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Swiss Army Knights Forum / Re: CYC2: Return of the Executive

« Last post by Zhenchok on Today at 08:32:31 PM »

Quote from: cbl51 on Today at 08:27:45 PM

Quote from: Zhenchok on Today at 07:59:29 PM
I’ll be honest guys. I participated in the last executive challenge and never took it off my keychain. What conclusions came out of it? An executive is all I really need. I rarely use a knife in the office, and occasionally when I need it, I reach for my executive. For now, this realization helped me slow down my SAK hoarding.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

This was a conclusion I came to many years ago. While still young and growing in the 1950's, most themes I grew up around were all military vets of WW2 and before that the great depression. My dad carried a little two blade Case peanut as his sole pocketknife and go by very nicely with it. That was the typical knife I saw growing up; the small 3 inch or so closed two blade jackknife or pen knife. All sorts of working guys carried one for their knife and did well. They opened boxes, cut twine, peeled fruit, did double duty as a fishing knife for cutting line and bait, as well as gutting and cleaning the catch of the day. Jack knives, Barlow kins, pen knives, all did what they needed to do as a cutting tool. So it was my knife as well. At least up to when I joined the Boy Scouts at age 12 and dd gav me a scout knife.

That set the pattern for me formally years, having a knife with a few tools on it. WehnI ws I the army stationed in Germany, I saw a SAK display in the window of a knife shop in Rothenburg Germany. I got hooked on SAk's then. For years, my carry was a small tinker, or a recruit. Then I discovered alox. The slim cadet took up residence in my coin pocket for a long time.

ONce I reached middle age I just carried a smaller knife as I just didn't think I needed much knife in modern suburbia. With no hostile injuns coming over the hill to take my scalp, or buffalo to skin, a small pocketknife was all that was needed, even in the machine shop I worked in. Look at how much can be done with a Stanley siding blade utility knife with a replaceable one inch blade. Over the years I actually went down to the little Vic classic and got by just fine. The only thing it failed at was food use. Just too short for slicing through a thick loaf of bread, or dealing with stuff away from the home kitchen. Eating out at a BBQ joint and having to separate ribs from the rest of the uncut rack with a classic don't work. Thus the watch/coin pocket of my jeans was always taken up with a knife like the Schrade Uncle Henry 897, or a Case peanut that had that tiny extra bit of blade that was handy, but still in a coin pocket size package.

Now with an executive in hand for the first time, I see how it's just that extra bit bigger that makes a huge difference in real world usability over the 58mm that I used for the past 20 something years. A coin pocket size knife with the extra capability of dealing with small flat and Phillips screws, and scissors, always a handy thing to have. I've already found the spear shaped tip on the exec is good for small Phillips screws in a pinch if I don't feel like digging the Vic quarto out of my wallet.

This is gonna be interesting.

Great insight sbl51. Looking worward to seeing your pictures.

Swiss Army Knights Forum / Re: CYC2: Return of the Executive

« Last post by cbl51 on Today at 08:27:45 PM »

Quote from: Zhenchok on Today at 07:59:29 PM

I’ll be honest guys. I participated in the last executive challenge and never took it off my keychain. What conclusions came out of it? An executive is all I really need. I rarely use a knife in the office, and occasionally when I need it, I reach for my executive. For now, this realization helped me slow down my SAK hoarding.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

This was a conclusion I came to many years ago. While still young and growing in the 1950's, most the men I grew up around were all military vets of WW2 and before that the great depression. My dad carried a little two blade Case peanut as his sole pocketknife and got by very nicely with it. That was the typical knife I saw growing up; the small 3 inch or so closed two blade jackknife or pen knife. All sorts of working guys carried one for their knife and did well. They opened boxes, cut twine, peeled fruit, did double duty as a fishing knife for cutting line and bait, as well as gutting and cleaning the catch of the day. Jack knives, Barlow kins, pen knives, all did what they needed to do as a cutting tool. So it was my knife as well. At least up to when I joined the Boy Scouts at age 12 and dd gave me a scout knife.

That set the pattern for me for many years, having a knife with a few tools on it. When I was in the army stationed in Germany, I saw a SAK display in the window of a knife shop in Rothenburg Germany. I got hooked on SAk's then. For years, my carry was a small tinker, or a recruit. Then I discovered alox. The slim cadet took up residence in my coin pocket for a long time.

Once I reached middle age I just carried a smaller knife as I just didn't think I needed much knife in modern suburbia. With no hostile injuns coming over the hill to take my scalp, or buffalo to skin, a small pocketknife was all that was needed, even in the machine shop I worked in. Look at how much can be done with a Stanley siding blade utility knife with a replaceable one inch blade. Over the years I actually went down to the little Vic classic and got by just fine. The only thing it failed at was food use. Just too short for slicing through a thick loaf of bread, or dealing with stuff away from the home kitchen. Eating out at a BBQ joint and having to separate ribs from the rest of the uncut rack with a classic don't work. Thus the watch/coin pocket of my jeans was always taken up with a knife like the Schrade Uncle Henry 897, or a Case peanut that had that tiny extra bit of blade that was handy, but still in a coin pocket size package.

Now with an executive in hand for the first time, I see how it's just that extra bit bigger that makes a huge difference in real world usability over the 58mm that I used for the past 20 something years. A coin pocket size knife with the extra capability of dealing with small flat and Phillips screws, and scissors, always a handy thing to have. I've already found the spear shaped tip on the exec is good for small Phillips screws in a pinch if I don't feel like digging the Vic quarto out of my wallet.

This is gonna be interesting.