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About a month ago I spent the day delivering hay and then helped put a canopy back on a tractor that had to be split and have a hydraulic pump replaced. When I got home, the hand made fixed blade I keep clipped to my carharts was gone. I asked my buddy if he'd seen it in his shop and he said no so I figured somebody at the race track got a nice bonus with a bale of hay. I was kind of pissed, never lost a knife like that before.
So I dug out an old titanium handled frame lock I made about 10 years ago and started carrying it again. Went out on hay deliveries a couple days later, and got home with no knife. That one meant a lot more to me than the fixed blade and I was really mad.
I decided I'd have to buy something to carry for work until I could get time in the shop to make another knife. I have lots of other knives but nothing I wanted to risk losing with the streak I was on.
I went to rivers edge cutlery and they had an ontario rat 1 that I liked pretty well but only in AUS8 and I really wanted D2. Nothing else in the store under $75 really interested me. I got online and looked around a bit and ended up buying a Kershaw Highball XL.
The highball is a nice knife for the money, but a heavy duty frame lock it is not. It is much more a gents folder. The blade flips open super smooth, it came with a decent edge and the handle is a nice shape but it is very slim in all dimensions. I can only get a 3 finger grip on it without really crowding my hand up the handle. The blade is very thin, and where the tang is shaped for the stop pin leaves very little meat left. It is a surprisingly well made knife for the money but not really what I was wanting it to be. I guess I should have done more research.
A week after I got the highball my buddy called and said that he found my fixed blade when he was finishing putting the console back together on the tractor.
Last Sunday my brother in law was delivering grain to one of the farms I had delivered hay to and he sent me a text that he found a knife there with my name carved in the blade. He brought it home for me. If buying the highball was what it took to get my knives back I have no regrets
Pics are of the homemade frame lock and highball together.