Altoids Tin -- Small Knives

[ArfinGreebly]

In reading [thread=476844]this thread[/thread] and some of the linked pages, I was struck by the idea that there are likely several knives that will fit in an Altoids tin.

I happen to have one such tin, so I grabbed the nearest small knife -- a Case XX Blackhorn -- and dropped it in. Fits easily, leaving lots of room.

I thought it might be interesting to see how many other knives will, in fact, fit in an Altoids tin.

The Blackhorn is not a heavy-duty knife, but it is pretty sharp out of the box and would likely serve well in many emergency situations.

I probably have a dozen knives small enough for the tin, but one of the bounding factors in putting together an emergency kit-in-a-tin is cost. Especially if you plan to pre-fab a number of them.

The Blackhorn sells for $10 at Lowe's (home improvement store, like Home Depot). I think the ceiling for a kit-in-tin knife would be about $15. Anyone is free to splurge, but I figured $15 was a reasonable range. Lowe's also sells the Case Caliber, another small lockback folder, for around $15 and it, too, will fit in the tin.

You're probably not going to find much by way of [thread=476844]fixed blades[/thread] that fit inside of 3.25 inches, so I expect most of the entries will be folders or sliders.

The always-popular Case Peanut will fit, as will their Case Executive Lockback, but those are usually priced above $20.

The Gerber Mini Paraframe should fit, and those sell for about $10 at Wal*Mart.

The Buck 305 (Lancer) is small enough and costs about $15 (actually, Buck has a number of folders in this size range; I'll have to dig through mine). Also the Buck Bantam fits and also comes in at $15.

I'll dig around at home and see what else I can find.

 

[hso]

You're probably not going to find much by way of fixed blades that fit inside of 3.25 inches

Arf,

You'd be surprised how many there out there that will fit. Knife makers and manufacturers have been producing knives just for that purpose for at least five years. Camillus even designed the pocket on the BKT sheaths to fit the Altoid tin.

 

[Rupestris]

There are a couple custom makers that make Altoids tin size knives.

Doug Ritter had a hand in designing this fixed blade for CRKT. It even comes with a "mint tin".


http://www.knifecenter.com/kc_new/store_detail.html?s=CR2380

The steel is stainless and resides at the weaker end of the spectrum. Much like the CRKT version of Kreins Dogfish. While it tends to be a bit "soft" (52-55 HRC), it makes it very easy to touch up in the field. Besides, you won't be splitting wood with this one anyway.

Personally, I'd rather make something myself when it comes to fixed blades for a mint tin. You can take a single hack saw blade and cut two pieces to fit in the tin.

Leave one a saw and use the bench grinder to contour a small handle or finger grooves. On the second, grind the same finger notches, knock down the teeth to use as a firesteel striker and sharpen and countour the spine into a knife.

If you use the ends of the hack saw blade you'll have a lanyard hole at the end of each so a piece of paracord can be added to aid in the grip.

Chris

 

[conw]

I think those folding razors countycomm has would work great.

 

[ArfinGreebly]

Feeling Foolish

So, I did some measuring.

Altoids tin is 3.5+ inches inside.

There are a whole bunch of pocket knives in that size range.

One might even say "a vast number" of them.

All the same, I'm going to see how many I can come up with that are adequate to the "emergency" idea and still come in around $15, or at least under $20.

Funny, it never really occurred to me that a tin that small was really that big.

 

[Black Toe Knives]

I know a fellow named Jerry Bodner From Louisville, KY. So I can fit 100 Rambo IIII knives in Altoids Tin and still have room for a 20 Randalls, a dozen of Loveless and Scagel. LOL
Jerry is one finest Miniature Knifemakers. Most of his knifes are under 1''. But at 125.00 a piece. You need a big wallet to fill an Altoids tin.

 

[ArfinGreebly]

Chunky Knives

Well, I found the upper limit.

I have a Schrade Old Timer 5OT (Bruin) -- yes, it's US made -- that measures 3.75 inches closed. It's a little wide at the ends, but if I wiggle it, I can get it in the can.

This is not a comparatively small folder. I have the Case XX equivalent, a 21051 LSSP (drop point lockback) that's not quite 3.75" and it slips right in.

As does the Buck 55 mini hunter, Gerber Silver Knight, and others.

The tin will take a Case XX Medium Stockman.

Where it finally got absurd was when I dropped a Sod Buster Jr in the tin. No problem. I mean, really, we're well past "tiny" and "small" and getting into "medium" when something as meaty as a sodbuster will fit without effort.

So the challenge really isn't "what will fit in the can" but more along the lines of "how much space do you want to leave for other stuff."

With that in mind, I have more respect for the Ritter design.

(I will say, though that I was quite pleased with how little room a Peanut consumes in that tin.)

Sometimes small is beautiful.

 

[conw]

So what else are you putting in the tin? What are you using the tin for? I like the idea and have a thread from a long time ago on one, with a bunch of stuff in it, that you participated in...just never found a niche for it. I can EDC everything I need without a tin, pack further for expected stuff, and life-saving first aid stuff doesn't really fit in an altoid tin (although I'd be VERY interested to see a first-aid-only altoid kit oriented toward serious gun/knife wounds). I just ended up deciding signal mirrors, sewing thread, fishing hooks, and compasses aren't worth EDCing whether they're in a tin or not.

 

[Todd A]

As I stated in the linked thread I don't keep a knife in my tin. I did keep one tin knife that I use as a striker in my packs fire kit. The others I gave to my son who does keep on in a Altoids kit.

John sends you one free with orders over a certain dollar amount.He also makes them in differant blade styles, and sells a slightly differant version for a small cost. 1/8" thick O1.



In hand..



I don't try to stuff everything into my tin either. I carry some "survival" stuff in my other pockets. I do live in a rural area and I try to spend as much time outdoors as possible, so I do have this on me every day.




My tin has tinder (Jute twine and fatwood), 6' of three strand twine rated to 165#, three fish hooks and split shot.

First Aid is.. Tylonol, Immodium, band aids, gauze pads, Neosporin, first aid tape.

For water collection...a large oven roasting bag, and a dozen Iodine based purification tablets.

Along with a whistle,maglite solitare on my keys. Plus my knife/ferro rod in sheath, and my SAK I think I have the basics covered.

 

[cluttonfred]

There are lots of knives that will fit in a candy tin, but the issue with the folders is that they take up more space (thickness, especially), whereas a little fixed-blade can be pretty flat. If I had a grinder and the like I would have come up with my own, but I don't, so I bought an RSK Mk5.

In my pocket I usually have a low-tech Opinel (No. 6 size), which also fits in a tin, but takes up a lot of room. Opinels are available cheap in Europe, especially France, but can be harder to find and more expensive in the USA. By cheap I mean around US$10. They are easy to sharpen, lock solidly open and closed (by rotating a little ring) and cheap enough that I don't worry about losing or breaking one.

 

[Doug S]

I recently bought one of the CRKT tins, but before that I carried an Altoids with a Victorinox Classic SD in it. Another in the $10ish range.

 

[ArfinGreebly]

Purpose

So what else are you putting in the tin? What are you using the tin for?

Well, y'see, that's still a work in progress.

Years and years of being spoiled by having an abundance of pretty much anything, you know, easy food, easy water, easy shelter & heat/cooling, blah, blah, blah . . . has led to having to kinda shake it off and put the imagination to work, without straying into delusion.

I'm never anywhere without at least two knives, and usually more like four or five. That would seem to make having one in a tin kinda redundant. Unless, of course, I somehow find myself with just the tin and without my trousers. Okay, let's not try real hard at imagining how that might happen.

Most of my "kits" are larger and bulkier, the smallest being a fanny pack, the largest being a truck-sized toolbox carry-all.

Part of this summer's plan was to focus on skills (the ultimate in portability), and then do a kit that provided tools that fit those skills. That pretty much fell apart as a consequence of workload, long days, weekends at the office, stuff like that.

I think there's a fundamental flaw in the sequence that begins with a small box of some arbitrarily fixed size and then seeks to cram a bunch of stuff into it, without regard to whether one knows how to use any of it. I know that this isn't a problem for any of us here in NFW, since we can master anything at all and figure it all out just as long as we have the right gadget.

Probability is very low that I will ever actually carry an Altoids tin in my pocket. Well, maybe in a jacket pocket. And if it's a kit I'm gonna stash someplace, I can probably stash something larger.

Still, I like to know what the limits are just, well, just because.

If I get too serious about the subject, I'm likely to develop mental tunnel vision and acute self-importance. I'm sure we can agree that's not good.

 

[Doug S]

I found building the tin fun. My CRKT Ritter RSK Mk5 Tin contains: RSK Mk5 (fixed blade knife), USB drive (4GB PNY), Meds (in small pill fob), Lighter (Countycomm “Split Pea”), Compass (NATO “Francis Barker” SAS button), Whistle (Fox 40 Micro “Rescue Howler”), Water Purification Tablets (Katadyn x 3), Tinder Cubes (x2), Doug Ritter Freedom Photon (with lanyard), SAK Ink Pen, P38 Can Opener, Fresnel Lens, Bottle Bag, Assorted Band-aids and an alcohol wipe, Micro Pry-tool (Countycomm Pico Widgy)

Believe it or not, my tin is not “jam packed”. I can open the lid to get something pretty easily. I wanted the tin to be useful on an everyday basis, not just as an emergency tin. I use the USB drive often as a work backup. Also, the meds, band-aids, and every now and then I use the lighter. The tinder cubes were mostly to keep the contents from sliding around in the tin. I used to use the photon fairly often, but now I have an E01 on my keychain. Also, if I only had the tin, it duplicates many of my larger edc pocket items (SAK, Fenis P1D, CC pocket pry bar in miniature form, so I should still be reasonably well stocked in case of an emergency. I think what makes the tin most useful, is that it allows one to carry odds and ends without having a bunch of loose stuff rolling around a pocket. You can also grab the entire kit which also works to keep things organized instead of pulling out a tangled mess.

 

[TimboKhan]

Arf, I am sort of with you in that I probably won't carry a survival tin around, but I still bought one of these CRKT's. More for fun, but I am finding uses for it beyond what I expected. I wouldn't recommend it as a "must-buy", but if someone had a spare 20 bucks lying around, was a knife-knut, and wanted to treat themselves I think this is a pretty good little knife.

But, now that I have a fancy RSK tin, who knows. It probably would be pretty fun to build a little kit up for myself, and I can throw it in my EDC bag and impress my work friends with my nerdliness.

I already carry around a sewing kit in an altoids tin in my EDC bag (indispensable, by the way), and I have another tin in there that I can put little odds and ends in so loose junk isn't rolling around my bag. I also made a pretty rad iPod carrier for my buddy at work out of a tin. I like the tins!

 

[cluttonfred]

By the way, I got my RSK Mk5 and I like it fine. While it sure is small, it does seem quite a bit tougher than a folder would be and stores nicely. I had an issue with the sheath, but that is a known problem and CRKT took my details to send me a new one, no charge, as soon as they are available. One thing I am not so happy with is the lanyard. I am thinkin of replacing it with something a little more solid, perhaps by braiding some 3mm cord I have. I'd like to end the braid in a chunky knot to help hold onto the little sucker. The problem is that I am useless at such things (to my baby girl's dismay). Does anyone have any ideas, preferably with pics, for a braided lanyard?

 

[cluttonfred]

Bump...can anyone help with the braided lanyard?

 

[conw]

braiding is actually very easy (it's the only type of lanyard I know how to make), and you want to burn it just slightly at various points to make sure it won't shift around on you.

If you are able to braid 3 strands, you can braid a single cord.


Make sure when you set out to do this, that you start with way too much.

Look at the diagram I made...I can't find an illustration of how to start the braid anywhere else, so I made this. You lay the cord flat on one surface, then divide it into thirds as shown in the diagram.

If you know how to braid a woman's hair, it should make sense how you braid this.

Put A over B, then put C over A and under B, etc.

The key is to make the braids flat and even and like I said, some burning lightly will help keep it in place.

At the end you want to tie a knot to keep it the way it is when you finish.