Importance of a knife

[garyc]

Is the nice knife obsession in Bushcraft for owning a nice toy, or is there a justification I'm missing?

I understand that from a crafting point of view, an edged tool such as a knife is important and from a survival stance it could mean the difference between life and death. I have a Hultafors Craftman's Knife with Enhanced Grip, this cost me £10. In my opinion, this is an excellent knife for small work but also I have no issues abusing this with batoning and using the back for scraping sticky fat wood or on fire steels, it just soldiers through. I sharpen it before and after trips when I'm home, and I don't take a sharpening kit out.

If I had a £50 - £200 blade as some seem to have, in my mind I'd want to protect it, start taking out sharpening stones and strops, I'd worry I'd scratch it, hesitate to baton with it etc. It seems to promote a knife from a tool to an asset that needs to be protected from outside forces.

To me it seems counter intuitive to spend large amounts of money on a tool used for among dirt and fire, but as I asked at the beginning of the post, is there something I'm missing?

 

[Polecatsteve]

Why do some people wear charity shop clothes and others wear 500 quid designer jeans?

You kinda answered your own question really. It's preference. The really expensive items tend to be hand made owing to a larger price tag. Mass produced items tend to be cheaper.

Ultimately you tend to get what you pay for, unless it's from Mora or opinel!

I also don't understand people taking a sharpening stone with them on short trips. Unless it's for carving jobs and you like it razor sharp. Then again id use a strop over a stone.

 

[Polecatsteve]

Ps. I'm of your opinion, I don't and wouldn'y spend 350 quid on a fancy handled hand made knife, I prefer function over form. Hence Iv used a mora till the handle broke with me battoning with it. It's now rehandled with antler. Good steel is good steel.

 

[Chainsaw]

I take it you must drive about in the cheapest production car available?

I understand that from a transport point of view, a vehicle such as a car is important and from a survival stance it could mean the difference between life and death. I have a super cheap production car, this cost me £1000. In my opinion, this is an excellent car for small journeys but also I have no issues abusing this with parking it in supermarkets and using the back for transporting horse manure, it just soldiers through. I wash it before and after trips when I'm home, and I don't take a service plan out.

If I had a £20000 car as some seem to have, in my mind I'd want to protect it, start taking out service plans and polish it, I'd worry I'd scratch it, hesitate to park it in busy places etc. It seems to promote a car from a tool to an asset that needs to be protected from outside forces.

To me it seems counter intuitive to spend large amounts of money on a car used for on the roads and in car parks, but as I asked at the beginning of the post, is there something I'm missing?

Only joking but it all comes down to personal preference, yeah a hultafors or mora does the job just fine but people sometimes like to make their own or buy a more expensive knife a) because they have the money and b) because they feel it's worth it, either in money or in time. I usually spend about 10 hours putting a knife together, even at minimum wage, that's what, 70 quid right there, add in 30 or 40 pounds of materials and you're over 100. I now have a nice knife (or 10) that has so far lasted me 8 years. It's a joy to use, easily as good as my mora, looks great, way nicer than my mora and gives me a lot of pleasure. An investment in time and money I deem worth it.

Now your question is "Is the nice knife obsession in Bushcraft for owning a nice toy, or is there a justification I'm missing?" It's a sharp bit of metal, you can pick up a bit of scrap off the street and it'll cut, anything else is down to personal preference. You will lose in ergonomics, aesthetics, edge retention, efficiency, joy of use etc etc.

Use a £10 knife or a £1000 pound knife, fill yer boots, I don't care one way or another, it's your personal decision.

Cheers,
Alan

 

[mrcharly]

A lot of people on here favour the Mora knives so you aren't alone in using the cheaper models.

 

[Duggie Bravo]

I find myself torn on this.
I have my Dads old scout knife, bought in Sweden in the 50's, a cheap Mora craft knife and a mora Ray Mears thing.
My preference on camp is to use the old one, the Mora RM I tend to lend out and the mora craft knife needs a handle.
I would love a Hillbill knife, because I want a full tang, he's local and more importantly, for me, getting a hand made knife, means I can get the sheath left handed. I don't want to spend more on a sheath than the knife cost to buy a bespoke sheath, I modified my dad's old one with a couple of rivets (but I know it's wrong) and the plastic mora sheath I made a Turks head and cobra stitch dangler.
When I buy the knife it is there to be used, but looked after, I have a machete for batoning


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Samon]

Considering you can go camping with just a swiss army knife and do absolutely fine it's pretty obvious it's more of a taste/fashion thing over need or practicality.

If you don't have land owner permission or land of your own you'll be considered a naughty boy for carrying a big knife anyway, so if you choose (like alot do) to just camp anywhere but clean up after, you're still risking getting in trouble over the obession that you need a bushcraft knife to sleep in a tent over night.

Don't get me wrong, I have shelves of knives, billhooks, machetes and axes of all shapes and sizes. But I know deep down it's juts a bit of fun to collect them but also learn from the shapes as a tool maker/modifyer myself. Using them kind of gets less important to me when I don't have access to private land areas. That's where making them comes into play for me, I'd rather make people the knives and axes they can and so want to use. That was my sort of evolution from guy playing with tools and collecting them like most, to the hobby maker I am now.

 

[punkrockcaveman]

I think there are lots of opinions about what a knife is.

To me, it's a cutting tool. Not for chopping or battoning. Hence my prefered knife is something that resembles a carving/whittling knife. Always partial or stick tang, no more than 3mm thickness, with a warm, wooden handle.

However, I get those that are after a 'survival' knife. A do it all, solid thing. But I have no place for one. An axe and a small knife is a much better combo in my opinion. In terms of price, when you get above about £150, your not getting anything other than 'fancy' for your money, imo.

 

[MikeLA]

I take it you must drive about in the cheapest production car available?



Only joking but it all comes down to personal preference, yeah a hultafors or mora does the job just fine but people sometimes like to make their own or buy a more expensive knife a) because they have the money and b) because they feel it's worth it, either in money or in time. I usually spend about 10 hours putting a knife together, even at minimum wage, that's what, 70 quid right there, add in 30 or 40 pounds of materials and you're over 100. I now have a nice knife (or 10) that has so far lasted me 8 years. It's a joy to use, easily as good as my mora, looks great, way nicer than my mora and gives me a lot of pleasure. An investment in time and money I deem worth it.

Now your question is "Is the nice knife obsession in Bushcraft for owning a nice toy, or is there a justification I'm missing?" It's a sharp bit of metal, you can pick up a bit of scrap off the street and it'll cut, anything else is down to personal preference. You will lose in ergonomics, aesthetics, edge retention, efficiency, joy of use etc etc.

Use a £10 knife or a £1000 pound knife, fill yer boots, I don't care one way or another, it's your personal decision.

Cheers,
Alan

I do a Hyundai like all cars it gets me from a to b couldn't care less about a badge

 

[santaman2000]

I do a Hyundai like all cars it gets me from a to b couldn't care less about a badge

It gets you from A to B. fair enough for getting to and from work or to get groceries. But when A is several hundred miles (or in some cases a few thousand miles) from B the size and comfort of the ride becomes an issue.

That aside, do you need to make fire with primitive means? Do you need to make your own cordage? or do any of the things we collectively call bushcraft? A knife is no different from any of those, we do it for fun and we choose the tools we have the most fun playing with (and the cars we have the most fun driving)

 

[Janne]

The joy of using a Mora is that you can use it without worrying, and concentrating on the task. My favourite Mora for my fish butchering is rusty, scratched from being carelessly sharpened on a cheap medium grit stone. I sharpen it every time I start on a new fish.
Ugly, cheap. But it is wonderful to work with.

My more expensive knives are beautiful to look at, and hold. But never used. So a total waste of money, frankly speaking.

The only expensive knives I use mercilessly are my Japanese kitchen knives.

For me, a cutting instrument is hugely important. In my work, in my house, fishing, basically all the time.

 

[Fadcode]

Next time you go the dentist or into hospital, ask the doctor is he using cheap gear, or is he using the best gear, and basically that is the difference, An Iphone 7s and a nokia 3310 (despite the £550 difference) do exactly the same, they make calls, but if you want the extra gizmos then you pay the extra, its life, its actually cheaper to live in a motel than own your own home, only one bill, no rates, tv licence, electric bill, etc, but people want and expect more out of life, people are natural hoarders, its built into our genes, as hunter gatherers we could never get enough, it hasn't changed, look around your home, how many old videos have you, electronics, etc etc, we will always want more, and we will always want the best, we are never satisfied, I mean half the world are starving, and the other half are dieting, it don't make sense, but thats life, gotta go, got to polish my Mora...................lol

 

[mark.177]

potentially... for a life time investment in a tool what is the real price difference between £10 or £200? i mean when you break down £200... over say 25 years?, how much is that a day?... about 2p. thats 2p a day to own something hand crafted and unique... is a £200 knife 20x better than a £10 knife? likely not. but is still nice to have knowing the care that went into its creation.

if a knife is well made and used correctly for its intended purpose you shouldnt break it anyway, picking up bad habits using cheap knives you simply dont care about i guess could land you in trouble down the road... when you have to rely on it for your survival.

should have added, if your using a knife all day every day and sharpen them down to a stump in a month then £10 makes sense. most of us using bushcraft knives dont actually use them as much as we think so likely will last many years.

 

[Toddy]

My knives are tools. Some are very beautiful tools indeed and some were made specifically, for me, by craftsmen whom I not only like, but genuinely appreciate their skill and design aesthetics
I'm a lucky lady

My husband got to the stage of wondering aloud (with all the sarcasm a Scotsman can muster), "Do you not think that maybe the knifeage has a sort of surplus ??", when a parang dropped through the letter box with an almighty 'thunk'.

The thing is, every knife is different, the important bit is can you use it safely and effectively ?
I admit I baton with mine. You can baton with a butter knife; it's technique, it's not battering the hell out of the knife. All you're doing is splitting wood fibres apart. A froe doesn't even have a sharp edge to help it in, yet it splits wood cleanly. I also strip bark, scrape veggies, peel stuff, slice stuff, pare stuff, I even work in the mud and wet with mine. But I take damned good care of them when I'm done
Good tools.

As for costs ? me too on the Hyundai. It's a neat economical comfortable wee box with four wheels that gets me reliably from A to B. The vast majority of vehicles, even the ones worth multiple tens of thousands of pounds are just factory made…..bit like the generic Mora or Hultafors. Still very good tools.
We're very lucky that we have not only the choice but the ability to buy a huge variety.

I still have the first knife that was bought for me as a young teenager. I think I was thirteen or fourteen, so it's beyond ancient now, and it's seen such use and been sharpened so often that now it's more stiletto shaped than anything. It's still a good tool.

I'm not a knife collector though; I'd struggle to spend that kind of money on knives I wouldn't use. I can still admire them though, and congratulate the owner of something very good indeed.

My sons said a few years ago that they're praying that the Polis still have a knife amnesty on the go when I finally croak it, since none of my knives will be collectors items, they're all used. I think that's a shame because there's a lot of life and good use still in old knives, especially ones that start out good quality…..my Hyundai will go to the scrapyard eventually and be returned back into steel…..unlike the £200,000+ Rolls Royce that someone's driving around in through the village, bit like moras and something benchmade and hand engraved, I suppose.

Anyway, to answer the OP,
"Is the nice knife obsession in Bushcraft for owning a nice toy, or is there a justification I'm missing?"

There's no justification needed. It's their money, their 'toy' (they call them shinies ) and the rest of us can just say, "Nice ", when we see something really special.
I know an awful lot of folks with very expensive knives that have seen an awful lot of use, as well as an awful lot of folks who are more than happy to keep their Moras to hand.

cheers,
Toddy….who's been using an old red painted wooden handled Mora Classic today

 

[Janne]

The part I like with a factory, massproduced item like a Mora is the predictable, even quality.

I have owned a couple of artisan made cars. As most of you are Brits, I can mention a Bristol Car ( 411 Series 5) I owned. A truly handcrafted beauty. As it was old when I bought it ( 20 years + old) I had to restore it, something I do 95% myself. The hand crafting was beautiful. But hell to restore, as nothing fits 100%, and you can not just replace a worn out part, but have to hand make it. A normal car takes me about one year to do. The 411 took me almost 5 years.

 

[mark.177]

The part I like with a factory, massproduced item like a Mora is the predictable, even quality.

i think the better makers pride themselves on quality materials, a good consistent heat treat plus 100% QC... i dont get the comparing a knife to a car? were is the comparison? a £10 store bought knife will be essentially the same construction as a custom

 

[Klenchblaize]

The following is an interesting and well considered propersition that I'm not sure has been done justice with replies to date but then I too may be missing something:

"........ It seems to promote a knife from a tool to an asset that needs to be protected from outside forces."

K

 

[Janne]

i think the better makers pride themselves on quality materials, a good consistent heat treat plus 100% QC... i dont get the comparing a knife to a car? were is the comparison? a £10 store bought knife will be essentially the same construction as a custom

A fully automated manufacturing process in the blade making, from the initial steel forming, computer controlled heat treating and so on, will produce a far more consistent end product than an artisan, at a hugely lower price.

You beating on a piece of steel I equal to one of the old boys at Filton beating a roughly sheet of aluminium into shape.

I am not dissing artisanal work, as I do it myself all days long. Indeed I appreciate it, and am happy to pay for the product!
But I just do not want to use my nicest knives if I have a cheap tool that does the same job.

 

[Nice65]

I don't have my shoes or clothes made for me, but I totally get why people do. While I 'get' Mora and own a few, there is pleasure to be had from owning either something you had custom made, or a knife you have chosen to be yours.

 

[Robson Valley]

Other than art works, I've never bought a tool to hang on the wall, shotguns included.
I like the idea of preference. I like the ideas of performance and reliability.
I like the idea of the pleasure in using really good tools and I think that I can separate that from price.