Silly Question? Practical uses of a karambit?

xizor

xizor

Joined
Jun 25, 2006
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148
Okay,

So we know that the karambit can be a nasty little self defense tool, but I know it wasn't designed originally for that purpose. What else can you use this knife design for? Can it be a good camp knife? Or is a straighter blade the way to go...

Looking forward to opinions.

Tim
 
The kerambit was originally a small "pocket" sickle and personal utility knife like a small scissors here. You could still use it for gardening or repairing nets.

I cannot see it as a camp or food prep knife, and many of the folding "combat" kerambits are not much good for anything except that.
 
I could be wrong, but I seem to remember hearing that the small kerambits were originally used as box cutters, and personal utility knives as mentioned by Esav.
 
They look like TLC knives or hawkbill pruners so I assume they could be used as such.
 
Well I've been investigating karambits quite a bit (pun intended :)) lately. I think there are probably two varieties. Ones that are made purely as a martial weapon and those that can fulfill that purpose and be useful. The more useful ones I've seen have straighter blades vs. the severe hook on some....
 
I have trouble visualizing any use at all for some of the single-edge folding things that are proliferating lately and are called korambits for some reason....

A real korambit is a versatile tool, especially if double-edged. You can do almost anything with it, most of it in reverse grip. Go out to the garden and pull upward to harvest your vegetables, then push downward to cut them up on a cutting board. Shift to forward grip to clean and skin fish and game. You can't cut a watermelon with it, though; it's too short.

You can work with your wrist straight, and that's less of a strain even for people who don't have any problem with our wrists.
 
If the blade is flat ground with a shallow hook, they probably could be good box cutters. The one I have is too swedge ground and curved to draw cut boxes - it just can't get the entry angle low enough to keep from jamming.

I've had better performance with bellied blades because the thin edge cuts and gets out of the way, reducing friction and pressure on the corrugations to just that part contacting the cutting edge, not a full width sticking through the carton (and slashing the contents.)

Trick blade shapes seem to come out second best for utility use because they are so specialized they lose performance for any other cut. I don't see kerambits doing the camp knife thing - can't even cut a hot dog in half by pushing down on it.
 
Good point - the original karambit is supposed to be double edged - this makes it much more useful...
 
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