Knives, and Made in the USA

I have a normal male's interest in pocket knives - I don’t carry one with me normally, but when I do I seem to always find a use for it. I have several around the house that I use for odd jobs, and a few in the garage I use to cut rope or boxes. I’ve learned how to sharpen them (and keep them sharp), so I usually have a nice sharp edge to use.

A few weeks ago, I was fixing a broken part of the soccer goal at the kids’ school, and I was not able to get the top off the can of PVC cement I had just bought. I gave up and started looking through the tools I had brought with me. I didn’t have anything I could grip it with, so I pulled out my pocket knife and cut a hole in the top of the can and dribbled the cement out the hole onto the PVC. It wasn’t an elegant solution, but you can add “can opener” to the list of things a pocket knife can do.

It’s interesting to see the different kinds of knives that you can buy – some are downright scary, and some of the collector knives are such works of art that I’d be afraid to carry one for fear I’d lose it. Of course, many of the less-expensive ones are made in China these days, so you can’t be sure what you’re getting, but there are still plenty of US makers, many of them producing fairly small quantities. You will probably pay a little more, but you’ll be likely to get a blade that holds its edge for a while. (Unless you’re cutting open cans of PVC cement.)

Here are a couple interesting sites that have all kinds of knives:

http://www.crkt.com/

http://www.agrussell.com/


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Speaking of Made in the USA, I recently broke a drill bit, and the bits I am using have been around since I bought my cordless drill in 1996, so I went in search of a new set of bits. I had a $10 coupon for ACE Hardware, so I started there. I was surprised to find that while the name-brand drill bits like Irwin and DeWalt were made in China, the ACE brand bits were made in the US. I also found a set of ACE brand screwdriver/hex/Torx bits made in the US, while the rest of the screwdriver bit sets were made in China. I thought all of these things were made in the same factory, then put into different packages and sold under various name brands, but I was wrong.

I have found that dollar for dollar many of the US-made tools that I have are better than the import versions. I have a nice set of Klein screwdrivers – they cost more than twice as much as imports of the same size, but they are extremely well made, use better materials, and are easier to hold. The steel is better, and they don’t strip and flake like the cheap ones. Using cheap hand tools is almost always a mistake, unless you’re on the Bottomless Pit construction crew and you’re afraid you’ll drop something.