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The watch pocket SAK.

us Offline cbl51

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The watch pocket SAK.
on: November 07, 2018, 05:25:15 PM
I like small.

My love of small items that can still function at their designed task goes way back. I've always loved backpacking, and later kayaking and motorcycle touring and camping. Lugging a backpack or trying to fit a weeks worth of stuff in saddlebags means everything has to be as compact as it gets, and no duplication. Monocular instead of binocular, AAA little flashlight instead of a D cell. Getting out of the army with a 50% disability because of injuries to my right foot mean light weight was as important as size. I got my pack down to 25 pounds for weekend or 4 day trips along the Appellation Trail running from Georgia to Maine. Of course a knife was needed, so my love of the watch pocket knife was born.

Growing up and watching my dad use his little Case peanut for just about every cutting job that came his way was both an inspiration and an education. Mostly an education is just what was not needed. I found that I could go pretty far with a smaller SAK in the watch pocket and that freed up pocket space in the main pockets. A Victorinox bantam, waiter, secretary, or even a classic did a heck of a lot of cutting. Now I'm a fan of the 74mm executive. After all, if it was good enough for Chuck Yeager to use on repeated backpacking trips in the Sierra Nevada mountains it should do for this old retired machinist.

For a while in my ever downsizing quest for maximum minimalism my watch pocket knives were a well used Case peanut, a Buck 303 cadet, a Boker 240 pen knife with very nice rosewood scales. All very nice pocket knives, but they were all lacking one thing, tools. I had got used to my old boy scout knife and then in the army the all steel 'demo' knife. After the army I had a variety of SAK's like the huntsman, tinker, camper, and Wenger SI. All really too big for a good watch pocket knife. Then my better half enlightened me to the little classic. Of all the SAK's, the classic was one that I had always ignored, and thought of it as kind of a joke. A novelty for the keychain rather than a real tool. I was wrong.

My better half got one because her boss at the company she worked for and bought some with the company logo on them as hand outs. Of course Karen had to have it on her keychain. I looked at it and thought 'meh'. Over the next few months I watched and grit my teeth as Karen used, abused, and tortured that little SAK. I kept expecting to hear a metallic 'tink' as it broke, snapped , or just came apart under the strain. Karen cut, sawed, pried, and snipped things that had been better cut with tin snips. Through it all the little classic kept going. Blades got a little loose, and she had me sharpen it now and then for her.

Not telling anyone, I went and bought one for my use. For the next couple of months I did what I called the experiment. If I had need to cut something or whatever, I made myself use the classic first off, rather than my usual SAK or other pocket knife to see if it would work. I was surprised at how well it did. The classic became part of my daily carry. It lived in a leather pouch sheath on my keying and my bantam or recruit was in my watch pocket. I got to a point where I stopped carrying any of my traditional pocket knives like a stockman or two bladed jack. Just not enough versatility. Kids, grandkids, nephews, a niece, and a few friends got gifts of my "other" knives that I no longer used because I was a SAK only man. The little classic took over a lot of my everyday jobs as well as those little emergencies that happen. The SD tip repaired a trolling motor on our canoe out on the water, fixed a fishing reel on a lake shore, helped take down firearms for cleaning, and adjust sights, replace the door latch on a clothes drier, install a new door knob and lock assembly.

I started to leave the recruit and Wenger SI home more often. If I needed a real screw driver or can opener, I had my old Sear's 4-way keychain screw driver and my old army P-38 in my wallet. The Sear's keychain screw driver got replaced with a Victorinox quarto tool that has better ground screw driver bits and better Phillips driver bits. The Quatro and P-38 take up almost no room in the zipper part of my wallet, so they did away with he need of a whole layer of the recruit/Wenger SI. There was whole day that my little classic was my only pocket knife on me. For my urban/suburban life in and around Washington D.C. it did just fine. IN fact, in my suburban life now in Georgetown Texas, is was really enough for 98% of what I needed from a pocket knife. It's one glaring fault was food. It couldn't slice a muffin in half to share with the better half, or cut a thick sandwich in half.

The 74mm is the cure of that. The 74mm is like the correction of the 58mm's faults while still retaining the advantage of the compact little watch pocket knife. I regret I am so hard headed that it took an act of generosity from fellow forum members Nix, to gift me an executive to open my eyes to the wonderfullness of the 74mm SAK. With the little Victorinox Quarto and the P-38 in my wallet, I feel very well equipped to deal with my daily life as a retired old fart living in Texas doing a lot of fishing, target shooting, woods rambling, and traveling on day trips and over nighters sight seeing. I know at my age, that I am not going to see the deep wilderness again. When Karen and I travel now, we did the tour bus at Yellowstone and Yosemite, and did the drive in camp sites in the Badlands and Mesa Verde.

But...if I did get a wild hair and do one final backpacking trip, the executive worked well for General Yeager, so it should work for a retired machinist! And it does fit so well in a watch pocket.  :D
« Last Edit: November 07, 2018, 05:33:32 PM by cbl51 »
Don't get too serious, just enough will do.


us Offline HWF

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Re: The watch pocket SAK.
Reply #1 on: November 07, 2018, 07:59:16 PM
Always enjoy reading your posts, Carl!

The small knives sure do shine for 99% of what we need a knife for.


us Offline Rapidray

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Re: The watch pocket SAK.
Reply #2 on: November 07, 2018, 08:12:52 PM
Small does work most of the time...I have found that out with the Alox MiniChamp.  :cheers:


us Offline GrandpaPatch

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Re: The watch pocket SAK.
Reply #3 on: November 07, 2018, 08:27:54 PM
I like small. ........
Nice post and a good read.  :like:
The SAK Whittling Club |
Is it better to carry a 'paddle' or to be "up a creek" without one?


 

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