Do you cringe when a knife is "abused"?

The other day we had hay delivered in a dump trailer. As he was closing the trailer gates the hay guy pulls out his locking folder (I didn't catch the model) and uses it to chip accumulated ice out of the latch mechanism.

When my wife and I finished putting the hay away and were back in the house, my wife turned to me with a smile and said "You were cringing when he used the knife to clear the ice, weren't you?"

YES I WAS!!! I was dying!

Does anyone else do that?

I think if I carried two knives - one for "abuse" and another for "non-abuse", I could live with it.

I once bought a dirt cheap fixed blade knife to dig plants out out of the rocky ground during a college botany class. I beat the crap out of that knife and was amazed how well it tolerated the abuse and stayed sharp. Ten years later I realized that was a stainless steel Mora knife.

There are people that manage to snap the tip off a swiss army knife blade.

It's like the whole point of having a SAK is it has a flat screwdriver/bottle opener for the prying tasks exactly to protect against knife abuse.

I just stumbled across this Horace Kephart quote:

"Knicks and dull edges are abominations, so use knives and hatchets for nothing but what they were made for."

That makes me feel better.

P.S. I asked Santa for the Becker Knife & Tool BK62 Kephart knife and Kephart's Camping & Woodcraft book. The older I get the more interested I become in learning about ye olde ways.

On the one hand it does make me wince but I also accept that it's not my knife. If someone borrows my knife and does that they're likely to get backhanded! But if they want to trash their own stuff that's their business.

I remember once when I was standing next to someone who was trying to get a screw in a light switch cover plate out with his knife. He looked at me and asked if I had a knife with a smaller blade. My answer was a resounding "No!" ... even though I had at least two in my pockets at the time.

And a few months ago my sister was visiting, and one of her friends joined us for a day out. Starting our hike in a local park, that friend noticed a tree where a bunch of idiots had carved their initials into the bark. She asked if I had a knife that she could use. My answer was "no". She thought that meant I didn't have a knife. It actually meant she couldn't use it.

Yes, I cringe at abuse. But abuse is also field testing, proof that the tool is fit for purpose.

I also cringe at shelf queens that are shiny and scratch-free and untested in the field. They look so pretty. Can they do real work?

I have a bunch of 30 year old blue handled Moras, worn down to 40% of the original blade size, that have endured young nephews and decades of abuse on my acreage and in my gardens.

In a spam-hits-fan situation, what tool would I reach for? The beater Moras or the shelf queens?

I don't really care how people use their tools. As long as it's not a safety issue, as I don't spending much time patching people up.

Before i borrow things to other, i'll ask their intend. Depending on the answer, they will get the correct tool for the job or a no. Or in some cases i fix it for them.

It annoys me more when the knife doesn't stand up to the abuse, particularly if it was an expensive one.

This.

It's a tool. Use it.

I pull things with my truck (it's not a tractor), I check reflexes with my stethoscope (not a reflex hammer), I've hammered with pliers.

It's a tool.

I would say the caveat should be, "Use it" ... "for its intended use". I can't blame a knife, even an expensive one, for breaking if someone is trying to use it as a prybar or a screwdriver. I can't blame a pair of pliers for breaking when someone is using them for a hammer.

This! Don´t use a knife for anything else but cutting.Or if you do don´t expect it to hold up.

I carry an Ontario SP2 Pilot Survival knife when hiking and backpacking. While it's kind of heavy for those situations I use it as my cathole digger as well as a survival knife/mountain lion defense tool.

Yes, digging with it can be considered as abuse but... it's not expensive and the 20-year usage hasn't really damaged it in ways that couldn't be fixed with some time on a diamond stone. (I carry a small diamond rod in my pack to use when needed or when waiting out a rainstorm.) The paint is missing toward the point but the edge has been restored to very, very sharp.

It's a tool. I have many other much prettier knives that don't get out in the sunshine much.

"Abuse" would depend heavily upon the circumstances, the situation, and reasonable alternatives.....

It’s rare but there have been a couple occasions where I decided to never lend someone a blade again. Most memorably a knucklehead decided to dig out a screw head from a 4x4 post with a very sharp slicing blade.

Absolutely. I make knives and I do cringe when I see things like that.

I once had a cheap S&W HRT clipped to my pocket. Some guys had locked themselves out of their car and asked to borrow it. I said no. I was carrying a fixed blade I had made but I wasn't about to let them destroy my $13 work folder.

I am a knife USER, not collector. So, I mostly buy cheaper knives and just use them as circumstances dictate. They aren't even sharp enough to be classified as knives LOL, rather they resemble "sharpened prybars". Mostly used for prying, scraping ..etc. So I don't worry too much if they get scratched or even bent. Only once I got a multitool broken, and one knife tip broken off.

Even so, I don't like telling everyone that I carry a knife or multitool. Most of them do not qualify as "tool buddy".

So wy not buy a miniture prybar and use that instead and leave the knife for cutting tasks?

I do have two mini bars, but they sit in toolboxes, not in my pocket. A knife is always what I have on me, so I use it. After so many years of using tools and stuff, I figured that what I need is a knife that can do all jobs. So, a cheap, dull knife seems to suit my needs.

In the few times that I needed a razor-like sharp knife, there is a light utility or xacto knife in my bag. But that is about 1% of the time only. The dull knife does 99% of work.

One time I used the tip of the blade (part of the blade nearest to the knife tip) as a fine screwdriver to fix my wife's glasses. On another occasion, I saw an open telephone cabinet in the street and the door handle was broken, so I used the spine of my pocket knife as the tip of a large screwdriver to turn the remaining part to close the door.

Seems to me the pocket knife is more versatile than a mini bar, and will be in your pocket when you need it.

My point was that one should carry both, not one or the other.

I can see your point but it seems more logical to carry stuff that you have been using more often. A knife seems more suitable for most jobs in my case.

In addition, my mini bars are not (almost-straight) type, rather they are L shaped. So they are not easy to carry in the pocket. They also may tear the pocket unless put in a suitable sheath. A folding knife is smaller and will not tear anything when folded.

The mini bars sit there in the toolbox, but I've never seen a situation where they are 'the best tool' for the job. And while we are at it, here is my favourite list of tools in order of usage frequency

- Folding Knife
- Double headed screwdriver (slotted + phillips)
- Long nose pliers (multitool)
- 'short nose' pliers, or slip joint pliers

Slotted screwdriver is not needed frequently for screws, but is useful for other jobs as well. It is used sometimes for prying or scraping (almost as you would use a mini bar)