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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   3325 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 19, 2026

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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.

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