My knives in Haiti

[Brian Williams]

I recently spent a week in Haiti and took along 4 knives, SAK tinker, Opinel 6, Svord Peasant, Old Timer barehead trapper liner lock.
The SAK stayed in my backpack and was not used

The Svord is a great knife, big and strong. It was used for heavy work, cutting pieces of tire, inner tube, trimming PVC, cutting soft steel wire, trimming a door and frame, and it would have been the goto for SD(but not needed). Still sharp, needs touching up, even after running it into a block wall while batoning thru a wooden door frame.

The Opinel is a great small knife, did everything from cutting copper wire, fingernails, spreading peanut butter, trimming inner tube patches, trimming the wooden door, cutting all sorts of cardboard, string and paper. I had to touch it up with a ceramic stick a couple of times while I was there and stropped it on a piece of cardboard. Still sharp and will be touched up anyway.

The Old Timer, Just works. It is always a great knife, did not do much but stayed sharp and useful.

 

[hso]

Very nice!

Wait a minute!??! You didn't use some tacky-kewl folder made from unobtanium? How could it be that any knife not from some net ninja supplier held up to, GULP, actual use?



Taught may daughter and her buddy to make a fire with flint and steel this weekend. Used a little Opinel for the job.

 

[armoredman]

I like the peasant knife - how much is one of those?

 

[coelacanth]

yeah, go figure. . . . .

people who've been making knives for better than a hundred years have pretty much got it figured out. Cool part is - you probably spent less on that Opinel than it would have cost you to get the catalog from some makers.

 

[coelacanth]

hey hso,

this is probably another thread entirely but have there been any forums @ THR where discussions of what we used to call woodcraft and fieldlore were welcome? ( BTW did you use charcloth or just whatever was laying around?)

 

[Soap]

I can relate, my SAK Soldier and Leatherman Wave saw me through a trip all over Egypt.

 

[hso]

coelacanth,

We don't have a forum for bushcraft/woodscraft/fieldcraft/survival.

But we do have ArmedPoliteSociety for those sort of things.

As to char cloth, nope. I made them gather the materials to catch the spark to form an ember. In their case they peeled cedar bark and stripped fibers to make a nest to catch the sparks. I then showed them how to shave magnesium from the block and how it caught more quickly.

 

[Dravur]

I call Shenanigans!

No way would you go to Haiti with those three good, but cheap knives. Oddly enough, I have all 3 of those as well.

But I call Shenanigans as we know that you should only go with tactical cool knives with paracord wrapped handles and blades the size of railroad ties. So, therefore, you are making up this fictitious stories of using ordinary and simple knives for some useful purpose. It simply cannot be true.

 

[Brian Williams]

I forgot my Leatherman Supertool, but it stayed the bottom of my tool bag. I carried pliers and screwdrivers and other tools so a combo tools were not remembered. I normally take a 1/4" ratchet and sockets along with 1/4 inch screwdriver bits. I also take a phillips and flat tip screwdriver and diagonal wirecutters and needlenose.

 

[MatthewVanitas]

Glad to hear that folks are getting some good work out of their Svords!

@armoredman: if you order a Svord Peasant directly from the Baker family (owners), it's a aroudnd $35 for the knife itself. Express shipping is around $20, but slow-boat shipping is $7 or so, if you can wait a couple months.

The Bakers also make custom Peasants with scales of red-stag, bone, and other cool materials, in various sizes. They're truly nice people (with awsome accents), so it might be worth buying a 10c/minute overseas phonecard and giving them a call one evening.

 

[Coyote3855]

Svord Peasant

I ordered one, total price was about $40, I think. I liked it enough to order two more with sheath for one of them. Total was under $80. The first one arrived in about two weeks.