If You Could Only Have One Knife...?

Think about it for just a bit...if put in a position where you could only have one knife, what would it be? I'll except brand names (Randall, Buck, Spyderco, etc.,) custom maker's names and blades (James Black Bowie, a Flaming Blade Flaming Blade, Max Burnett Banana Republic Knife, a Kevin Isler NT Automatic, etc.) or specific knife types (drop point hunter, tactical tanto, etc.) Or you can design your own blade with whatever features you would like. Then maybe you'll make one like it and show us the picture.

To get the ball rolling, I'll start off. I'm kinda partial to kukri/bolo type blades. One of my favorite knives is the World War I US issue combat Bolo, with a cross guard and wooden handle. If I could only have one knife, I'd choose one like the WWI Bolo, only it would be scaled back just a hair, and forged and heat treated by me. I may be a touch on the vain side, but I just dig the heck out of carrying knives I have made (then if there's a problem, I can cuss the maker. )

Ok, so let me see if I can do this. It's a hard choice you know. Do you mean like if the Guvmint stepped into your home with a search warrant and gathered up all of your knives and told you that you could only keep one, which would you pick? Or, do you mean for a survival situation? Or, just for everyday carry? That's a really hard question Dana. But a good one.

I'm going to pick the one about the Guvmint (cause it's scary and besides, I have so many knives here they'd never find them all ). Ok, believe it or not, I'd pick one I didn't forge. I picked up a knife from Darrel Ralph at the 2001 Blade show in Atlanta. It was his custom ALB (Arc Lite Big) with a custom multi-position concealex sheath. It can be worn on the belt in horizontal or vertical carry mode or even rigged as a neck knife.The hollow ground blade is 4" long and the overall length is 8 1/2". It has a deep recurve with a nice dropped clip point or what I like to call a combo point. It has thumb grooves on the spine for your thumb and finger notches in the deep finger groove which also serves as a guard. The handle is carbon fiber with a lanyard hole. This knife is very light but it's extremely tough. The blade steel is D2 if I remember right.

Hey, this is a beautiful knife. It's part of my collection of knives from other makers. I'll post a pic so you can have a look. It's so simple yet so completely functional. And remember, emulation is the sincerest form of flattery. I plan to forge something similar if I ever get back to the forge.



Notice that Darrel and I pretty much agree on how a knife should be shaped (from the Philosophy thread). And believe it or not, it's a coincidence. I never saw this knife until I was at the 2001 Blade show in Atlanta. It was the only one like it he brought with him and he used it for a show piece. He wound up letting me take it home with me (at the end of the show) instead of making me wait. Darrel's a great guy.

Hey Dana, is that pic showing up alright? I'm having trouble with my puter again. The pic shows as a broken image with the little red X in a box at the upper left for me.

A Flaming Blade.

Naw, we're not getting it Max.

As for reasons for only one knife--they could be many. Confiscation, survival situations, combat, work, you name it. I started thinking that if I was going off into the wilderness, or the moon, or where-ever, I'd take a specific sheath knife, and also a Spyderco clip in your pocket knife, a multi tool and...next thing you know, in my imagination I was trudging through the jungle dragging a footlocker with my entire knife collection in it. If y'all are like me you have an assortment of knives both production and custom, and you can find an application for them all.

So, realizing that my fantasy was getting absurd, I backed out of it, and tried to get practical. That's why I limited this discussion to only one knife. For whatever situation you find yourself in, where-ever on the planet (this one or another) what one knife would you select to have with you if you could only have one?

Well, it looks like ImageStation has twiddled the maid and taken away our ability to link images from their server. Probably the first step to going to a pay site. Here we go again. Or, maybe I'm just missing something. Heh.

You guessed it...a machete of some nature. Can't help it, that's just the kind of work I do most with a cutting instrument. In fact, the only "real" knife I own is a nice little Schrade 3-blade pocketknife. It's a good knife and I like it a lot, I just use a machete more.

Of the machetes I've used, one that was marked "Tramontina Brasil" was the best by far. It was used/abused for several years by me before it broke, down in the handle at the first rivet hole. The blade is still good and I'll be attempting to recycle it into a langsax machete soon.

So I'd go with a good long Tramontina machete.

It really depends what else you can have with you or where you are. The basic answer from me would be: what you are most familiar with; the rest depends. If you can choose what you have with you it's not usually a survival situation.

Not enough data.

TLM

Until recent times military personnel were issued a bayonette, which was usually a spike--only good for stabbing with at the end of a rifle, and a sheath knife. That particular knife was all they had for each and every situation they embarked upon. Whether in training exercises or in combat, that one knife had to fit the bill for all knife needs. Troops were not issued a different knife for different places or circumstances, and there wasn't the selection like there is today to go buy.

Today we have a lot more bells and whistles (features) to choose from in selecting a knife. Many companies and custom makers incorporate a number of these features into various knives that they make and sell. Of course one could think of one particular knife that would be best suited to a given situation, but what if you were to be issued one knife to carry for life, no matter where you go and what you are called upon to do, what knife or what type of knife would you want to have with you? I wasn't trying to make this complicated--just trying to get an idea of what type of all purpose knife you thought was the best.

One knife needs to be able to cope with an awful lot. I would want to be able to chop, slice and otherwise cut food, rope, string, cloth, wood and, if absolutely necessary, people

A point for doing the things only pointy things can...
Enough straight edge for slicing and dicing dinner...
Maybe some belly for icky tasks like skinning :
Enough weight and thickness to make chopping wood possible
Sufficient 'presence' to make other people keep away from it!
A good, easily maintained edge
A comfortable non-slip handle
Enough custom touches to lessen the blow of not having more knives...

Those old mountain men in America only had one or two knives didn't they? Maybe I've got just such a knife....



In case you need to ask, Tim Lively made it

Roger

I Really like my Busse Steel Heart, but I would have to go with a swiss army knife like my Rucksack w/ saw, blade, awl.

Im right behind Dana with the footlocker

I guess if i could only have one it would be the Buck Intrepid
i got for Christmas. It wouldnt make a very good skinning
knife! But it has a blunt point for digging, a serrated
edge near the handle, nice long blade, and a hlaf sharpened
so to speak edge on the back for chopping..
Its what id have to take no doubt!

Iam in favor of the kukri/machette type I have a machette I made from a broken cross cut saw that is one awsome cutter,stag handles wrapped in leather and a leather scabbard.I would also grab my diamond whet stone.--Glenn--

[Fijisufi]

The photo shows my choice, it's called a Golok. And it's just about the best all around tool there is. I use to prefer my Fijian cane knife till I found out about these.