Don't know about you, but in my top-drawer collection, there are lots of shiny, gorgeous, brilliantly designed knives. Sypderco, Cold Steel, SOG, all functional works of art, clean, razor sharp, and ready for the next expedition to Everest.

And then, bottom drawer, there's the "Dirty Harry" series -- they always get the s@$% end of the stick. Otherwise known as "shop knives" around here.

They get the cruddy, greasy, edge-mangling, finish-dissolving tasks. Scraping parts, cutting sod, cleaning oily crud out of crevices, spreading or scraping glue and silicone, and cutting things that ought not be cut with a blade (like metal strapping). Sometimes sharpened with a stone, sometimes dragged through a pull-type sharpener, sometimes abused with a file. Knives that do the lousy jobs and get burned up pretty fast.

(My current set includes a Gerber Paraframe that I got for $15, some retired/broken fixed-blade hunting knives, a $5 Husky folder from Home Depot, a couple of Chinese 440 lockback folders ... etc.)

So, knife users, tell me about your "Dirty Harry" knives -- the models you use, what you do to them, and what you expect of them.