that Victorinox cut the 74mm line to push the 58mm line. I even think they'd cut the 84mm line if it weren't for the fact that the small selection of Waiter, Bantam and Recruit are still top sellers so they just can't do it.
My guess is that Victorinox knows very well that city folks will likely do fine with a 58mm SAK. And the adventurous folks doing camping and long trail hiking etc, have more need for a full scout pattern type of knife like the 91mm SAK.
In my opinion it's a sad thing that they cut the 74mm line and decimated the 84mm line, but I think I can sort of understand it. The 65mm line with basically only a single model, is likely kept alive as an gesture and historical nod to Wenger.