Pocket Knife recommendations?

[David Carroll]

I gave each of my sons a pocket knife and a small Arkansas stone on their 7th birthday. Actually, we all would go to the hardware store and they could pick out any knife that they chose within reason). All three chose SAKs and they all wanted the biggest, fanciest one with the most tools on it. I warned them that it's impractical to carry a knife that large, but they wanted them, so I got them. All these years later, they all have them still. My oldest keeps it with him, though doesn't carry in his pocket (he has a smaller one for that). My youngest won a nice knife from the Boy Scouts for selling the most popcorn. It's a good bit smaller than the one I got him so he carries that when not in school. My middlest boy still has his, but doesn't have much need for one as a Lawyer. His wit is plenty sharp!

I always enjoyed the rite of passage! It's a tradition that the two married boys intend to carry on with their kids.

DC

[Jim Koepke]

I always enjoyed the rite of passage! It's a tradition that the two married boys intend to carry on with their kids.

Yes, I also enjoy the rites of passage of the first pocket knife. It was a thrill for me when my dad gave me my first pocket knife. It has always been a joy to give a pocket knife to my grandkids.

Another rite of passage was a couple years after my son was born the wines with a vintage of his birth year were released for sale. I bought a few bottles with good aging properties and put them in storage for when he turned 21. That was such a big hit for him and his friends when he turned 21 that I did the same for some of my grandchildren. One of them turned 21 last month. He and his sister were visiting the week before his birthday. With his parents permission he, his sister and I shared a bottle of 2002 Cabernet Sauvignon, grandma stopped drinking years ago.

jtk

[David Carroll]

What a great idea! My Grandkids are 4, 3, and Coming in April. I'll get on it!

DC

[Cameron Wood]

last year I gave my 3 year old great grandson a SAK like mine. There are too many people who have the idea that pocket knives aren't good for kids. I just wanted to be sure that the boy had one.

Wow. Will he get a shotgun when he's six?

[bill godber]

Wow. Will he get a shotgun when he's six?

A discussion about pocket knives used to further your anti gun opinion, sad.

[Cameron Wood]

A discussion about pocket knives used to further your anti gun opinion, sad.

Not much in to guns personally, although I do in fact own one, but I think three is is not a good age to give a kid a pocket knife.

I think in hunting families a kid might traditionally get a gun age ten or so.

Would you give a three year old a pocket knife?

[David Carroll]

Three is too young in my opinion. I gave my boys pocket knives and some sharpening gear for their seventh birthday. I figured that seven was the "age of reason" and that with a lot of my supervision, it would be okay. It mostly was. In retrospect, Seven is also too young, but I was eager to get them going with tools and possessions that needed some care after years of brightly colored plastic throwaway toys.

I envisioned them happily whittling on a stick while I was working in the shop. It did happen, but not like I imagined. Of course they weren't really allowed to carry them. Certainly not at school, and not at public events aside from Boy Scout stuff, but later in life and now as adults they both have them still and carry a smaller pocket knife with them. The youngest carries one for Boy Scouts and that's about it.

I think 10 is probably the right age. However, both of my older boys who themselves now have children have told me that they loved the tradition and want to go with me to the same hardware store and pick one out for their children when they turn seven.

DC

[Rich Engelhardt]

I gave my kids a knife at 3 or 4. I had one at that age myself. We all got cut at one time or another.
A splash of Mercurochrome and a Band-Aid & we were good to go.

Those big garish orange stains from Mercurochrome were a badge of honor when I was a kid.

When I was 8 & a cub scout, getting your scout knife was a huge deal (actually, anything scout related was a big deal). On the days we had a den meeting, we got to wear our scout uniforms to school. Every time we got a new badge, we got to go up and stand in the front of the class and show it off.
The real big one was getting a scout knife - we not only got to wear & up in front of the class, we got to open all the blades and show it off.

Speaking of which (knives in the classroom), when I was in 2nd and 3rd grade, we started playing a game at recess with knives called stretch. Two kids faced each other with the feet together and flipped a knife into the ground be the other person. The other person had to place there foot where the knife struck, then reach down and pick up the knife - keeping their foot where it was. It was then their turn to flip the knife. That would go on until either someone lost their balance and fell down or couldn't stretch their feet far enough.
The knives we tossed ran all the way up to fixed blades in sheaths worn on the hip.

I can't even begin to imagine what that would cause today. A few hundred kids tossing knives in a field.
They'd probably call in SWAT or the National Guard.

[Cameron Wood]

"Stretch"- I had forgotten about that. Even then, parents would have flipped at of a bunch of stuff we did, if they had known about it.

[Tom M King]

When I was in Elementary School most boys carried a small pocket knife, including me. I carved neckerchief slides with it when I was about 8 in Cub Scouts. I quit carrying it when I was an adult after I bought the Arkansas oil stones. I had carried two people to a hospital to get stitches even after warning them that it was sharp, and I didn't want to not lend one to anyone that asked, so quit carrying it. They had never seen anything that sharp, and one ER Doc commented that it made as clean a cut as any scalpel. That knife was old enough to have the brand name worn off when it was given to me, but Solingen was stamped in the base of a blade.

As far as youth guns, I was given a Savage .410 single shot Youth Gun when I was 9. I was given an old 12 ga. to carry unloaded through a couple of hunting seasons before I was ever allowed to carry a loaded one. I had to learn to carry one safely first. I still have and use that gun. I was allowed to go hunting by myself as soon as I got that gun in the woods behind our house. More than a few nights we ate rabbits I brought home. I shot a Copperhead's head off with it last Summer. I quit hunting when I was 12, deciding to never kill anything again that didn't need killing.

[Jim Koepke]

I had carried two people to a hospital to get stitches even after warning them that it was sharp, and I didn't want to not lend one to anyone that asked, so quit carrying it.

This reminded me of a bunch of large neodymium magnets a friend had given me. Everyone who was shown them were impressed. A couple people succeeded in begging a pair from me for various reasons of need. Within the first two minutes they had produced blood by getting the skin of the fingers pinched between them.

No more giveaways after that.

There were two magnets mounted side by on a mounting bracket. They were not difficult to dismount. One half is stuck on my drill press to hold the chuck key.

jtk

[Tom M King]

One doesn't have to be a dummy to do that. I have a Nobel Prize winning Physicist friend who got his finger between a couple of those, producing a pretty large blood blister.