The Promised Post - Knives
April 5, 2008 by Lemur King
Some love guns (I do), some love Afghan Hounds (I don’t), some love fine cheeses (I do), some love shows about interior decorating (I don’t) and some love knives and swords (I do I do I do). You’ll probably notice at some point that I love the tanto style blade. Not apologetic for this at all, just stating that up front.
Today I’ll look mainly at a few knives from CRKT
I found a nifty one today - the Lumabiner. The Lumabiner
Several things are appealing here. It clips on a belt loop. I keep my cellphone on a belt loop, my keys are on a belt loop, my Thermos™ coffee cup on a carabiner. Hell, I’m one step away from needing a Bat-Utility-Belt. The point for me is to not need to shove everything into a pocket. If I did that, it’d look and sound like I had a pair of armored rabid squirrels in each pocket as I tried to walk
I own one of their knives already, from the M16-10K series. You look at it and go “that’s pretty gimmicky, with all the holes and whatnot.” Well, firstly it is lighter, and secondly (more important to me) is that it is a pretty solid knife in that it doesn’t twist or slip out of your hands easily. According to my wife I’m the original Clutz™ (Klutz™ has been taken by the jewish folks already - wonderful word they got there) and this has somewhat confirmed by a friend and fellow blogger Enas Yorl, although he does reckon that the universe has had it out for me recently. Anyway a knife that doesn’t turn in your hands is a good thing. The knife I have is the M16® EDC. 
One that I’m interested in is the Razel™ SS7
It is a BIG bastard but it looks like you could use it to hack through the car door next time you lock your keys inside your convertible - it’s good for those “the top is down and a rainstorm is coming” kind of emergencies.
My head is killing me. I’ll update this post later. Bye for now.
- LK
Oh! I like the Razel. I think that would be very handy.
My current favorite knife is a Laguiole. I bought it for my birthday last year. I know, I know…French. But they’re very prettily made. And they make them to order.
Wow, looking at the web site…they’ve really gone up since then. I mean, they’ve always had some very expensive knives, but they had some less expensive ones, too.
Pretty blade
A german friend of mine showed me a knife of his that was very similar - he insisted that it was a knife that came to be used because it was excellent for cutting cheese. Wow, the Laguiole knives are expensive. As you say, there’s some art there, too.
But, on the other hand, expense should be secondary to a degree - Matthias (german friend) rubbed off on me in one very important way… better to have fewer very high quality possessions than many lower quality ones. There’s something to be said for that. It’d mean I’d be surrounded by a lot less cheap plastic shi… uh, stuff.
Eh. Your blog. Cuss if you want to.
I go with the fewer, nicer things philosophy, too. At least about things that matter. A pocket knife is something you handle every day. If it’s a really lovely one, you think, “how nice!” every time you use it.
I think it might be the weak dollar, come to think of it. I paid around $65 for my Laguiole last year, which I thought was a good price for a made-to-order knife. Now there’s nothing there for less than $200.
My daughter can’t read (yet) but I’m trying to minimize it everywhere. I’m a far cry from where I used to be (sailors cringed on occasion) but you get the idea. I don’t want my princess needin’ a swab-out with soap because of potty-talk.
I think I’ll wait a bit for the dollar and the euro to equilibrate a bit.
If you have a moment to flesh out (don’t kill yourself) what you mean by “made to order”… I’m curious.
Another area where I think quality definitely pays off and here I will have to wait as well, is in the area of fountain pens. While they may be considered an antiquated affectation, I’ve found that for sketching and writing notes, there isn’t a ballpoint that can come close to the smoothness of writing. But the cost goes as high as the sky. $89 for no-frills but decent quality and if you are into calligraphy, into the hundreds and thousands (esp. for the really nice Japanese models).
Ooo knives! I love the sharp stuff too. In fact, I was the one that introduced Weasel to that laguiole site. They don’t keep a stockpile of that stuff on hand LK. They make the knife after you order it. Weasel, correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t it take a month to six weeks before you got your knife after you ordered it?
I’ve always wanted a damascus steel knife, but I could never justify the expense for one.
Yep. You order it, then they make it.
I lusted after the Damascus blades, too. There were some neat new knives on the site this time, as well. But I don’t have the hundreds to drop on one.
C’mon, dollar. You’re letting a Weasel down…