Thrifty Thursday... Cheap Traditional Knives

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After I posted I took out the knife to double check the geometry. The curve of the handle with the corresponding curve of the blade helps keep your hand straight in line with your arm without having to bend your wrist and at the same time the blade is in the proper slicing position.
 
Alan, nice pair of knives! :cool::cool: What's your impression of that "swaybelly" handle on the Rough Ryder?


I've long admired those knives, Will! :thumbsup::thumbsup: I have a similar one made by Cudeman.
I think the Aitor models are discontinued now? :(

- GT

Sadly I believe you are right GT. They came in a number of sizes but this was the smallest, it's not a bad travelling food prep knife for when you're visiting somebody else's kitchen who has crap & blunt kitchen knives- pretty common situation;)

Curiously enough, although made in Spain you couldn't buy them here from Spain, had to come via the USA :confused: Globalization often makes little sense :D
 
Thanks for the info, Alan. :):thumbsup::cool: I've learned that a swayback handle with a lambsfoot blade is an inspired combination, but I don't have any experience with such an "exaggerated" handle curve in the opposite direction. I've been intrigued by the "bow trappers" RR has advertised for quite a while. Good to hear that you're impressed with the design!

- GT

Part of the pleasure of the upswept trapper is the way the curved handle fits your hand. The RR bow trapper, a larger and heavier knife, fills that curve with the second blade, and is not nearly as pleasant in the hand.
 
Awhile back I sought out two knives from my childhood, one a barlow I had lost and this one. A black handled Imperial Kamp-King. All my friends (who were boy scouts) had one but I could not get my parents consent. Now that I have one approximately fifty years later I keep it hidden away... just in case... and don't even mention the .45 LC cartridges. ;):)

Less than $4 Including Shipping
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I could not get my parents consent.
Oh, the memories...
My Dad used to confiscate every knife I bought, whenever he found them. ;)
He had a shoe box filled with pocket knives that he took from me and my brother.
Boy do I wish I had that shoe box today, but alas he took them all to the dump.
Even today, my 98 year old mother will ask why I carry a knife... It's dangerous!!!
 
Oh, the memories...
My Dad used to confiscate every knife I bought, whenever he found them. ;)
He had a shoe box filled with pocket knives that he took from me and my brother.
Boy do I wish I had that shoe box today, but alas he took them all to the dump.
Even today, my 98 year old mother will ask why I carry a knife... It's dangerous!!!
I would have some lingering issues about that.

Again, I figure if it's an advertiser it was cheap.
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Though Lowe's seems to think I should pay for their name on a bucket.
 
Oh, the memories...
My Dad used to confiscate every knife I bought, whenever he found them. ;)
He had a shoe box filled with pocket knives that he took from me and my brother.
Boy do I wish I had that shoe box today, but alas he took them all to the dump.
Even today, my 98 year old mother will ask why I carry a knife... It's dangerous!!!
Hope you don't mind me sayin', "That's good to hear John." Back then I felt certain I was the only kid in America who's cherished possessions were confiscated regularly. ;) Once I had a trapper given back to me upon reaching my upper teens, still have it today.
 
Oh, the memories...
My Dad used to confiscate every knife I bought, whenever he found them.

My father struggled with the knowledge that I carried a knife in my pocket. As a result, I only have one knife left from my childhood, while the others quietly disappeared. His surviving sister recently revealed in her memoirs that at one time, he threatened his own father with a fixed bayonet. She wrote that more than 70 years after the event, so her account may not be accurate. Still, it makes me wonder if my father thought that history might repeat itself and that I would one day pay him in his own coin. I didn't know that when he was alive.
 
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makes me wonder if he thought that history might repeat itself
Interesting story.
I think for my Dad, he was trying to break away from his own father.
My Grandfather worked in a mill his whole life, hunting and fishing, and carried a knife.
My own Father got his Masters degree at Stanford, absolutely hated the outdoors, and traveled to Europe for vacations.
Different strokes for different folks as they say. :cool::thumbsup:
 
I'm lucky we were free range kids. My parents didn't seem to know or care if we had knives, as long as we didn't make too much noise in the house. :cool:
I have one just like my first knife. It lives in the kitchen, for opening cans. I keep breaking the twisty kind.
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My brother's knives:
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Steel-handled cattle knife, with no markings. Purchased for $20 at the last gun show in Bastrop, Texas before COVID hit. Strong back springs and very sharp carbon steel blades!
Ron
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I miss the gun shows. :( Lots of tacticlol junk, but there was almost always one table with an old guy and a pile of old knives. It was fun chatting while looking everything over.
 
Here's my effort for the day, mundane maybe but it's my total favourite SAK, just 2 blades and slim, that Pruner should be on more knives :cool: Got it this year and it's frankly a KOTY contender. Well...

But time to slice tomatoes to go with the smoked mackerel and horseradish on rye (bread that is, not the drink ;))

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5K Qs 5K Qs
After I posted I took out the knife to double check the geometry. The curve of the handle with the corresponding curve of the blade helps keep your hand straight in line with your arm without having to bend your wrist and at the same time the blade is in the proper slicing position.
Part of the pleasure of the upswept trapper is the way the curved handle fits your hand. The RR bow trapper, a larger and heavier knife, fills that curve with the second blade, and is not nearly as pleasant in the hand.
Thanks for the additional info on the curve-handled Rough Ryders, Alan and Henry Beige Henry Beige . :thumbsup::thumbsup: Sounds like good ergonomics, but my preferences for knives with more than one blade may betray me in this situation! :rolleyes:

Here's a RR sawcut canoe with blingy bolsters that I bought for a single-digit price in 2016. I like this bone on the canoe, but the corresponding sawcut Barlows remind me of cockroaches! :eek:
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- GT
 
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