What Do You Use Your Knives For?

Mick Strider

Mick Strider

Joined
Feb 16, 2000
Messages
1,385



What do you use your knives for? Not necessarily ours. Just your knives. What do you use em for.

Yes, I know for cutting stuff.

Be a bit more specific.

Ever Vigilant

MS
 
Well, I am an urban commando. Cardboard, letters, string, the then thousand tags that are on new blue jeans, digging the seals out of pop bottle caps to be told, "Sorry, Try Again" once again, slicing paper to make it a certain shape (with ruler and cutting board), shaving fuzz sticks for fire places, saving the ducks by cutting 6-pack rings, cutting down boxes to make them easier to recycle, etc.

As such, my folders (BM AFCK and Sentinel) handle these chores quite well. I have an LTC kukri for chopping when in the bush (not used much but when it was it worked VERY well) and I have a few other knives I use for staring at- the buddings of a real knife collection.

Not very exciting but that's O.K.! I'll have to get a Strider so I can chop up old cars, use as a hand hold when climbing mountains and slice tomatoes ooohhh so thin for dinner
biggrin.gif


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"Come What May..."
 
I wonder who started the whole car chopping thing. I don't recall ever having the need to chop up a car. Although I have to admit, we do have a customer who used his Strider WB to open a floorboard and found several pounds of Cocaine.

I stripped some wire with my folder today.


Later,

MS

*Note: Car chopping is not a requirement of Strider knife owners.
 
Cold Steel was probably the first to use car cutting / stabbing as a major aspect of their ads. Kevin McClung also did it a few years ago with a full article ina magazine I think comparing the time of removal with a couple of ATAKs with the Jaws of Life. I have done it a couple of times mainly to illustrate that it is not overly stressful. Cars are made out of really weak and soft sheet metal compared to high end blade steels.

-Cliff
 
I use my knives for the usual stuff:

Chores around the house and yard from cutting weed-eater line to stripping wire; opening mail and packages; fixing meals; opening happy meal toy packages for the kids; removing the occasional splinter and even a tick from my daughters arm while camping; field dressing small game, deer or dove while hunting; cleaning fish; whittling a contractors pencil into a little man as a gift for kids; smoothing the edges of our disk golf disks; cutting carpet; sharpening pencils; removing tags from clothing; cutting paper; the usual stuff. I tend to have a thin bladed slicer and a thicker heavy duty blade on me, they seem to cover all my tasks.

I've never seen the need to cut a car door, hack at a loose rope or need a knife to cut toilet paper. No need for anyone to get mad, just having fun here. Oh well, someday maybe I can put a knife to truly hard use.

Brad


[This message has been edited by Brad Kenney (edited 10-17-2000).]
 
I carry a folder for "personal protection" at all times, but it usually gets used for mainly utility stuff--opening mail, cutting loose threads, picking at my fingernails, stripping wire, breaking down boxes, . I DID use my old Spyderco Endura to "discourage" a shady individual from absconding with my carry-on in the head at McCarran Intl. Airport in Vegas once...I just ordered a Strider folder, and am looking forward to trying it out.

For fixed-bladed tools, I usually only carry one out in the woods. There it gets used for all kinds of stuff--chopping firewood, prying, cutting up food, opening canned goods, and of course personal protection (after my Glock and 2 spare mags run dry).

I've just gotten used to always having an edged tool with me, no matter where I am. Exceptions would be the County Courthouse and Airport security line...

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"They sicken of the calm, who know the storm."
RFrost5746@excite.com

My Knives
flag_blk_whtbns_clr.gif
 
I never really put my Striders to hard use. I think that they are too pretty. I find it horribly abusive to put such a delicate knife in harms way. Hehe. Seriously though, I bend Mini-gun parts, I cut all sorts of rope, and have on one occasion, pierced a piece of body armor with the trauma plate because my buddy didn't believe I could. It's all in the physics. I did meet a guy this weekend at the SOF show that pops Master locks with his Strider and then sticks his blade into a door jam to hold the door open on felony arrest takedowns. That's a pretty neat trick I have got to learn.

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Ryan Renuart
Aerial Gunner
"That Others May Live"
 
I have extremely strong opinions about knives because I use them hard every day. After serving a couple of enlistments in the Corps I came home to the family farm and also work a regular job to have such luxuries as health insurance and paid days off.

Here are a couple of examples of what I use knives for around the farm. A couple of weeks ago I used a Finnish knife to cut leather straps (1/2" thick 8" wide)that make up the belt drive for a stitching machine and wondered why everybody doesn't use their knives. I wouldn't want to try bending the blade but it is a cutting machine. Day before yesterday I spent a couple of hours cutting weeds from around and under the fence lines and between buildings where the tractor can't get to. The machete I used was dull as possible afterwards from chopping weeds, dirt, rocks, and the occasional metal fencepost (oops), but I put it in the vice and had it as sharp as its going to ever get again in five minutes. Just this morning I spent over an hour with a knife in my hand cutting cotton twine that supported tomato and cucumber vines all summer in the garden. The knife I used is from one of the companies that has a section here and it is a POS. Cutting the dirty, twisted string and vines dulled the edge all too quickly. The fact that it got dull is no big deal, I can dull any knife mentioned on the site in a day or two around the farm, but the hassle it takes to resharpen it is the problem. Other seasonal things are cutting tobacco and corn stalks or cutting several thousand sweet potato vines for transplanting. Daily use is for boring stuff like cutting the string on bales of hay and cutting the tops off feed sacks when the pull string is knotted up.

At my "regular" job a knife is used to cut plastic banding material, cardboard boxes, and shrink wrap. Sometimes when the holes are not drilled correctly a knife is used to cut the plywood on shipping pallets for the mounting bolts to go through. A drill would be quicker but won't fit in my pocket.

Don't know if any of this is useful to you but its what a typical couple of weeks is for me.

 
On active duty, let's see...
Cutting @$$loads of 550 cord/100 mph tape,
cutting rubber hose to vampire the hummvees and five tons, severing nylon cinch straps after rail-loading vehicles upon deployment, cutting rope, cutting limes for tequila shots, cutting my target dummy, cutting down small trees (Bosnia)...
Civilian life....
Opening mail, cutting open boxes, cutting banding off stacks of magazines (bookstore job), cleaning fingernails, making dinner.

That's a start...
wink.gif


Ryan
 
Knives-generally Emersons, usually carried for a combination of minor cutting chores, and self defense. Tools-all Strider. I carry Striders exclusively at work. I have pried open locked footlockers full of dope (the Strider key), I came up with a technique in which I'll slam my DB, or WB into the crack of the door frame during entries to keep the door open, I've pried windows open, cut salami and summer sausage (war food), and all sorts of other junk. They are also back-up weapons in case my firearm goes down in a fight, or is inaccesable. They cut flex cuffs, and rake broken glass out of windows. A DB is my primary extraction tool from the helicopter I currently work in. I will clarify now that I am not the one who pulled the master lock trick-it was one of my best friends, I would never abuse a knife like that....hahahahah. Just the regular guy stuff.

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He who advances is sure of heaven-He who retreats of eternal damnation.
 
who's emerson? I use mine to open my bills, of which I have many...cut the ends of my cigars, of which I dont have enough, and as I said before......stab cormac in the butt!
 
One thing is a source of pride. I think certain knives, especially those designed for hard use, are awesome. I also think the Barret Light .50 is the most kick ass shoulder fired weapon.

I use mine for the cutting of normal things. Letters, string, cord and webbing.
I also use some of them for dressing game, whitleling and defense. Not the same knife for all things, however. I also cut sheetrock and use them to "ease" things into or out of position. Sharpened prybar...

I'm seriously looking at the Strider MT an all around knife. Don't like tanto's, and this is as strong as the tanto's overall. So I hoping payday comes sooner.



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Riley
Do it right,or not at all.
 
I have noticed that at least one member of your unit (Strider) uses his folding crow bar for a bottle opener...you guys should really think about incorporating that into your next design.......a corkscrew would be nice too.

[This message has been edited by tom mayo (edited 10-19-2000).]
 
First and foremost, I'd use the thing to pry my ass out of a physical jam if I had to. I currently use it to cut everything from clothes, shoelaces, and shoe leather, all off my unconscious patients. I use it on oxygen tubing and the other day I cut a Nasopharyngeal airway to fit down a 5 year old's nose that was actively siezing. BTW, I'm talking about the STRIDER folder, it's currently the only Strider I can afford right now. That doesn't mean I haven't looked at the pictures of the other fixed blades on the site.
 
Always two..One for defense *(SIFU) and one for work..The work knife rotates all the time...In a night the work knife see's several hundred boxes(yes hundred) at the very least along with plastic strapping,wrapping and nail prying...This week its been my Allen Blade Chipmunk in O1 tool steel,last week was a REKAT fang..Better than any case cutter...

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Photopoint updated 10-20-00.

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Formerly Endura Duck
 
At work, we use trauma shears for 90+% of our cutting tasks. They're cheap, disposable, and extremely light. Stuff that gets cut: clothes from critical trauma patients or dead/unconscious guys, chux for IV starts, box splints and kerlix/ace wraps to size, etc.

Hanging patients are one of the few calls that guarantee a need for knives. And no, we do not hang our patients, we cut down those that do unto themselves.

This weekend was on FTX for SAR and used knives for cutting paracord and pounding stakes for building shelter.

-Jim

[This message has been edited by Jim Lockhart (edited 10-23-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Jim Lockhart (edited 10-23-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Jim Lockhart (edited 10-23-2000).]
 
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