So cut it up beforehand using one of the many knives that are usually kept in a kitchen?

Nah, that would spoil the magic.

Not sure Camembert or Brie slice well either.

I own several replica medieval knives.

A bollock dagger, which was the standard sidearm/utility tool of the common man.
A misericord, which was a knife designed for giving the coup-de-grace to wounded friends and foes.
A triple-edged rondel dagger, which was a type of sidearm carried exclusively by the professional military classes and designed to puncture maille armour and deliver a huge hole and a near instant kill.
Also several other general purpose medieval knives.
All are sharp, all are lethal and the three named are pretty much designed purely for killing people.

No, i don’t carry them around & even when doing the medieval shows they are for demonstration purposes only. The Rondel cost me £150 to have made and is unique to me.

Who else googled “bollock dagger”

Every day’s a schoolday.

the guard is shaped like a set of bollocks – medieval people had an earthy sense of humour!

I think it’s a weird old person thing. Nobody I know carries a knife or multi-tool, other than the bikey kind of multi-tool.

I’ve carried one since I was around eight or nine, even used to take it to school; I could sharpen a pencil better than with a pencil-sharpener.
And _tom_, do you ever go further than your front garden? There are a great many things these days that come sealed in thick plastic that cannot be opened without something sharp, like memory cards, as just one example. I’d seriously like to see you buy one then try to open the packaging with your teeth!
Over the years I’ve lost count of the times I’ve heard someone say, ‘anyone got a knife I can borrow?’, then heard ‘ask Ade, he’s always got one on him!’
See, everyone has a use for one away from a house, they just can’t be arsed to carry their own.
I’m also starting to make myself walking sticks as a hobby, and a decent sharp knife is really handy for trimming off the small branches or thorns after cutting the basic stick; try carrying a four-foot length of blackthorn sometime, without trimming it off.
Even a broken fingernail becomes a pain if you can’t trim back the sharp edges…

I’d seriously like to see you buy one then try to open the packaging with your teeth!

No, I’d use a pair of scissors like a normal person.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTNw7xh-egs[/video]

A pair of scissors is far more practical for opening that stupid sealed packaging. Doesn’t give you an erection though.

I have a bollock dagger for that DD! 🙂

I have you for that mudders 😀

I use this for a general knife in camelbak.

For field archery a small swiss army knife and a screwdriver for prying arrows out of timber. Also just as useful for stabbing duties.

Does not happen that much as I never miss (drop) 😉

I used to fish a lot,and carried a Mora knife,similar to this

,for cutting up bait,cutting line,and whittling,I found it very useful.

Without a knife how would i Grolloch a deer or paunch a rabbit? Punch its intestines out?

I’ve got 5 or 6 knives, all got various uses, opinel no.8 is usually in my pocket when I’m out around the garden or helping girlfriend or friends doing a bit of farming or buggering about. I have a skinning knife, a couple of bigger drop points I’ve been given, a pruning knife, plus a leatherman that I always take biking or on walking/outdoors trips. I always have a knife in the glovebox, but I’m careful not to carry one on me at work or when going out and about in town.

A (farmer’s son) friend of mine spent a night in the cells in Oxford a few years ago as a result of leaving his pen knife in his pocket accidentally & a nightclub pat-down. Got a caution & they confiscated his knife, lesson learned.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/diy/knife-making-zb0z1309ztri.aspx#axzz2n7U9Libh

For anyone who fancies a DIY go. My next projext

How has this thread gone so far without saying this

“Guns for show, knifes for a pro !”

Really !

Cos we all knew the plural of knife is knives?

Wysiwig… I did one of those, and it was great but didn’t temper it properly and it eventually broke. Made a couple of nice mini throwing knives after tho….

The people I work with used to question why I had a small pocket knife almost all the time until I pointed out how often they ask to borrow it.

I’d rather use a good pocket knife than a stanly knife
And nothing beats a sitting out with the bike in the hedge cutting up lunch mid ride

sharkbait – Member

why do people have/keep/collect knives?

Food preparation and hobby. For the former I normally used Japanese/Chinese/Thai knives, while the latter I simply collect knives for maggot zombies dooms day scenario. My next buys will be Fujiwara Deba (will order from Japan soon) and Cold Steel Kukri …

I live in the country and do lots of outside pursuits but have never felt the need to keep a knife (other than a stanley knife in my tool box), let alone knives of varying sizes.

The place where I grew up I used to carry ‘parang’ (machete) for outdoor pursuits and Stanley knife just won’t do it an equatorial rain forest (the mosquito would laugh at you). You will be digested by the forest if you only have Stanley knife in an emergency. Now, living in GeordieLand I feel naked without a parang but then there is nothing to chop as there is no forest but some zombies …

What do these people do with them?

The chef knives are mainly used for food preparation (just bought a chopping board yesterday from a Chinese supermarket), as I enjoy cooking with good knives. All my knives are extremely sharp so cutting up meat or veg or chop through bones are done with ease. A blunt knife can be dangerous.

As for wanting to buy a Cold Steel Kukri that’s because I grew up with parang/machete (I was carrying it around when I was 9 yr old – blade length was about 24 inches) and my instinct is I want one just for emergency hacking … I am particularly fond of the story of the Gurka using his Kukri to lop off the enemy’s head off with a single swift lop. I think the enemy was sticking his head out of the window and the Gurka was already there waiting. The rest of his Gurka colleagues saw it and they had a quite laugh because they found his action rather funny.

😀

p/s: this one …

and this one … a cheapo version but rather good.

If you like knives, you’ve got to keep them sharp, so any advice out there? For stainless kitchen knives & carbon steel folding knives? Cheapest option best – whetstone, but never mastered a good technique, or keeping an edge long term.

Core… waterstone and a ceramic steel for chefs knives. Waterstone and diamond steel for everything else. And its all about practice to get a proper edge.

Opinel no.8, in fact I’ve just bought another because my wife claimed the last one. Useful on picnics and such and I would carry it daily to eat my lunch but reluctantly abide by bloody silly rules.

A couple of different grade diamond steels seem to do a reasonable job on all our knifes, chisels even finished an axe of with them.

A (farmer’s son) friend of mine spent a night in the cells in Oxford a few years ago as a result of leaving his pen knife in his pocket accidentally & a nightclub pat-down. Got a caution & they confiscated his knife, lesson learned.

I know of a few Young Farmers & they always go clubbing in their work clothes, or go to work in their clubbing gear, can’t remember which it is.

When I go sea fishing I carry two knives, a bait knife like the one shown above, & a Finnish made filleting knife which is as sharp as a razor with an 8″ blade. So don’t piss me off when I’m fishin!

I grew up in the country on a farm, I reckon mad dad has carried a knife with him at home for close to 50 years and never managed to stab anyone.

I had a couple when I was on the farm.

Now I have a couple of Opinels (one big one small) a couple of swiss army ones and a small lock knife for climbing emergencies.

The climbing knife is an essential piece of safety equipment, having had to cut a rope against a rock edge while precariously balanced halfway up a very big mountain, I never forget the knife now.
I prefer to take the opinels out when we are doing food in the outdoors as they can be locked away safely when not in use and not remove your fingers when your looking for them. Great knives, like most things it’s not the knife thats the problem it’s the user.

I’ve got to 38 years, and spent a wee bit of it in the outdoors, and I’ve never felt the need to carry a knife. I feel so inadequate now, reading this.

I’m not against knife carrying per se, not at all, but I have never really heard an argument that justifies carrying one?

Chopping an apple or cutting cheese? Really? Do these people not have teeth?.

Educate me please.

Chopping this up

Nobeerinthefridge yesterday

Nobeerintheinthefridge how do you cut up your tea? When you are camping?
Or cut a cord? Suppose you split a tyre how do you cut something to size to patch it? Or indeed how do you open a bottle of beer?

Swiss Army knife (Victorinox) – lives in my work bag most of the time. Often used, though given I’m desk-bound, I do get the odd funny look.

Opinel 7 – bought in France. Some as the one I used loads as a lad.

Trevor Ablett pocket knife – bought for me by my FIL as he knew how much I liked the idea of knives still being handmade in Sheffield.

My god – I sound like a knife collector 🙄

Nobeer – I reckon that you can tell a true country boy from the way they’re always looking for the perfect stick!

And thats why they’ve always got a knife in their pocket!

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=2Bl1HQg7aCo#t=601[/video]

(fast forward to 10 minutes in)

Surprised nobody has linked to british blades, great site for knifemaking. I’ve carried a simple Swiss Army knife everyday for the past ten years or so, if I leave home without it has the same feeling like you’ve forgotten your mobile phone. I’m a spark so if I don’t have snips I can use it to cut a bit of cable, open boxes or packaging, Put batteries into the child’s Christmas toys, open a beer, remove a splinter.
I don’t like using it for food prep or gutting animals as there’s places for nasties to hide so I have a few fixed blade knives for that sort of thing but as someone else said they’ve never been used as a weapon or designed to be used as one and never hurt anything that wasn’t already dead. I have a sog powerlock somewhere and it is a great multitool but a crap knife.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W09ghiWskUk[/video]

When I was a boy I had a Swiss Army knife. I didn’t kill anyone, but then again all I used it for was sharpening sticks for pointless reasons as you do being a kid. Now I am grown up I really do not ever come across a situation where I really wish I had a knife, apart from in the kitchen. I do have a Stanley knife too for DIY stuff that stays in a tool box, and a pencil sharpener for sharpening pencils.

The only thing I use a stanly knife for these days is scoring pork skin for good crackling 🙂

It’s all about the right tool for the job.
The small ones of these are great for outdoor cooking stuff, is it fine for me to carry these around?

A ball of baling twine and a opinel knife were the first free tools giving to me on the first day of my first job.

Folding that knife after use was always something you took your time and respect with.

After using it daily for nearly 20+ years, I managed to snap the blade trying to lever a tiny washer off a tractor, was so gutted back then.

The blade was completely worn, the handle still smooth to the touch, the locking ring seized up many years before with gunk, but it was funny for the next few weeks how I went round patting my left pocket, not to feel it there, whenever I needed to use it.

I have seen farmers with pocket knives that have been passed down from their parents, treat them like their most treasured possession…

I have an opinel, which I’d take camping, just not for everyday life. Each to their own I suppose.

Does anyone have an EDC kit? Got a bag in the car with knife, MT, first aid kit and mask, couple of torches and spare batteries, paracord, fire lighter, glow sticks. Perhaps not so important in the UK but here in Oz you can be miles from anywhere and better to be prepared.

Perhaps not so important in the UK but here in Oz you can be miles from anywhere and better to be prepared.

I know sometimes you can be at least a mile away from a cold beer or a good Shiraz 🙂
Most people in Oz still live in cities or towns on tarmac roads.

Prepare when you need it but most will never be far enough out to.