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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   3781 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 19, 2026

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What day to day tasks does this help with? I have a swiss army knife somewhere but there never seemed to be anything to do with it, so I'm curious about what I could use it for.

I realize this is a common cultural difference even within the United States, but there's a lot of relevance, anywhere from opening packages to cutting zip ties to prying out heat-set inserts to breaking open containers to stripping cable to trimming plastic nubs.

My uses are a little more common than most people -- I carry the cheapest tantoized blade possible because I've had to derivit aluminum plate in the field enough that it's a parlor trick -- but still, I work in a field with soft hands.

I try not to carry to public events like a concert, but I'll admit I've had to throw mine away a couple times because I just forgot I had it on me and went to a venue that banned them.

What is "deriviting"?

I assume "de[-]riv[e]ting".

Sorry, typo. Removing rivets, generally from joined plates. If you ask a mechanic, the 'right' way to do it involves a properly matched good quality drill bit, but if you have a good knife or even a wood chisel (and don't mind permanently damaging the knife/chisel!) you can get almost all aluminum rivets out with just the heel of your palm, and some steel rivets out with a good hammer.

Is the tanto shape more conducive to this?

Yeah. You need a flat or mostly-flat edge a little wider than the rivet head; anything too curved will slip over the rivet, and anything sharp will dig into the surface of the plate instead. And they are much stronger, which matters more with decent quality knives than walmart-grade ones (440j isn't brittle, I'll give it that), but since you're using a knife like a chisel on metal, you want every bit of redundancy you can get.

While there's a few other cases the tantoized shapes make sense (uh, mostly leather or upholstery work?), for most cases I wouldn't recommend it.

tanto points are significantly stronger than a lot of other point styles. In addition, tanto-style blades are frequently chisel-ground, which is worse for cutting but better for this sort of thing.

I read it as removing rivets.

It probably gets most of its use cutting boxes, zip ties, those infuriating plastic clamshell packages, and once or twice has cut and stripped copper wire. Often enough that it's worth carrying around, but not used daily, and not always at home where I know where the scissors are. I can't undo zip ties by hand.

Yes, I see. Thank you for explaining.

opening packages, breaking down cardboard?

I see. I'm used to using kitchen scissors for that.

In my experience, a lot of people who carry knives are used to spending time outdoors. When you're out in the woods, in a field, etc etc, then having a tool on hand (even if it isn't the best form of said tool) is super valuable.

Are you my wife? She'd rather spend five minutes futzing with scissors to open a package rather than five seconds with a knife.

A pair of sharp scissors held open is a knife. In any case, I'm not criticising, it had just never occured to me before.

Yes, a knife with a blade for a handle. I severely chastise people I see using an open scissors as a knife.

No, that’s not how you do it. You just open so the handles are open at the top and the blades are open at the bottom. Then you use one of the handles.

I didn’t mean to tread on people’s toes. I was given a Swiss Army knife as a boy and was rather disappointed there never seemed to be anything to use it on.

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