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ellerI had promised yhlee some reviews of really shitty knives (or knife-shaped objects), and after our recent conversation about the purpose of a ricasso on a blade, it's clear which shitty blade had to be first in line. (The opposite of an all-purpose knife is a no-purpose knife, right?) This lovely "hunting knife" combines all the historical accuracy of pink glittery resin rune earclips with all the functionality of a matte black sundial. Obviously, I'm the target group! :D
Oh, this is horrible in sooo many ways...
...before I get started on the knife itself, let me just mention shortly that the sheath is a bad joke. It's leather stitched on the sides. That's... not a good idea. Any reasonably sharp knife will cut through the stitches and poke the wearer! (Then again: if you wear this thing in public around other knife wearers, you deserve to be cut. It's like showing up to a typography conference with a shirt proclaiming I LOVE COMIC SANS.)
The knife... Oh, the knife. It's sold as a hunting knife (which it is not) with a damast steel blade (which it is not - it's pattern welding, but never mind) and a deer antler handle... Uh. That's where the problems start. As you can probably tell, this is aimed at the ren-faire / medieval market crowd who just want to "look somewhat historical" in a fantasy-ish way - but deer antler knife handles (on anything that's not a ritual knife, anyway) are not historical. Not in Germany. The thing is that the local deer (red deer) every year discard their antlers and grow new ones at a scary speed - but this also means the material is extremely porous. You can't make a knife handle from that material unless you "stabilize" it. (Read: drown it in resin.) People in the middle ages and before did not have plastic. So... uh... They definitely did not have this kind of handle. (At least no animal had to die for this. You can simply take a walk in the forest and pick up old antlers. No shortage of those.) Of course, I'd be willing to forgive this small historical inaccuracy if I'd received an otherwise decent blade. Because I'm writing this text, you-the-reader probably already suspect it is not.
Surprise: it is not.
The first thing you probably noticed is that this knife is really really small. (I put the pencil in the picture for size comparison.) That's okay, actually - I have really really small hands. (I wear gloves size 6, in case that means anything to you.) The technical specs of the blade aren't too bad, either: the steel consists of 1095 & 15N20, which, okay! And I actually kind of like the handle, plasticky or not. The balance is kinda-sorta fine, even! XD It's just everything else that went wrong here. Let's take a closer look at the blade! (And be vaguely amused at how long the maker left this in the acid bath.)
Most notable is the ricasso area, that is, the unsharpened part of the blade closest to the handle, directly before the ridiculously large finger guard thingy. Why is there this weird rectangular cut-out thingy?!? That could be, you know, blade edge. For cutting. And instead, there's... this?!?
It's not supposed to be a grinding notch, right? (I fucking hope.) On a somewhat larger blade, I'd count it as a place with a kind of second pseudo finger guard where you put your index finger when you choke up on the blade. You know, kind of like a primitive attempt at a choil. After all, you sometimes need more accuracy for detail work, so you want to artificially shorten the blade, right?
Right.
My personal take on that? If you feel the need to choke up on a hunting knife (that is, move your grip forward, onto the blade itself), you'll likely lose some fingers - and you'll deserve it, because it means you bought a much-too-large blade in the first place. (Remember: hunting knives are occasionally used under, uh,bloody wet conditions.) Guys tend to do that - I really think the tendency to buy impractically large blades and the presence or absence of a dick are connected. I've not seen ladies make this particular mistake... Ahem. Anyway, my personal opinion is that any large hunting knife with the inbuilt option of choking up is expressly manufactured for assholes with a small-dick complex. I'll stand by that. (Yes, I'm team "Choils Are Overrated". This is what double knives are for...)
And you know what makes this even weirder? This is a really really small knife. There's no reason anyone would ever want to choke up on a knife this size! Basically, the designer simply took the design of a large Bowie-ish (XDD) knife and produced it in miniature. (Hint: this is absolutely not what you should do when designing ladies' knives!) You want to see what happens if I try to get my index finger in there?
OUCH FUCKING OUCH! (And, remember, my hands are tiny.) I consider this visual proof that, NOPE, in order to make a knife that's useable for women, you can't just take a knife design for men and make it smaller while keeping the proportions identical. That's not how human hands work! The little fact that the edges of the jimping (the cuts in the back of the blade that are supposed to provide stability for the thumb) are so sharp they'll cut into my thumb if I actually tried to - Gods beware - cut something with this knife-shaped object is just a minor design flaw, here...
...so, uh, this "hunting knife" can hunt dust bunnies on the shelf.
yhlee some reviews of really shitty knives (or knife-shaped objects), and after our recent conversation about the purpose of a ricasso on a blade, it's clear which shitty blade had to be first in line. (The opposite of an all-purpose knife is a no-purpose knife, right?) This lovely "hunting knife" combines all the historical accuracy of pink glittery resin rune earclips with all the functionality of a matte black sundial. Obviously, I'm the target group! :DOh, this is horrible in sooo many ways...
...before I get started on the knife itself, let me just mention shortly that the sheath is a bad joke. It's leather stitched on the sides. That's... not a good idea. Any reasonably sharp knife will cut through the stitches and poke the wearer! (Then again: if you wear this thing in public around other knife wearers, you deserve to be cut. It's like showing up to a typography conference with a shirt proclaiming I LOVE COMIC SANS.)
The knife... Oh, the knife. It's sold as a hunting knife (which it is not) with a damast steel blade (which it is not - it's pattern welding, but never mind) and a deer antler handle... Uh. That's where the problems start. As you can probably tell, this is aimed at the ren-faire / medieval market crowd who just want to "look somewhat historical" in a fantasy-ish way - but deer antler knife handles (on anything that's not a ritual knife, anyway) are not historical. Not in Germany. The thing is that the local deer (red deer) every year discard their antlers and grow new ones at a scary speed - but this also means the material is extremely porous. You can't make a knife handle from that material unless you "stabilize" it. (Read: drown it in resin.) People in the middle ages and before did not have plastic. So... uh... They definitely did not have this kind of handle. (At least no animal had to die for this. You can simply take a walk in the forest and pick up old antlers. No shortage of those.) Of course, I'd be willing to forgive this small historical inaccuracy if I'd received an otherwise decent blade. Because I'm writing this text, you-the-reader probably already suspect it is not.
Surprise: it is not.
The first thing you probably noticed is that this knife is really really small. (I put the pencil in the picture for size comparison.) That's okay, actually - I have really really small hands. (I wear gloves size 6, in case that means anything to you.) The technical specs of the blade aren't too bad, either: the steel consists of 1095 & 15N20, which, okay! And I actually kind of like the handle, plasticky or not. The balance is kinda-sorta fine, even! XD It's just everything else that went wrong here. Let's take a closer look at the blade! (And be vaguely amused at how long the maker left this in the acid bath.)
Most notable is the ricasso area, that is, the unsharpened part of the blade closest to the handle, directly before the ridiculously large finger guard thingy. Why is there this weird rectangular cut-out thingy?!? That could be, you know, blade edge. For cutting. And instead, there's... this?!?
It's not supposed to be a grinding notch, right? (I fucking hope.) On a somewhat larger blade, I'd count it as a place with a kind of second pseudo finger guard where you put your index finger when you choke up on the blade. You know, kind of like a primitive attempt at a choil. After all, you sometimes need more accuracy for detail work, so you want to artificially shorten the blade, right?
Right.
My personal take on that? If you feel the need to choke up on a hunting knife (that is, move your grip forward, onto the blade itself), you'll likely lose some fingers - and you'll deserve it, because it means you bought a much-too-large blade in the first place. (Remember: hunting knives are occasionally used under, uh,
And you know what makes this even weirder? This is a really really small knife. There's no reason anyone would ever want to choke up on a knife this size! Basically, the designer simply took the design of a large Bowie-ish (XDD) knife and produced it in miniature. (Hint: this is absolutely not what you should do when designing ladies' knives!) You want to see what happens if I try to get my index finger in there?
OUCH FUCKING OUCH! (And, remember, my hands are tiny.) I consider this visual proof that, NOPE, in order to make a knife that's useable for women, you can't just take a knife design for men and make it smaller while keeping the proportions identical. That's not how human hands work! The little fact that the edges of the jimping (the cuts in the back of the blade that are supposed to provide stability for the thumb) are so sharp they'll cut into my thumb if I actually tried to - Gods beware - cut something with this knife-shaped object is just a minor design flaw, here...
...so, uh, this "hunting knife" can hunt dust bunnies on the shelf.
no subject
Date: 2024-01-19 05:43 am (UTC)I wonder if this was designed by a video game or anime concept artist, where shitty weapons/armor designs meant to "look cool" but that would be STUPID if instantiated (let alone used) in real life are rife.
Signed: I am the dumbass who gave a character fingerless gloves and lived to regret it. (Although I guess his excuse is he's mostly running around on a starship that hopefully has climate control.)
no subject
Date: 2024-01-19 12:47 pm (UTC)I genuinely suspect the logic was something like "Hmmmm, the sortiment is all men's knives. What do we do if one of the few female customers show up? Women have smaller hands, so they need smaller knives. Let's just take one of our larger designs and produce it in small to make the ladies happy." As a potential buyer of women-sized knives, this is not the first time I encounter this particular branch of logic... It's just that this time the results are particularly entertaining. I mean, awesome enough to actually buy this, ahem, work of art...
I suppose I need to add that this knife-shaped object would be sort-of-semi-functional when blown up to a size of, like, 14-15cm blade length (so, almost twice its size - the actual blade length is 8cm). It would still be a somewhat questionable design for assholes with a small-dick complex, but it could theoretically be used as a hunting knife. If you don't care about your fingers. Uh. I just found a detailed discussion of the issue with choking up on hunting knives and while I come from a different background (and, for that matter, I don't hunt), yep, I have to agree with the points the author makes.