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The Outpost This forum is dedicated to all who share a love for, and a desire to make good knives, and have fun doing it. We represent a diverse group of smiths and knifemakers who bring numerous methods to their craft.

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  #31  
Old 09-16-2020, 10:20 PM
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TexasJack TexasJack is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tai Google View Post
That's cool Jack... At least you didn't ask me to elaborate on my position.

... It's a lot trickier than it sounds.
I felt like the explanation would lose something if either or both of us were sober.

Some philosophies are just like that.


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  #32  
Old 09-29-2020, 11:20 PM
Dana Acker Dana Acker is offline
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I read recently in a book on custom knifemaking written back in the 1970's that William Scagel (dubbed in the book as the father of modern knifemaking) felt it was better to make a knife that did one thing well, as opposed to making a knife that did many things poorly.

I've watched a lot of YouTube knife evaluation videos. There seems to be a mindset that knives today are supposed to be able to do everything. If you can't walk out into the woods and build a cabin with only your knife, then there's something wrong with said knife.

Many knives are judged on the basis of whether or not you can chop and split wood with it, hence the word "batoning" has entered the knife culture's lexicon. When I was in the Boy Scouts, my Scoutmasters would have kicked my butt six ways from Sunday had I used a knife for that for which I should have used an ax. For the record, I had great Scoutmasters, real guys a kid could look up to. They taught me a lot that I still rely on today. But they wouldn't in a millennium ever substitute a knife for an ax, if both were available. And if you were heading out in the woods, then you should have both.

It's funny how things have changed. What think y'all?


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  #33  
Old 09-30-2020, 01:15 AM
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A few months back there was a local group that held a challenge to make a railroad spike knife. A friend of mine - who is also a Forged-in-Fire winner - was in the contest and I went to see it. Everybody had a great time and it was interesting to see what techniques people used to try to best utilize the time limit. Came time to test the knives and my friend's knife lost pretty badly. It was a great looking knife, but he made a dagger. The contests slashed bottles and sandbags and stuff like that. A dagger is a great "poking" knife, but a terrible "slashing" knife.

This kinda plays back to Dana's point about knives being designed to do specific jobs. A great hunting knife is not a great carving knife. A dagger is pretty much only good for one thing while a bowie might cover a broader range. If you've ever tried to use the wrong knife to gut and skin a deer, you can easily appreciate how much the design affects how well a knife performs on a task. I have a very long blade for cutting watermelon or brisket, but it would be a nightmare gutting a deer.

That even extends to the materials of construction. Butchers like to have blades that sharpen quickly - don't even think about using a vanadium steel in their blades.

Speaking of Boy Scouts, back when I was young, a big reason to join was that they all carried a big pocket knife. ( I seem to recall it being a Barlow knife.) When my son was in Scouts (about 20 years ago), the church where they met decided to build a new, giant mega-church. When the kids moved to the new church, the folks who ran it asked the kids to help them by unpacking a couple of truckloads of chairs they bought. Of course, the Scouts were happy to help. We probably had 60 boys and at least one parent for each helping with the project. And exactly TWO of us had pocket knives. TWO!! I #### near wore out my blade slashing boxes open and cutting tape. Sad to see how good traditions have been thrown away by the snowflakes that run things these days.


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  #34  
Old 09-30-2020, 08:25 AM
Dana Acker Dana Acker is offline
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Yeah, it's sad to see the state of many young people these days. Many don't know which end of a knife to even hold. And if you carry anything bigger than a Barlow knife people freak out as if you're carrying an AK47. Where did we take such a wrong turn?

When I was a kid, my Dad took me to see John Wayne's "The Alamo" on the big screen. That was held up to me as how people should be. Resolute against the odds, and willing to stand for something they believed in, no matter the cost. And...having Col. Bowie's Iron Maiden or a reasonable facsimile never hurt either.

From my first rubber toy knife, I was an incurable junkie. In the 3rd grade, I traded some old comic books, for an Imperial mini-Bowie with a 4 inch blade and a cracked fake stag handle fixed with duct tape (which I still have) and I never looked back. I've had a love affair with knives pretty much all my life.

When my son turned 5, I bought him his first pocket knife. I wouldn't let him keep or carry it until he whittled 50 sticks to my specifications. He had to check out the knife from me like one would have to check out a library book, and return it when finished. He had to clean and sharpen it too. I still have all 50 sticks, and he still carries a knife to this day.

Once when he was in his whittling apprenticeship, we were going to the Army surplus store to look at knives, while his mother went shopping. She asked why we were looking at knives when there were many in my possession already. My son stood right up and declared, "Mom, a fellow can't have too many knives." Truer words....


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