George was one of our contest winners. He sent me a fantastic knife story about a cheap knife breaking in use and the blade flying toward his wife's head. It was funny and well done indeed. I've sent George a care package with an assortment of small folders, fixed blades and some other cool stuff. I'll post George's winning entry here in the near future, but for now, here's a meditation on the (non)usefulness of tiny keychain style folders modeled after CRKT's "K.I.S.S." series of knives originally designed by Ed Halligan. The K.I.S.S. knives have spawned countless imitators and the Gerber Ridge is but one of them.
-Aaron
The Gerber Ridge Knife….well isn’t that just too cute?
The first time I ever saw this blade, the concept of a tiny, concealable (ed. "reverse") tanto style tipped blade was very appealing to me. It is a full 1.81” long high carbon stainless steel blade, coated in Black Teflon. If something ever screamed “Black Ops” (what was I thinking) this thing initially did.
Take this bad-boy into your hands (in my case my ham-steak sized hands) and open and feel the s-m-o-o-t-h-n-e-s-s of the mechanism. (I will come back to the “opening” sequence in a moment). Hold this open blade upwards in the air, like you are William Holden holding up his British “Killing Knife” in the end of the Bridge over the River Kwai; “You got to do it Boy, you got to do it now!! KILL HIM!” – as you shake the momentary day dream sequence from your brain, you suddenly look at your hand holding up this blade with your thumb bracing the side of it (and blotting out your ability to actually SEE it)….all visions of William Holden are soon dropped and you see yourself in the hilarious movie sequence of “Welcome to Collinwood” where Isaiah Washington is holding the small blade tip of his Swiss Army Knife against Sam Rockwell’s throat….there, reality sets back in. I sit here and hold this little novelty in my hands and I am scratching myself trying to figure out what I am EVER going to cut with this blade besides a letter or a Fed Ex package. Gee it has a nice money clip attached to it, but I don’t use a clip for my money (it’s spent too fast).
One word about “opening”…the Gerber marketing info says it has a “thumb stud for one hand opening. That is “one hand opening” if you share opening tasks with two people. This thing is so small that unless you have the dexterity of a Black Jack Dealer who moonlights as a Chinese Gymnast, you WILL need both hands to open this thing… Oh don’t get me wrong, if you start the sequence and then get your other hand out of the way, you have about a 50/50 chance of completing the sequence without shaving off several layers of your fingers as the blade passes them as a micro-plane. If my 2 year old Grand Daughter had the dexterity and the temerity to carry a “shiv,” this would fill the bill. I would of course not wish to get the phone call from our daughter asking why “Granddad” taught baby Ryan how to take out the Kool-Aid sentry at the day care center, but then again, this blade is right up her alley for size and scale of operations.
So where does this leave me? What am I going to do with a blade like this? When I carried it a few times as a novelty, it tended to fall out of my pocket every time I pulled my keys out, nix that. I hate losing my blades even if I can’t figure out what to do with them (then again, there is a birthday sometime in the future for my Grand Daughter)….there is the potential to carry it as a neck-blade, but with a full-on 1.81” length blade….good luck with cutting something with that. If there EVER was a reason, you could probably slip it by a fanatical hijacker, which has possibilities. Gee, a scrod-blade? Let me know how you work out the mechanics of “hanging” that one. Make sure you clear your junk before you open it, the bikini shave may not only include the fuzz. So I have to admit it looked cool before I obtained it. But I also have a Case brand toothpick blade which I use constantly. This thing is about useful as a spit value on a guitar.
Big G
No comments:
Post a Comment