If you ever lost a clip knife from your belt (which always makes you feel like a damn dummy) consider putting the knife on the inside of your belt, and the clip hanging on the outside. Started doing this about 20 yrs ago and haven’t lost a knife since.
Also helpful if youve ever accidentally flipped one off your belt straight into to toilet after pinching a deuce, lol.
Edit, yeah, I fished it out, i did that. I used to build docks and if you dropped a 20 dollar hammer in the water, you fished it out with a magnet on a string. I’m chock full of useful bullshit these days haha you gotta have just the right problem though.
I just end up putting aftermarket deep carry clips on a lot of my knives that don’t come with them, the knife forums are great for figuring out what $5-10 manufacturer replacement clip from a different knife will fit yours instead of getting the full custom $20-30 stainless or titanium clips. If you do go the fancy aftermarket route, I’ve gotten great titanium deep carry clips from this place, they’re fucking brutal on pants with the matte rough G10 on my Paramilitary 2 but that thing is never going anywhere.
As @LemonadeJoe will tell you, when you need some good precision manufacturing, the Czechs have you covered. Actually, Eastern Europe in general is an incredible place to buy blades and sheaths, both from manufacturers and craftspeople. Manly Knives from Bulgaria (it’s the guy’s name) is making some of the most exciting knives out there right now, with incredible cutting geometry and thinness behind the edge, for pennies compared to what a Benchmade or other American brand will charge, and they’re not even making blades like this! Definitely check them out they have some friction and lockback/liner lock folders and a few fixed blades. My everyday belt knife that I got last year as a treat for when I wear one is special edition Manly Drugar in CPM-154 and orange G10, it rides in a lefty dangler leather sheath from an Eastern European Etsy maker for $15. It’s very thick (4mm stock) but also very pointy and full flat ground to an extremely acute edge geometry, I wouldn’t use it for heavy chopping but it’s tough enough with the steel choice to do a lot without bending and it glides like only a thin edge can. I have a heavier, carbon steel fixed blade for one knife survival shit but then I need a small folder for detail work and slicing, this does it all and I rely on an hatchet or saw for the heavy knife/wood stuff. I keep my hatchet shaving sharp, so it works fine for heavy or dirty cuts.
This is my treat yourself belt knife, within my budget at the moment.
Knife: Manly Knives (Bulgaria) Drugar, full tang, blade in CPM-154, full flat ground and hardened to 59-61 Rockwell. The blade is 4mm stock, 4.25" cutting edge with an overall length of 9.1" and weight of 8.6 oz. Designed by Dirk Wanger (Germany), with contoured orange G10 scales. I wanted this knife so badly, it checked all the boxes for me, that I am carrying a knife that says both “Manly” and “Wang” on it. One of these days I will do something about that.
Sheath: left handed leather dangler from BPSKnives on Etsy, leather comes dry to my taste (which is normal) and it could be a grade thicker leather, but it’s well selected hide, very properly made with brass hardware, leather spacer and good stitching. With some Montana Pitch-Blend and a radiator, it’s buttery now. The maker is Ukrainian if you want to buy a knife or sheath and say Slava Ukraini:
I want to have a leatherworker locally put a snap loop over the top with a piece of leather and a Pull-The-Dot closure, since it fits a little loose for my taste, but I might try wet-molding the sheath first with my vacuum sealer. I can’t do a sheath knife on my belt, I’m strictly a drop clip or dangler guy, I especially like a dangler since I can tuck it into my back pocket or a carpenter’s pants side pocket, and beside the seat when I get into a car. With a modern Kydex molded sheath like my Drugar came with, I’ll often do the reverse dangler where the tip of the sheath has 18" or so of cordage attaching it to a loop on my belt, so I can keep the knife in my back pocket and drop the sheath as I thumb it off the blade while drawing. Then I just pull it up on the cord to put the knife back in (in front of me!) and pop it back in my pocket.
I love this knife and want to get more Manlys, their blade steel choices (German D2, CPM-154, and CPM S90V) are a great range of prices and all high quality, and their grinds are just so thin that as a cook it feels right to have that FFG with a nice edge geometry.
Yeah just a lot of hard use and it snapped off one time when i dropped it. The three lighters usually consisted of an electric arc lighter for high wind situations and two gas lighters.
I used to carry an axe but people dont seem to like that very much.
People get weird about the axe! They shrug like “weirdo” at the folding saw but hatchets make people feel a way I guess. I also get some reactions if I’m carrying this strapped to the side of my backpack as a big knife instead of an axe that trip:
I keep a machete strapped to my pack along with a shovel that has a removable head. It has a hachett, saw and knife attachment. The 2 blades store in the handle and hachett head is in a case that is over the shovel head. Pretty cool little all in one.
There’s some really great cheap options out there, and some incredible midrange performers, that Fiskars hatchet is a lot of fun for not many dollars, or I like to get inexpensive knives from one of these folks, both great knife and axe dealers. They both carry a lot of both traditional and modern carbon and stainless knives from Europe and South America at great prices, and blanks if you wanted to handle your own and save some money.
When it comes to cheap performance, you’d have a hard time beating Council Tool, I recommend their $40 Boys Axe to anyone who’s looking for a real axe at a manageable size for the kind of work most of use will ever do (limbing and splitting small cordwood or kindling, rather than felling or heavy splitting big rounds). Despite the name, it’s a useful sized axe like a Hudson Bay or the Scandinavian Forest Axes, but with a heavier head than either, something that you can carry but can also do real work. The Velvicut and Wood Craft series from Council are very nice, but at that price range you’re looking at stiff competition from the Northern and Central European axe forges. The plain series is super nice on its own and you can always dress it up with a nice leather edge guard and by sanding and shaping the stock handle thinner like it should be.
For lightweight:
1.25# head w/ 14" handle (weaker connection than a Dayton pattern, less wood/steel contact area)
I want to say that everything I know about axes and logging I learned from my Dad and this book, which has been the official Forest Service axe manual for half a century now and is one of the most interesting and charming old how-to manuals I’ve ever found.
I learned most of my knowlege while working at a green woodworking shop, we coppiced through the winter and made pretty much anything you can think of during the warmer months so there was a lovely variety of axes and adz’s to play with. I sadly dont have much use for an axe at the moment
There’s a few tools from Baryonyx that I’ve been eyeing that are pretty unique and probably worth mentioning here since most are garden/farm/woods stuff and not really available many other places:
Easy to open with one hand. Pocket or belt carry. Very sturdy. Solid as heck once opened. Great for a variety of utilitarian tasks and some maybe not as “utilitarian.”
when i was out n about these would be my every day carry but sadly now im mostly house bound.
