Who was the genius who conned us into believing we need a fixed blade knife for bushcraft?

[HillBill]

A fixed blade knife can do light axe work with the proper knowledge. A folding knife may well be damaged with the same jobs.

I once made @Toddy a small fixed blade knife as a thank you gift. Blade wasn't even 2" long. She then proceeded to split down a 6" or so log with it, and posted a thread about it. I doubt anyone would try doing that with an Opinel for example.

Fixed blades can do the job of both axe, and folder. Not as well as each individually maybe, but in a trade for weight/packsize etc, they can do a job.

If you want to carve some wood... a fixed blade is a better option.

Horses for courses really. Tools should be tailored to individual need. Whats the point in having slippers at home when your out hiking? Whats the point of having hiking boots, if you wear slippers more often?

 

[TLM]

I wonder if there's a cultural significance here as well as a historical one.

There is, a puukko (note double k) has been the common tool for hundreds of years. A folder was considered a pen knife or at most something to carry in big towns where at times a puukko was considered too rural.

While in the army I think I carried one most of the time, every one was supposed have their own, none issued. Bayonet was of course issued but was only carried in parades, it was a clear danger to every one's ears. (Peltonen sissipuukko was originally made from bayonet blades as he wanted something more sharpened crow bar like.)

In Lapland one can carry a knife even though it is kind of forbidden. I remember a few years ago in a hotels lobby bar everyone had a belt knife, I guess anyone without would have been considered slightly odd.

 

[Trojan]

I would say just stop worrying about what you think people are telling you that you need and just work out what works for you and let others enjoy what works for them.

I totally agree

 

[Kadushu]

I think the assertions made in the OP are cherry picking the facts somewhat. For instance in the tropics the machete is king and used for just about everything. That's a heck of a lot of people not using a folding knife or axe for bushcraft!

Making sweeping generalisations of my own: in the UK our brand of popular bushcraft leans heavily on Scandinavian traditions via people like Mors Kochanski and Ray Mears. Their knife designs, the Skookum and Woodlore respectively, are basically modified puukkos.

 

[Pattree]

……….. erm ……… Swiss Army knives?

 

[Chris]

……….. erm ……… Swiss Army knives?

What about them?

 

[TLM]

If one wants to go back in history there was the Roman Army Knife. But if memory serves the rest of their knives were not folding.

 

[Damascus]

That’s why the buck 110 has been so popular for so long, it was designed for rugged field use for hunters when people wanted folders!

 

[C_Claycomb]

Anyone who met Mors would know he was not a man to follow trends, be led by fads or their recent proponents. Nor would they describe the Alberta farm lad as “urban”.

Agree the examples are cherry picked. Personally I detest arguments that stand on the shoulders of “wisdom of our ancestors”, as its so often just a of argument from authority. It smells of dogma every bit as much as saying that one must have a Scandi fixed blade to do “bushcraft.

I think that assessment of batoning must have been made up just to provoke a response. If you plan on cooking rations on a gas, alcohol or stick stove, it’s hard to justify hauling an axe. If you aren’t a blockhead and know how to work a knife to its full potential without breaking it, you can use a fixed blade, even a light stick tang, to split down wood on that one night when you fancy a fire, or when you unexpectedly need to dry gear, for less weight penalty than an axe.

Same reason people carry SAKs and multi tools instead of full tool boxes. Real pliers, screwdrivers and files are better when needed, but much heavier when not.

I do think that there is an element of the bushcraft schools advocating fixed blades when some tasks could be done with folders, and some of that is related to the average public’s lack of experience with knives, but I don’t think it’s a con or a fad. I do think there was an element of fad for 4mm thick full tangs. I think that might have come from Mors’ description of testing a survival knife, even though his own version was only 1/8”.

Reasons for advocating fixed blades. If you are teaching, you are liable for injuries. All students using a known and consistent tool that isn’t going to fold up on them while they are learning is desirable. Good folders are often more expensive than comparable fixed blades. Fixed blades don’t jam open or closed, they don’t break fingernails to deploy, and they aren’t likely to be hard to clean bacterial breeding grounds.

The fatter handles on fixed blades are more comfortable for working long times than doing the same work with a Schrade Oldtimer. So if the object of going out is carving, why not take a dedicated or more optimal tool, instead of just a pocket knife?

 

[Toddy]

I have a small very simple folder that's usually in my pocket when I'm out and about for a wander. It's small, discreet, sharp, useful, but it's a pain in the backside to clean properly.
I work with natural materials...they are resinous, sticky, sometimes muddy, sometimes acidic enough to mark the steel, etc., etc.,
It's also not awfully useful as a pry of any kind. From fungi from trees (fomes too high for me to kick off) or the tree wart burrs for carving) to swiping through a handful of rushes. It's just too light.
Any of my fixed blades make a tidier job, and they're a blooming sight easier to clean and be clean enough to prep food....in no way would I use that folder to prep meat of any kind, but my fixed blades ? no bother, especially if I can clean them before and after.

Personally I feel some of the 'bushcraft' knives are so robustly built that it's total overkill.
I think some are too brittle as the side effect of staying very sharp.

I think the fixed blade lends itself to tasks that the folder just doesn't do well. Battoning is just one. Basically you can only hit as hard as you hold. If you let the knife spring it can snap the tang....but in a full tang that's not so critical an issue.
Mors used to climb a tree on Moras, stick tangs are not weak knives, but the full tang 'bushcrafter' that happily replaces a small axe and yet will still carve hair fine feather sticks.

Best knife is the one you have with you when you need it, sometimes I wish I'd thought better ahead of time
On balance my favourite knives are small non folders.

Each to their own

M

p.s. The show and tell of the beautiful knife Mark Hill made for me is somewhere lost in the ether. I really ought to re-do that. The knife is a firm favourite, has had a lot of use and is still utterly sound. I have found the one I did of the Helle Polar is still up on the forum.

Having said that, the Spyderco bushcrafter that I have (designed by Chris Claycomb, and handled for me by him too in green micarta) is a truly excellent tool. It fits comfortably in the hand, no hot spots when working hard for hours, is always reliable, is just 'right' in it's balance and profile. I have no issue battoning, carving, slicing, scraping, etc., whatsoever.

I am a lucky little lady

The link to the Helle Polar thread is here,

Thread 'With one wee knife :) photo heavy'

Mar 10, 2009

Noticing the plethora of reviews recently of 'big' knives, I thought some photos of a wee one in use wouldn't go amiss

Helle Polar, 70mm, triple laminated stainless steel, tanged blade.
Nice everyday knife, comfortable in the hand, easy to use and sharpen, keeps a good edge, I made the feather sticks without doing anything to the blade after battoning.......sorry no shaving, mother nature didn't provide enough arm hair for it to show
I strop it and then put it in it's sheath when I'm finished.

The log is a bit of bone dry pine from the last meet up. Took me about...

• Toddy
• Replies: 45
• Forum: Bushcraft Chatter

• 

 

[C_Claycomb]

On the subject of "if this is what the old timers did, why don't we still?" There is an element of doing new things because of marketing, but there was marketing in the 1800s too...and probably before!

So just because something was done in the past it does not automatically mean it was the pinnacle of doing.

 

[Pattree]

There is an element of doing new things because of marketing……..

In this week’s comic:

by Tom Gould NS
I am regularly amazed at the “innovations” that are claimed for lumps of steel with a sharp edge. Look at what was achieved 100 years ago with a working tool little different from a kitchen knife.

On the other hand, if it didn’t make sales it wouldn’t be done.

Axe, knife, rigid or folding - it’s your choice. If the advertising appeals and you would enjoy owning the thing - break open the piggy bank.

 

[Harold Godwinson]

Just to play devil's advocate, likewise just because we're told it's progress and "everyone does it" doesn't mean it's pinnacle of doing either... Don't try to reinvent the wheel isn't a popular saying for no reason!

How many wheels have been reinvented and sold to people as the next best thing to sliced bread only for people to realise that actually sliced bread is just their to pump up the bakers profits and unsliced bread, without it's chemical cocktails is actually really better after all.

 

[C_Claycomb]

Oh, I know that too! I often do not like progress for its own sake and I am a great advocate for not re-inventing wheels....but wheels have been getting improved since the first ones were carved from stone! Just imagine where we would be if it was decided not to pursue that crazy fad for pneumatic tyres when solid wood had been doing the job just fine for hundreds of years!

Just as the past isn't necessarily the pinacle, nor is today, nor is tomorrow. Sometimes it is possible to say that from the beginning till now, XYZ was the best version so far (I could certainly support that for Windows XP or 7!), but often time moves the goal posts and nostalgia plays with perception.

 

[Harold Godwinson]

Well put Chris...I salute that reply

 

[slaine_23]

For messing about in the woods in many ways an axe or hatchet is less useful than a saw. But a saw is hard to make. A stick with a sharp stone makes an axe. But I’d not go to war with a saw, a staff would be better. Specially one with a pointy knife thing on the business end.

 

[Laurentius]

Oh honestly! I have had a fixed blade knife since my teens, and of course folding knives before that. I had a fixed blade knife long before I ever heard of any of these bushcraft personalities and before I had heard batoning was a thing. Does not mean I did not have an axe or two too.

 

[forrestdweller]

For instance in the tropics the machete is king and used for just about everything. That's a heck of a lot of people not using a folding knife or axe for bushcraft!

i can fully agree with this: even the poorest guy who can't afford anything else has at least one machete, axes/ hatchets (and saws) do exist but they're (usually) of shoddy quality (and design); in southeast Asia the locals often carry a small utility knife along with their parangs but over here it's "machete and nothing else for everything" from early childhood onwards....

personally i carry "little ben" (=my beloved Ben Orford Woodlander, which was a gift from a very generous fellow member) on my jungle trips as well + a Leatherman on my belt whenever i leave the farm, but for work i use my machetes, too...

 

[slaine_23]

Is this the bushcraft equivalent of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

 

[Stew]

Oh honestly! I have had a fixed blade knife since my teens, and of course folding knives before that. I had a fixed blade knife long before I ever heard of any of these bushcraft personalities and before I had heard batoning was a thing. Does not mean I did not have an axe or two too.

Aaaah, so maybe you are the genius con artist!