4 Things You Can Do with a Pocket Knife (and 2 You Shouldn’t)

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The knives I carry the most often are folders, and if the need arrises to cut something, an EDC blade is typically what’s doing the work.

Yet my easy-to-carry folder gets swapped out for a purpose-built fixed blade while camping, hiking, and hunting. Their inherent durability and superior ergonomics makes them an obvious choice for outdoorsy activities — even though they’re not as easy to carry. I do wonder though, if my pocket knife is more capable in the outdoors than I give it credit for.

After an afternoon of cutting and some light abuse, I was surprised at what a small EDC folder can do.

Specs

• 3.25-inch blade
• D2 steel
• Liner lock
• G10 scales
• Price: $45

I could have used a knife with a super lock or a fancy steel, but I wanted to see what a typical, budget folding knife could handle. It also doesn’t hurt that, because it’s an Outdoor Life branded knife, I didn’t have to risk damage to something from my personal collection. The Nobo Ball Bearing Folder has a thinly ground edge and a fine point, which makes it excellent for EDC cutting tasks and potentially fragile for hard-use.

What a Pocket Knife Can Do

General Cutting

I started my cut test with some basics. I sliced up a compound bow box and cut 550 cord. Unsurprisingly, an EDC knife is really good at cutting cardboard, cordage, and plastic. The knife I used for this exercise is particularly slicey and passes through material very easily.

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Light Carving

I don’t expect a typical pocket knife to take on artful spoon carving, but an outdoors blade should be able to do some basic notching and wood shaping. To test if this folder was up to the challenge, I made a tent stake and prepared a divot in a friction fire board. I also carved a tent stake with my custom LT Wright, which has a Scandi grind, just to see how the two knives compared.

The folding knife did a good job at carving the green wood, but the 7-notch took more cuts to finish than with the Scandi grind knife. Cutting the notch and the divot in a friction fire board as doable, but again not as easy as a purpose-built tool. This knife in particular is too pointy to easily carve out a divot.

Feather Sticking

A knife with a scandi grind requires very light pressure when trying to make a feather stick. If you put too much effort into the cut, you’ll dig deep into the wood and carve a thick wedge instead of a thin ribbon. The EDC knife on the other hand required more effort, but was far more forgiving. It was easy to get paper-thin curls that would easily ignite with a spark or an ember. The next time I need some tinder, I’m leaving my buschcraft knife in its sheath and using a pocket knife instead.

Processing Game

I just finished testing about 20 hunting fixed blades and I included the Nobo Folder in the meat cutting test to see how it stacked up. It sliced through meat and removed silver skin with very little effort and was in the middle of a competitive pack for overall cutting ability.

I’ve used other pocket knives (like the Lockback above) for cleaning squirrels, birds, and turkeys, and they’ve worked just fine for that task. But, I still prefer using a fixed blade to process big and small game because they’re easier to clean once the job is done.

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Things You Shouldn’t Do with a Folding Knife

Batoning

I’ve never watched or read a survival knife review that didn’t include batoning. If you’re not familiar with batoning, it’s using a knife to split a piece of wood with the hope of accessing the dry wood in the interior. A folding knife isn’t used for batoning under normal circumstances because it could cause the lock to fail, and folding knives aren’t designed to split wood.

But if you had to, I found that you can baton with a folder. I used a hardwood branch that was nearly as wide as the knife blade and successfully split it. I chose to disengage the lock so that it didn’t suddenly give way and cause me to lose a finger. I also split out small sections rather than drying to split it down the middle. Surprisingly, the knife was undamaged after a few rounds of batoning.

Just because it could be done, doesn’t’ mean it should be. Batoning with a folder is risky to you and your knife. If you need to split wood and all you have is a small knife, I’d use the knife to carve a wedge. Then use the knife to cut the split started and finish it with the wooden wedge. I tried that method and it was a lot less stressful than hammering on my pocket knife.

Prying

I’d guess more knife blades are broken by using them as prybars than any other method of destruction. I drove the tip of this knife into wood and pried it out. The tip survived, but the lock disengaged repeatedly while pounding it into the wood. Keep in mind that EDC knives are typically made of thin stock and have fine points for piercing — pretty much the opposite of a prybar. Just like batoning, prying is a task where the right tool for the job makes a big difference.