All About Pocket Knives

Boy's Life has published a knife safety quiz for youth to take and learn more about knife safety ..... maybe you can use this to open a dialogue with a child or grandchild of yours about how a dangerous tool in the right hands can be quite valuable. https://boyslife.org/quizzes/151313/knife-safety-quiz/

Cool!! I turn 73 tomorrow and still have my "Totin' Chip" from my BSA days. Only two corners ripped off or infractions. Four corners and you lost your chip and the right to carry fixed blades and hatchets in camp.

How about a pic of the "Totin Chip"?

Ken

Well only being a Cub Scout for a short time, till I was old enough to join the 4-H club in 1956, I didn't receive an proper training in knife handling. All this to say I missed question #2. My question about #2's proper answer is, how do you use or clean a knife with it closed? Am I reading this wrong or reading more into it? What am overlooking here? The other questions made sense except maybe the one about what angle should a blade be sharpened.
Treefarmer

petesknives wrote: ↑Fri Jul 10, 2020 6:26 pm How about a pic of the "Totin Chip"?

Ken

I live in my family house and there are drawers and drawers full of old family photos and papers. I went to where I thought the chip was but it wasn't there, will look more tomorrow. I did find my mother's den mother card though and had been sure the totin chip was in the same drawer which it wasn't.
Dang, I'm gettin' old!! I joined the cubs at nine, loved the BSA until I went off to college.

treefarmer wrote: ↑Fri Jul 10, 2020 8:10 pm Well only being a Cub Scout for a short time, till I was old enough to join the 4-H club in 1956, I didn't receive an proper training in knife handling. All this to say I missed question #2. My question about #2's proper answer is, how do you use or clean a knife with it closed? Am I reading this wrong or reading more into it? What am overlooking here? The other questions made sense except maybe the one about what angle should a blade be sharpened.
Treefarmer

Yeah TF, I missed that one also.
How do you use a knife or clean a knife if it's closed?

edge213 wrote: ↑Fri Jul 10, 2020 9:59 pm

treefarmer wrote: ↑Fri Jul 10, 2020 8:10 pm Well only being a Cub Scout for a short time, till I was old enough to join the 4-H club in 1956, I didn't receive an proper training in knife handling. All this to say I missed question #2. My question about #2's proper answer is, how do you use or clean a knife with it closed? Am I reading this wrong or reading more into it? What am overlooking here? The other questions made sense except maybe the one about what angle should a blade be sharpened.
Treefarmer

Yeah TF, I missed that one also.
How do you use a knife or clean a knife if it's closed?

Missed that one too. Weird question.

Ken

petesknives wrote: ↑Fri Jul 10, 2020 10:22 pm

edge213 wrote: ↑Fri Jul 10, 2020 9:59 pm

treefarmer wrote: ↑Fri Jul 10, 2020 8:10 pm Well only being a Cub Scout for a short time, till I was old enough to join the 4-H club in 1956, I didn't receive an proper training in knife handling. All this to say I missed question #2. My question about #2's proper answer is, how do you use or clean a knife with it closed? Am I reading this wrong or reading more into it? What am overlooking here? The other questions made sense except maybe the one about what angle should a blade be sharpened.
Treefarmer

Yeah TF, I missed that one also.
How do you use a knife or clean a knife if it's closed?

Missed that one too. Weird question.

Ken

It was a three part question you should never hand some a open knife,they were being a little tricky.

There are some old SAK knives with a master blade that has a rounded tip, like a butter knife. These have no blade with a pointed tip. They are good for younger children as this age group like to hold the knife and wave it around in the air, unaware of who might be standing close by. These rounded tip blades have sharp edges and are great for spreading peanut butter at a picnic.
kj

Getting my Totin' Chip was hard. I had to un-learn a lot of stuff my Granddad taught me. And, at the time, my folks mostly bought me lockbacks, and I had the stupid habit of not putting my finger on the spine. Thus, slipjoint blades snapped shut on me until the day my Scout leader taught me what not to do. When I got back into knives, and started collecting seriously at 17 or so, I only bought slipjoints. Half-stops are a wonderful thing. Lock-like function, and no lock to release. Part of the reason I love the TL-29.


Is pounding a blade with a hammer is a good way to sharpen it? I know people say this about scythes, but even then, it sounded stupid. And I never heard that until I got into fixing up the old field scythes that have been in my family for four or five generations. I have a specialized stone, and the steel is soft enough to remove dinging with a file.

I do close my blade, or return it to the sheath (if fixed blade) when I'm carrying a knife or say, between feed sacks when carrying them out of the truck, and into the feedbox in the barn. But, cleaning it? How the heck do you do that? It's impossible to get into the blade well. Passing it to somone else. Here in my area, it's apparently a superstition that it's bad luck to close a knife before handing it back to the owner. My view is that you ALWAYS close a blade before handing it to someone else.e

Saying "Thank you" after someone hands you a knife. I got that one right because that's what I learned when I got my Totin' Chip.

The blade of a knife can be used as a prying tool. Bad idea, period. But, why are so many knives designed with it in mind? You see it in the Becker BK-3, and the tip being able to withstand 200 pounds of force is a requirement for the ASEK/Pilot's Survival Knife.

Blade should be sharpened at 25 degrees. Most knives, yeah, they're happy with it. It depends on the thickness of the blade, and what you're using it for. I usually sharpen my Kabar at a little bit more of an angle than that because it's used for the heavy stuff. All my kitchen knives, a little less than that (15-20), except for the butcher knife that is used to hack frozen food. Penknives and other small patterns with thin blades, again, something like a 15-20" angle.


The only one I got wrong--"Blade should always be closed with your palm, not fingers" I really didn't understand that one at all. I hold the knife in my hand when I close it, but use my fingers; unless it's a lockblade other than an AXIS lock, as I am left-handed, and often have to brace the spine of the blade against my leg to release the lock.

By closing with your palm, your fingers are extended and therefore out of the way of the blade as it closes.
kj

This picture shows the knife closing method taught to Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts.
Cub Scouts age 9 and up are taught knife safety and use, as part of the Whittlin’ Chip requirements. They are taught basic knife safety and have to carve (whittle) an object. Usually they are started with whittling on a bar of soap first.

The Scouts BSA Totin’ Chip requirements are much more thorough and include ax and saw safety and use in addition to knives. Scouts must earn their Totin’ Chip before being allowed to carry and use knives, saws or axes on Scout outings and activities. We usually taught Totin’ Chip during a camp out because we typically sat up an ax yard as part of our campsite. There are always younger scouts around so even if we didn’t plan to cut any wood, we roped off an area as an ax yard for teaching purposes and as a reminder about knife safety. The older scouts did a good job of setting a good example and often we had one of the senior scouts teach the younger ones.

Ken