I SIMPLY ENJOY ...knives to no end. It probably started at about 7 or 8 when my grandpa gave me my first pocketknife, a vintage tree brand boker small stockman that came shaving sharp from the factory. He taught me a lot about using and handling a knife and even still I cut myself a number of times but never seriously because of his instruction and teaching. This was the early '70's and already by then it was the ending of a long era when fathers and grandfathers gave their children knives and guns and spent careful and meaningful time teaching them the proper use of both. We were a far better country back then and I mourn the general loss of such practices and the nauseating political correctness of our nanny state and pantywaist societies. With every death by a gun today all we ever hear is the pressing need to remove guns from the American people (virtually the last people on earth to own/"keep" and carry/"bear" them) . As if the guns cause the violence and the violence wouldn't find its expression in the use of another weapon. Knives are "logically" (and historically) targeted next. No wonder countries with stiff gun control migrate over into endless confusing, and silly knife restrictions and regulations-even as their crime rates rise.
Just as guns are useless without ammo, knives are of little use if not sharp, no matter how high quality the knife in question. Conversely, mediocre quality knives can be quite useful if they are sharp, just like any cheap gun is dangerous if loaded. The analogy continues further though when you consider the "unloaded" (dull) knife can potentially be more dangerous to the user who has to apply more force to cut something and risks injury in doing so (just as an unloaded gun is potentially dangerous to the user who might be relying on it to defend himself).
A knife's mediocrity often lies in its inability to hold the keen edge we desire. This aspect of knife quality then points us to the overriding issue of any knife and asks the essential (or most common) question: "what is the type of steel in the blade" and the follow up question: "how well has the heat treatment been done which provides for edge taking and edge holding ability?" For millennia, blade forgers have been on a quest to make and handle steels in such a way as to provide for two essential qualities: the ability of a steel to take a very sharp edge without much work, and the steel's stubbornness against losing that edge and dulling. In modern times, other concerns have evolved, that of the steel's resistance to corrosion or what we commonly call rust, and toughness in the steel as it performs in the tool employing this steel. This has brought rise to premium stainless steels as well as a few lower cost stainless varieties that are, to me, exciting because of their quality in spite of their affordability. The chemistry is no longer a mystery, but how best to economically and consistently produce those steels has been somewhat elusive. Often the mistakes are in the handling and processing and tempering of the steel and not necessarily the quality of the steel itself or the fact that it is lower in cost.
I need to insert now that I do not claim to be an expert in metallurgy or the processing of steels used in cutting tools. What I speak now on this subject I say as partly a matter of informed opinion but must add the information is both fluid and quite complex. I also speak from solid real world experience of working everyday with cutting tools and personal experience in sharpening over a career that spans now 32 years not counting my time as a boy and teenager using knives, axes and saws.
Stainless steel is seemingly a fairly new invention. For most of human history carbon and high carbon steels have dominated the world and been used with great success in cutting tools. It's hard to know to what extent alloys were mixed with tool steels but it is reasonable to think that they are not new and were discovered as valuable additives as early as early biblical times. I often wonder if it is not a question of what do we know now that early civilizations did not know, ...but actually the reverse: what knowledge has been lost down through the millennia and are we getting back the knowledge they had? It's too simplistic to think that since we can make a computer or a diesel machine, that we must somehow be far smarter than the ancient civilizations were. To my mind, I think we would fail in replicating some of the structures and building sites that were done in antiquity. I think we would fail big and on various levels. Forget about the pyramids, I doubt we could replicate the Roman coliseum even with modern technology. I wouldn't be surprised if we failed in other departments before the attempted construction, such as any one group obtaining the funds to do it, the skilled labor needed for it, and the simple political and economic will needed to attempt such a project. Though mankind has undertaken massive and impressive projects today, who would put our accomplishments on par with the seven wonders of the ancient world? ( though maybe space travel attains to that category of human accomplishment?) I think in some cases it would take the brutality they had as well, using slave labor and tyranny over taxable subjects which we thankfully don't have as much of that today as existed then. (or do we?)
Anyhow, we live in a time where tools today have reached conflicting plateaus in design, quality, affordability, and availability. Power tool use and design complexity have reached a new high, while hand tool use and quality have reached an all time low. In my opinion the use of hand tools today with informed skill is also at possibly an all time low. Go on Ebay and buy and old tool in good condition that had proper proven design coupled with fantastic quality of manufacture and you will find your skill level begins to immediately rise as you use the tool. The skill level and the tool quality went hand in hand, where as today it doesn't. We think we have better tools today but we really don't and it shows in the work itself which has become increasingly inferior to the workmanship of yesteryear. In reality, we only think we have better tools today. Amongst the tools of truly good quality today, their survival in the market is jeopardized by insufficient appreciation from a buying public that ignores the need and use for these tools (and I can't ignore their obvious high cost from the economic insanity prevalent in our fiat currency). This is why we no longer have the Stanley tools that we remember, as well as great companies such as Millers Falls, Fuller, Fulton, Craftsman (of old) Irwin (of old), Record, Disston, S&K, Plumb, Diamond, etc. etc.. The ones that are left such as Estwing, Vaughan, Klein, Crescent, Channellock, Kunz, Empire, Mayes, Swanson, and the like are perennially on thin ice to survive in the form and quality we know them by. And their product lines are hit and miss in overall quality (to be generous). For example...an Estwing or Vaughan hammer is today still one of the finest hammers you can buy at any price, but I will assure you the old ones from 30 years ago were better. I think these observations on tool companies apply equally or more so to the old American knife companies which are all but gone. Thankfully there are new and promising upstarts every year in the US and many offer high quality and exciting products. Also thankfully, there is more of a "buy US" stubborn mentality amongst knife consumers or so it seems to me.
Tools are for work, and we are a people increasingly bent on leisure and entertainment, not hard work and creativity. Any productivity mindset we do have today (amongst entrepreneurs, for there is no productivity mindset in employed people) is often the result of a desire to spend less time with work and more time at play. Why don't employed Americans on the average enjoy their work? Because they have jobs in which there is almost no creativity and almost nothing made with lasting value. I will assert further that most of our jobs have been rendered miserable and meaningless in light of what they actually accomplish or can potentially accomplish. The latter is the most disturbing. Let me provide a few examples such as school teachers, politicians, law enforcement, criminal justice, retail, and most certainly construction and manufacturing (what little we have). They all operate within frameworks and paradigms that render the job ineffective in proportion to its importance and unrewarding in proportion to its significance. This may be the causative influence resulting in the joke that America is a country which plays at work and works at play. However, I think this is true only in comparison to ourselves in previous generations in this country. It would seem to be quite false in comparison to other developed countries, especially some mainland Europeans who seem to order their lives evermore around relaxing and "enjoying life" than working. It would seem they think of us as still being workaholics on the whole. This is a subjective but I think defensible observation.
Please try to understand what I'm trying to communicate about the meaninglessness of so much of our work today. I am not at all diminishing the importance or honor of these jobs, Rather, I'm bemoaning the loss of dignity and honor most jobs deserve. This is due to wrongheaded societal, political, or economic frameworks that stifle what we can and can't achieve in these jobs. It is simple to me but I'm struggling for the words to communicate the damage done from political correctness (as opposed to true justice) in the public arena, horrific results in public education as the result of removing our Judeo-Christian heritage (and teachings) from our public schools, the infusion of socialist/communist ideologies in higher education and academia where literally they are now the only place they thrive, though dead and dying everywhere they've been applied. The disturbing reality that people are increasingly unwilling to practice self control or governance, which results in two grotesque realities...1. lawlessness and 2. a brand of either police brutality or a police state mentality which is embraced as the only answer to chaos. We see both on a daily basis in the U.S. We see people often out of control and rebellious to rightful authority, and we see cops gone mad with power and excessive force. On any given day or any given example I may side with either and be against the other. This is a disturbing conflict of two extremes that shouldn't exist but alas has become the norm. Or consider the endless "war on drugs" which is a farce when the government stands to lose almost as much as the cartels if they succeed in reducing drug related crime. Consider the futile efforts of a criminal justice system riddled with bribery, overcrowding in jails, and spineless judges that don't value human life (why should they when we kill babies in the womb from conception to partial birth and call it legal).
I should probably just focus on work and particularly construction work, since that is my area of expertise. So what's my beef with construction work? How is it less meaningful today than when I started in '82. WELL...where do I start?...How about devaluing the job in the first place through lower pay with each passing year. It's legendary how people think construction guys are over paid and yet they ignore that the wages have never kept up with basic inflation and have in fact decreased markedly in the last 20 years. I made in 1994 the same wage I made in 2012 but also had good benefits and health insurance as compared to neither in 2012. If you consider the huge loss of purchase power of the dollar in 2012 and the onslaught of both legal and illegal immigration labor, I can personally vouch for the fact that my earnings where threatened on at least a quarterly basis. Why pay one guy 24 bucks an hour when you could get two Mexicans for 10 bucks an hour each? I cringe when I hear people say "they take jobs at wages that lazy Americans wouldn't do anyway". They gush this stupidity whilst forgetting that they lower wage was created out of greed in the first place. Natural market forces were never allowed to keep the wage at the appropriately higher level and were forced to agree with the greedy desire to drive down cost and create (additional) margin. Oh I know there are exceptions, but I'll stand by my basic assertion that greed and fear drove down wages and enticed immigrant workers not laziness on the average non union worker. NOW UNION LABOR....this is another story! Greedy and corrupt unions in America drove up wages disproportionate to marketability. But this in and of itself wouldn't have been such a disaster to the industry were it not for the fact that union labor also took its work ethic to an alarming low point to the extent that studies in my state of Ohio showed that a union construction worker only produced 4.75 hours in a day in exchange for 8 hours of pay. In short, the work was worth the "high pay" but not when the work wasn't being delivered for that pay. How long can people charge for something but not deliver the item or perform the service?? Is that sustainable? No way! and it caught up with the industry and most specifically in the industries with union labor. People who would have otherwise delivered a good day's work for that "high pay", were stifled and eventually unemployed by a union framework and paradigm that was at best unethical and unsustainable ( and at worst corrupt). If you object to these observations you surely don't know anything about blue collar labor in America during the 70's, 80's and early 90's. I watched it all around me and lived through it in construction and I had enough family in the steel and auto unions to be informed enough to know that what I say is true.
Another way construction work has become less meaningful is by taking out variety and complexity in the trades. This has been done through extreme specialization of skill sets and separation of trades. I started at the tail end of a time period in which the senior carpenters were not only still highly skilled but also amazingly multi skilled. For example, we require survey crews (with minimal but specialized training) to lay out buildings today but I used to do it myself with no problem and quite limited use of these firms (who charge 800 to 1000 dollars a day for these guys). There are causative reasons behind the use of these services but never the less robbed an important skill set from the average (experienced carpenter or super). There is more to say on this whole topic but I will have to revisit the subject later on.
