Found yourself on a hunting or fishing trip, and need to quickly gut, clean or scale your latest catch? Or if you’re not an outdoors type, perhaps your sixth-grader needs some urgent help to finish their art project for tomorrow morning at school and those child-friendly scissors just won’t cut it (literally). Out on a date with your beloved and in the time-honored tradition want to carve your names into a tree trunk on a romantic stroll under the stars?
What you need to hand is a quality pocket knife. Let’s look at some other predictable (and some not so predictable uses) for pocket knives for everyday use, fun and even emergency situations.
1. Opening Packets and Boxes
Maybe you want to keep packaging materials reusable for house moves or other storage uses. A good blade will ensure you can swiftly open up any packet or box without damaging it. Likewise, you can neatly cut through those tricky clamshell packages that headphones and cables come in, so long as you keep your knife nice and sharp (for this you will need a pocket knife sharpener).
Relevant article : Caring for and sharpening your pocket knife.
2. Fishing and Hunting
A budding bush tucker, fisherman or hunter worth his salt (or pepper, or even hot sauce if that’s your thing) will tell you how invaluable a quality pocket knife is when you’re out there in the wilderness.
3. Camping
Untying difficult knots in tent guy lines, shoelaces or tow ropes, preparing food or chopping up kindling to get a hot meal cooking away over a crackling fire are just a couple of uses you’ll find for a quality pocket knife on your camping trip.
4. Arts and Crafts
Finding it tricky to cut straight, neat lines with a pair of old scissors? A reliable, quality knife will do just that, cutting neatly and easily through tough cardboard and thick paper, so you can let your creativity flow freely. Pocket knives even cut aluminum, should you wish to decorate your Christmas tree with old beer cans (remember to rinse them first!)
5. Sweet Freedom
As the old saying goes “hope for the best, prepare for the worst”. Accidents happen to all of us. So if you find yourself, a loved one or a frightened animal trapped in a wire fence or thicket, a well-sharpened pocket knife is an indispensable tool for restoring them to freedom.
6. Diving
If you’re an aquatic sort and enjoy diving you’d be surprised at how many rogue fishing lines and tricky underwater plants there are down in the depths which you may need to free yourself from in a hurry!
7. First Aid
As I said, accidents do happen. Hopefully, you won’t ever have to amputate a finger or toe, but having a sharp pocket knife at hand can help with to remove splinters or quicklycut clothing to access and dress wounds. A quality pocket knife can also be used to turn those shredded shirt sleeves into a tourniquet if you encounter serious bleeding. It’s important to keep your knife in good, clean shape in case you need to use it to treat a wound.
8. Opening cans and tins
Again, if you’re out camping and have forgotten the can opener (or you prefer to travel light) a good quality pocket knife serves as an ideal replacement.
9. Whittling
If you’re skillful with a blade you can make unique gifts for friends, or useful tools for yourself to use indoors or out.
10. Letting it all hang out
Thanksgiving, then Christmas, then back to work in January. Not ready to pump some iron in the gym yet? Summer seems far away, so that beach bod can wait. A well-sharpened pocket knife can easily bore an extra hole in your leather belt, and easily slice the lower leg of your old pants off to fashion a new pair of shorts. That way you can still prepare for summer without breaking too much of a sweat.
