Why knives?

I was sitting in the car the other day, on my way to church and I was thinking about what my next blog should be about. And I would like to appeal to people who don't collect knives a little bit as well. You know. Keep it interesting for my family who merely tolerate my knife hobby instead of participating in it.

So I asked my wife, I said "Dear, what would you, as a non-knife-person, like to read about on a blog about knives?" And she basically said "Why Knives?"

So I want to write a little bit about why I like knives, and why a lot of people like knives and the various reasons for collecting them.

Bob Loveless in his workshop.
Seriously...the man wore the coolest hats.

Knife making legend Bob Loveless said the following about knives:
"When a man picks up a knife, there's an old memory from the collective unconscious that surfaces. A knife is an atavistic experience. It was man's first tool and weapon. Man was chipping flint into cutting edges before he invented the wheel. No matter how sophisticated we become, a knife takes us back to the cave."
(Interview with Bob Loveless, Sports Illustrated 1980)

And in a way...that makes a point with me silly as that may be. When I hold a knife....it makes me want to do something with it. It makes me want to see how sharp it is. How long it will cut, how good it'll keep on feeling in the hand. It makes me want to go out into the woods and build a shelter, cut wood and MAKE something.

Shiny....sooooo shiny...must cut.....throats..
HAIR...must shave HAIR
(Source Sweeny Todd)

The idea that there is something that separates things at the moleculair level (which is what a cutting edge does) astounds me. The effort, the design and the production processes interest me enough that I could (and I have) read books about it for hours. Looking at a knife feature and thinking "why did they design it this way" can keep me occupied for quite a while and sometimes I'll bore my wife to death with the discovery of a new feature on something that I've owned for a long time. I love using knives, for me it all started with proper "Cut Throat" razors (Called Straight Razors properly) and it ventured on from there.

Well that's just me though. That said, my collection of knives is pretty humble. I spend a LOT more time and money on MAKING knives. So for me the interest in collecting them is also in learning from them about how to make a better knife. Sometimes I learn something about how a knife is built, and sometimes I learn how NOT to do something from the way a knife is built.

Apart from what I like about collecting knives there are a lot of other motivations for people. Here's a few collectors stereotyped.....and please note. A lot of collectors fall into more than one category. You'll also see a lot of these collectors in other collecting hobbies like Fountain Pens, Camera's, Watches etc.

"I finally found that goldcovered
 feather duster with diamond inlayed tip!
Now my feather duster collection is complete!"

The one pattern guy:

This is the collector that just REALLY likes ONE type of knife. Or maybe it's one manufacturer or one handle material. His (her? There seem to be fewer lady "collectors") goal is basically to "Collect the whole set" Some people collect a Peanut Pattern, others collect knives in Mammoth Ivory (no, that's not illegal...mammoths were already extinct for a loooong time, no one is hunting them), others prefer Mother of Pearl or maybe they collect hand forged bowie knives. Maybe it's just from a certain smith or factory. The hunt for that one missing piece is a lot of fun and sometimes it takes YEARS to find that one that's been eluding you for so long. The person hunting for "The one" will pay a LOT of money that, to someone who isn't in the know, will not really seem worth it. But to this collector it is because of rarity for instance. When not coupled with common sense the One Pattern guy will turn into the Fanboy.

The Investment guy

The Collvestor is basically looking at his hobby as a way to make money. However it's mostly the trading that he likes. He'll be buying low (if possible) and selling high. However this guy knows that it's pretty difficult to make REAL money through his collection. It's basically turned into a personal challenge. He'll be scouring E-bay and trade shows. Looking into garage sales and secondhand stores.

At the higher end of the scales he'll be looking at newer custom makers and trying to predict which ones will become famous and go up in value. There are a lot of Collvestors who aren't very good at it. being a good Collvester takes a LOT of research, time energy and often money. For a lot of these people the game is a lot more important than winning though. And they often don't mind all too much if they lose some money on a deal. Someone who's got quite an eye for this (and literally wrote the book on it) is Les Robertson.

The Trend Chaser

I kill the CRAP out of those boxes!

The Trend Chaser is someone who's always looking for the latest and greatest. He sees folding knives with a new locking system? He's gotta play with one. He sees a new type of steel coming to market? He's gotta get one. It doesn't matter if he has any real use for the knife or not. Some trend chasers use knives in their daily lives, others just chase em to collect em. Some will take them out on militairy deployment, others into the woods. Others will just sit and open and close them in front of the TV. (And open the occasional box with em)

What you do with the knife isn't really as important as the fact that you own one and have actually held one. These guys are the early adopters of the knife world. And sometimes they can make or break a makers reputation.

The I-collect-what-I-like guy.

You're not my real dad!..I do what I want!
(Source, We're the Millers)

This guy is usually a mix of all of the above. (And this is what MOST collectors are like). They'll just buy things that they like. Sometimes that's because they like the history, sometimes because of the price, sometimes because the materials or the design are something special. These guys are most often called "Accumulators" rather than collectors by some of the other groups. There's no real order to what they like. But they don't care. They like what they like and if they lose money on it, or if it doesn't fit in with the rest of the collection then that's just fine. Their collections are one big mishmesh of patterns, materials, makers, priceranges and era's of knives. They like what they like and they'll do what they want. No apologies.

The User

He might be a woodsman, a butcher, a chef, a militairy man or all of the above. But the User buys his knives to USE and will let everyone know. The knives in his collection will show patina (a light form of corrosion), sharpening marks and scratches.
These guys are often LOVED by knifemakers. They can tell a knifemaker how to improve his work in a functional manner. Some of these guys will buy VERY expensive knives and use them in the same way they'll use a $50 knife. Some of these guys don't know much about making knives, or steel chemistry or things like that. But they know what makes a knife work well. Some makers will even send these guys knives for virtually free just to get some valued feedback. (Or at cost of materials)

Don't be this guy.....just don't.
Source

And then there's the worst kind of collector (in my view)

The Fan-Boy
The Fan Boy is kind of like the One Pattern guy except that he's a complete fanatic. He devotion to a certain thing (brand, model, maker) is complete and blind. He's the kind of personality that you see on forums that, when someone has a complaint about a certain knife (like it broke or something), will be the first to accuse the owner of doing it wrong.
He's the person that, when someone complains about being ripped off by a maker, will say "Don't worry, he'll make it right", or "He's a great guy, he'd never do that" or "You must've been rude to him or he had a bad day or something".
Nothing you can say will dissuade the fanboy from his devotion. His object of adoration is flawless and anyone who refuses to see this is an idiot and not worthy of respect or decency.


Like I said though. We usually are a mix of all of the above. Be whatever kind of collector you want to be.....just don't.....DON'T be a fanboy. (Or girl)

Gratuitous picture of some knives I made..
also...buy my knives!

More knife myths: The strongest type of knife.

Recently I read a Blog about how to select the proper knife for survival. In this blog the writer (a self appointed expert) claims that the only type of knife that's suitable for survival situations is a FULL TANG knife. This is another one of those myths that probably started out as a strength test and then became gospel somehow.

First of all let's get into several construction types for knife handles. Basically there are two general types of handle construction method which have different variations and extra's that are possible.

First of all there's the Full Tang of which the construction looks like this:

As you can see, the full tang construction is fairly simple. (Actually all knife constructions are simple...they're knives, not diesel engines)

It's basically a slab of metal, the one end of the metal is ground (or forged) into the blade. The other end of the metal is drilled with a couple of holes (usually), and then slabs of handle material are placed on there with glue and pins. Sometimes bolsters are added, sometimes the tang is tapered, sometimes more holes are drilled for weight reduction. But the basis is simple. A piece of steel with two pieces of handle material.

Then there's the "Hidden Tang" which does exactly as it implies. It hides the piece of steel that is not the

blade. These also come in all sorts of variations. Some are mortised (which is like a cross between hidden tang and fulltand), some have a very narrow tang (rat tail tangs) others have a very wide tang. Some tangs run all the way through the handle to be fastened on the other end of the handle, others only run through partially to be pinned through the handle

Now the idea that most survivalists seem to hold (and a LOT of people really) is that a full tang is the only real way to go for a survival knife.
Granted...the full tang probably IS stronger. That means if you took two similarly shaped handles of similar sizes and put them through a torture test that was the same. The hidden tang knife would probably fail before the fulltang.

The question that needs to be asked though is....do you really need a strong handle? Is the handle the part of the blade that normally breaks? Let's have a look shall we? I googled "Broken knife" in google images and got a lot of results. You know what? I'd guess over 90% of those broken knives didn't break at the handle but at the blade. You see...at the blade the steel is ground thinner and so that's naturally going to be the weaker part. The handle, whether it be hidden or fulltang, usually leaves the tang at full thickness.

Even in those cases where a broken knife handle is visible around 30% of them are still full tang knives (I saw some VERY expensive heavy dute marketed knives among them) and MOST of the knives with broken handles were cheap ones that cost less than $40.

What were you planning to do in a survival situation that is going to break your knife?
Hidden tangs are plenty strong for pretty much any use that a knife should do. Want to see? Have a look. A couple of years back I made my biggest knife so far. A very large Bowie style knife. Once it was finished I decided that I wanted to play with it a little. We had an old coffee table that was going to be thrown away. So I chopped it up. Here's the result

You might notice, I'm not holding back there. Full force chops. The knife was still extremely solid, it was still sharp. And it was probably more comfortable than any fulltang knife I've ever held. (The advantage of hidden tang knives is that they don't transfer any vibrations or force directly to the hand.

So, what's stronger? Probably a fulltang. What do I like more? Hidden tangs both because of looks, functionality and the fact that they're plenty strong to do pretty much anything with that I'd ever need to do.

Which reminds me....I should get to making another bowie knife....just because it's fun :-)

Local Knife Laws and Myths

In the time that I've been making knives I see all sorts of mis-information come by.

The one that has the LEAST basis in truth that I can see come by on a regular basis is about what's legal to carry and what isn't. Let me give you an example by the rumors that seem to go around in the place where I live.

In case you didn't know I live in the Netherlands. (Not Holland, the Netherlands, here's a video about the difference: 

Now as you might suspect I tend to carry a knife. Lately I've been carrying a knife I made myself, this one:

The blade is stainless steel (Niolox) with a spalted sycamore handle on it.

It's not very big, it has a 3" blade (7,5cm) and is perfect for small jobs that I might encounter like opening packages, assisting the the flailing of an orange, or de-animating potatoes into edible chunks.

When I'm at work I usually carry the entire thing with sheath in my pocket and sometimes it just lays on my desk. (I work in an office for my daytime job)

When I'm not at the office I usually simply carry it on my belt. 

On a regular basis someone will point it out and ask me: "Is that even legal?" probably because they're not used to people carrying a fixed blade instead of a folding knife.

"Also, if you have a forked stick
 you can always easily find water"
Clueless Scoutmasters across the world.

Very often when that happens someone helpfull in the area will chime in and tell them: "Well as long as the blade isn't longer than your hand is wide it's perfectly legal" which is probably what they've been told by their fathers, or uncles or scout master or something.

Now I can understand where someone would tell this to a young boy just to give him a small guideline on what's acceptable. However....

Do we really think that actual laws work like that? Let's think about that for a moment.. This would mean that someone with small hands like my wife (who's the perfect cuddle size, Love you dear) could carry maybe a 2,5 inch (6cm) blade on her person while my cousin Matthias Heinrichs who is around 7 feet tall could carry something with a MUCH bigger blade.

Also, imagine the conversation that a cop would have with you while checking if your knife was too big or small enough:

Cop: Is that a knife I see in your pocket/on your belt? (this can happen when you carry a knife with a clip)

You know what they say about cops with small hands right?
The get to carry only small knives.....
I wonder if that counts for guns too?

Detained citizen: Yes sir/mam it is.

Cop: Can I see it please?

Detained Citizen, knowing that the knife was smaller than his hand: Yes sir (and hands it over to the officer)

Cop, holding the knife across the palm to check for length: Well sir it seems we're having a problem, this knife it too large

Citizen: Well sir it's small enough for my hand. So it should be ok right?

Cop: Well it's too big for mine. So I'm affraid I'm going to have to take it and give you a ticket for illegal weapons carry.

You see how that wouldn't work right?

So the law has to be written in such a way (it should be anyway) that an impartial person can measure what's legal or not. A certain amount of inches overall, a certain width, a certain bladelength etc. That's what you need. And in most cases that's exactly what's on the books.

I'd recommend you check your local laws, even with some of them you might be carrying something that's not allowed and you don't even know it.

On the other hand, you might be entitled to carry more according to the law and not even know it.

Local laws differ a LOT from Country to Country and sometimes even from province to province, State to State or City to City. If you're going to carry a knife, be responsible about it and know what you're allowed.

"You mean there's
an actuall written law f
or that stuff?

Lastly, don't assume that a police officer knows what's legal, he or she might have been raised on the same nonsense that we were. If you encounter one who doesn't know the local laws, comply with what they ask. But ALWAYS make sure there's a paper trail. If they keep insisting that they have to take your knife make sure you get a reciept. That way you can prove which officer it was. And if the knife were to disappear in the legal system you know who's accountable for it.

In closing here's some local laws that I know of. Starting with the one in the Netherlands:

Our local laws can be found in the Law for Weapons and Ammo which can be found here: http://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0032774/volledig/geldigheidsdatum_06-05-2014 (sorry, no english version available)

The Netherlands

Losely interpreted our Dutch laws are as follows:

No Automatics (Stiletto's), No Balisongs (Butterfly knives), No knives that were made explicitly for stabbing (long thin double edged blades),

No folding knives that are more than 28cm opened.

No Swords (There is no definition about when a knife becomes a sword)

No knives that have a full handguard/knuckleduster

No objects that make it so that it's assumed that you're carrying them for use as a weapon. (This effectively means that if you have a screwdriver or ballpoint pen in your pocket while clubbing it could be classed as an illegal weapon.

This also means that it would be perfectly legal to carry a machete when camping or working in the yard, but 100% illegal when shopping for groceries

There's a few more laws concerning other weapons but these are the ones on the books as pertaining to knives.

Make sure you know about your local city. I know that a few of the bigger cities have local laws that make it illegal to carry anything. (I'm looking at you amsterdam)

In England you can only carry a folding knife with a blade shorter than 3" that doesn't lock without a legally valid reason. This means that you COULD carry something locking and bigger or a fixed blade when camping/hunting/working in the yard etc (all valid reasons).

But without a legally valid reason

In Germany a folding knife can lock or be opened one handed. This means that the classic Buck 110 knife is legal while the much smaller Spyderco Dragonfly isn't. 

Fixed blades are in almost all cases legal.

The "Valid legal reason" rule also applies there. A one hand locking knife while hunting is perfectly legal for instance.

For more information a good place to start is this Wikipedia Page and Google, offcourse, is your friend as well. If you can't find anything usefull about your area you might want to check out www.Bladeforums.com, www.Iknifecollector.com or one of the many MANY other knife related communities and ask a question there. There are so many collectors and knife lovers across the world that chances are someone might be able to help you.

The customer is always right......or isn't he?

You might remember from the previous blog where I was making a leather handles knife with Tagua nut pommel and guard.

Well the other day he called me up to tell me that he was liking the knife as it was coming along (I send pictures of the progress to customers who give me an order).

He was worried about the pommel though. You see, it was attatched nicely. But instead of polishing the whole thing white....I decided to go with a more "natural look" where I left some of the skin on the outside. It looked like this:

You see the brown end on it? Well, I'd polished that out very nicely and it looked great.

However it wasn't to his taste. So I assured him that I could still change that no problem. I did and it now looks like this:

which should be more to his liking.

For me however I seriously had to debate  about whether I was willing to do that. I realised that sometimes....even if you believe the customer is wrong....he's still sort of right.

As long as you'd still be willing to have your name on a piece because it is a good piece. It doesn't really matter that it's not completely to your taste.

Sometimes...we just have to put up with small things that we don't like 100%.....and that's ok.

In this case. I made something that I'm proud of, that the customer is happy with and that makes me happy as a maker even if it's not 100% what I'd have made for myself.