4343f20c   
   From: rusty.hinge@foobar.girolle.co.uk   
      
   RichD wrote:   
   > On Oct 9, Greg Wormald  wrote:   
      
   >> If you want a 'beater' to open paint tins and dig weeds   
   >> from between the paving stones they should do OK.   
   >   
   > That's more or less what I had in mind -   
      
   Then you can get any old knife for a lot less from most hardware stores   
   or toolshops. I still have a knife I made from a kitchen knife with a   
   broken (plastic) handle in the 1950s. It has a leather-covered handle   
   and a leather-covered wooden sheath (kept poking it through the sides of   
   a plain leather one...)   
      
   It's not mutton dressed-up as lamb, it's mutton dressed as mutton, but   
   even though it's stainless steel, it keeps its edge well, and all it   
   cost me was an evening's work and a little glue.   
      
   > but it does raise the question: what makes   
   > a quality knife, and what does one use it for?   
      
   Fitness for purpose. The steel should be good, and hardened then   
   tempered to keep an edge, but have springiness, and, you wouldn't skin a   
   mouse with a kukri any more than you would try to conquer the jungle   
   with only a penknife.   
      
   Elegance, though desirable, is secondary.   
      
   --   
   Rusty   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)