How to Make Your Life Easier with a Properly Cared for Knife

How to Make Your Life Easier with a Properly Cared-for Knife

A knife might be a weapon, but it’s also a tool. (Just ask Instagram, they don’t like to let us advertise)
If you want a knife to improve your life, you’ll use it more as the latter and less of the former.

But that still leads to one question: how exactly can a high-quality knife improve your life? And how do you invest some time and effort to care for a knife so that it keeps on improving your life for years to come? We have a few ideas that might help.

Some Rules of Thumb for Taking Care of Your Knife

First things first: none of this is going to matter if you don’t have a knife that’s durable, sharp, and properly cared for. So let’s get some of the basics out of the way:

·        Keep your knife dry and clean. This prevents issues like rusting and ensures the long-term shine and quality of the blade.

·        Store your knife safely. Keep the blades pointing in safe directions. We like to flip the bade upside down in the studio, and a Kiwi is coming with us, we always store it back in the replacement tube. Consider investing in a knife roll that makes transporting knives easier. It probably doesn’t need to be said, but keep out of reach of small children, always. The magnet inside makes it great for storing your Kiwi on metal surfaces, high up and safely away from the kiddos.

·        Keep the blades sharp. You always want a sharp blade. If you see a chip or you see wear along the cutting edge, it’s time to replace it. That’s why we always ship all of our products with Excel Blades, they are made from Carbon Steel which makes them last longer than others.

How (and Why) a Knife Can Make Your Life Easier In Surprising Ways

From an outsider’s perspective, keeping and maintaining a good, quality knife might seem like a lot of work. Why go through all that trouble just to put a knife away somewhere, locked safely in storage? The truth is that a knife can be a much more active part of your life, especially if you take care of it. Here are some of the ways people get more use out of their knives:

·        DIY Projects . You’ll find plenty of ways your Kiwi will prove useful on projects. We’ve seen them used to cut sheet rock out of the wall, to clean up 3D prints, or using the magnet as an easy way to store screws when you’re working on electronics.

·        Hobbies. Hobbies such as whittling make full use of a knife, and can be great ways to relax.

·        Household chores. Removing a tag from a new item of clothing, for example. Cutting zip ties? Sharpening pencils? There’s a reason knife enthusiasts may have their knives on them all the time, even when doing work around the house: knives are tools that help get things done.

·        Outdoor/survival enthusiasm. Knives are some of the most versatile tools around, so they’re essential for any outdoor campaign or survival enthusiasts.

Saving Money with Knives

If there’s any way to make your life easier, it’s through saving money. And using a knife properly can even lead to saving money at home by doing some of your own work and food processing.

First, knife skills can save you money in the kitchen. Using a proper kitchen knife, for example, it’s possible to get more use out of a rotisserie chicken from the supermarket, cutting up the bird to get full pieces while saving the remainder for stock. Other people who know how to cube their own watermelon can get more use out of produce. Pre-sliced produce at the supermarket is an added convenience, but having the knife skills to do the same things at home can save on money, with the same results.

Using a knife as a versatile tool around the house—provided that you’re doing safe things with it, of course—can also mean that you don’t have to invest so much money in tools. Too often, people go to the hardware store and buy a tool for a specific job, only to bury the tool somewhere in the garage and never see it again.

The key is to know when to use knives and when to use another tool. For example, some knife enthusiasts might use their knives to open packages when a box cutter would be more suitable.

Using a knife to twist in a screw? Not a good idea. You’ll dull your blade, and the knife won’t be as effective as the appropriate screwdriver.

But with a properly cared-for knife, you’d be surprised at how many things you can accomplish. That’s why an investment in a good knife should feel like just that: an investment. It’s something that you can keep with you for years. It’s something that you can turn to in a variety of situations. It’s something you can use to pursue your hobbies or maybe save a little money around the house.

Either way, your life can be easier with a high-quality knife. Just make sure to take care of it and that your knife is in top condition. It will reward you with years of life and plenty of utility.