Knife Manufacturer Marketing Runs with Open Blade

Pocket knives are a strange indicator of market and manufacturer not seeing eye to eye. I recently went looking for a couple good knives for carving. It seems odd that so many modern knives are so focused on what looks cool that the poor Boy Scout or average guy can't get what they really want without pouring over info to try to self educate.

The biggest issue I can think of is metal selection. Many manufacturers and vendors will share that their blade is made of Stainless Steel (SS) but won't tell you much more. The different types of SS make for very different blades. I'm noticing that kids who buy knives are almost always sucked into an SS blade without knowing of different options. And, different types of SS make for different sharpening, edge quality, and edge retention properties. The fact is that SS is a real pain to get a good edge on. No wonder kids don't end up liking carving.

Where, oh where, are the old-school high-carbon-steel blades? They are so easy to sharpen. And, when sharp, a good knife can make carving such a pleasure. If you get agressive about searching for carbon-steel blades online you'll begin to find bits and pieces of information. CASE XX, Opinel, Gerber, Schrade and a few others still make carbon-steel blades. As with SS blades, there are many different qualities and types of carbon-steel. I can't begin to pretend to know all that stuff but I can tell you that it can make a big difference in your carving experience. Also, the metal should completely influence your decisions regarding sharpening methods and materials.

Keep in mind that I'm searching for carving knives. It is not typical to find pocket knives that are for this purpose. Usually, serious carvers are focused on a set of fixed-blade specialty tools (gouges, knives, files, etc) that have short blades and large handles. There are very few great folding-blade options for carvers.

So, what did I find? First, Opinel makes a very inexpensive line of locking, carbon-steel, knives. Second, Oar Carver makes a pocket knife that is more standard but has blades that are shorter and shaped specifically for carving. There are a couple more cool ones out there specifically for carving but they are over $100. And, CASE XX makes a bunch of pocket knives that have carbon-steel blades (even locking blades) that can be used for carving.

Here's all the must haves I considered: price, carbon steel blade, locking blade, folding blade, short enough blade to be reasonable for carving. With all the options out there, it's tough to beat the Opinel for cost/benefit. By the way, I found some cool safety gear including a glove for the non-knife hand and a thumb guard for carving blade to thumb. There are some good things out there.

I wonder when manufacturers will start thinking about practicality and most common use? If I was a knife manufacturer, I'd make a knife with 1 or 2 blades, shortened for carving, with blades that fold, lock and are made of carbon-steel. I'd include a thumb guard, an appropriate sharpening tool for the blade type, and a few chunks of bass wood. Can it be that simple? Uh, yeah.