There is a trend in the self-defense and knife industries that is a constant drive toward “minimalism,” to carry something as inexpensive and even disposable as possible. This “tactical minimalism” is part of the reason that kitchen knives, like the Victorinox bird’s beak paring knife and the Pioneer Woman paring knife, have become so popular among people who otherwise would be buyers of high-end blades. The same people who would think nothing of spending a hundred dollars or more on a folding knife or fixed blade for daily carry have, almost paradoxically, started advocating for and carrying much cheaper blades.
In some ways this makes perfect sense. As people who arm themselves for self-defense become more aware of the legal landscape in which that self-defense happens, they get a little more savvy when it comes to how to “work the system” to their benefit. If you carry an expensive knife (or an expensive handgun) and you actually have to use that knife (or handgun) in a self-defense incident, it will be taken from you and held for some undetermined amount of time as evidence in the trial that results. The sad fact is that you will almost always go to trial (or at least sit before a grand jury, in states with that system) if you use a knife for self-defense. It happens with guns too, but it’s almost like our society is more programmed to see self-defense with a handgun as the act of a “good guy” while seeing all use of a knife as that of a criminal.
Rather than risk something expensive should you actually use it, or fret about the finish of a “safe queen” (because anything you carry daily is going to get beat up, finish-wise, over the course of time), a lot of prepared citizens thus opt for the minimalist approach. Even though demand for these “tactical trends” has driven up the price of some of the cheap options (you’ll now pay around 50 bucks to get your hands on a Pioneer Woman knife with a Kydex sheath, for example), it still makes sense, then, to carry a self-defense tool to which you have no particular personal or financial attachment. If you use it and it ends up in an evidence bag, you aren’t out anything (and you have bigger problems anyway).
All this drove me to wonder: Just how cheaply could I obtain a GOOD self-defense option? The idea struck when I discovered a Victorinox paring knife in the cutlery bin of a local thrift store. Victorinox is a solid brand, and their plastic-handled paring knives are surprisingly strong. This was the straight paring knife, not the slightly more versatile bird’s beak model, but still, it’s a great knife. This version had just one problem: Somebody had obviously put the plastic handle down on a hot surface, such as a barbecue grill or stove burner. A series of thick grooves, like the claw of a red-hot demon, had melted the plastic in regular lines.
The good news for me was that this knife cost me all of a quarter. The bad news was that the edge was badly chewed up in a way I’ve seldom seen. I found myself curious as to what kind of kitchen duty this poor paring knife could have been doing that it ended up in such a sorry state… and then, rather than be thrown away, it was left at a thrift store donation box.
Regardless, I decided that it was worth a quarter. I purchased the knife at the thrift store and took it home to assess it. As I suspected originally, while the handle had been badly melted, it was still strong (it wasn’t in danger of bending or cracking at any of the melt points) and the blade was still firmly set within the handle. I’ve tried before to destroy Victorinox paring knives to see just how strong the join between the blade and handle might be. I succeeded only in snapping the metal blades after repeatedly bending them back and forth. I was not able to dislodge the knife from the plastic handle, which means these things are very strong.
I used a diamond sharpener to the big reshaping on the edge, then used a simple ceramic pull-through sharpener to hone the reprofiled blade. This took a little while just sitting in front of the television and calmly re-sharpening and re-shaping the edge. There was no need to rush. The results were noticeable even in a photograph:
Now I had a sharp, serviceable blade that cost me only 25 cents. At the dollar store, I purchased a roll of electrical tape. Then I cannibalized the packaging. I cheated a little by using scissors, but you could do everything I’ve done without the extra sharpening tools and scissors; it would just take longer. For example, the knife could be sharpened to a functional tip on a rock or a stretch of sidewalk, while the blade could have been used to rip up the tape packaging.
Once I had the tape and its package separated, I used the plastic blister-pack to form an interior liner to make my makeshift sheath stronger.
Then I used the cardboard backing over top the plastic , wrapping the whole thing in electrical tape to secure it (and to provide a little extra structural integrity for the sharp tip).
By the time I was done, I had spent exactly $1.25 out of pocket… but what I had was a functional knife in a sheath that had enough retention to hold the knife upside down and shake the sheath without losing its contents. That meets all the requirements for improvised self-defense tool. You could use a length of string or cord to rig up a way to carry this securely in your waistband, or you could just put it in your pocket.
The next time you have to fly and find yourself without a weapon in an unfamiliar city, therefore, consider your local thrift store. There are other improvised options, but you’re not going to find a package that does this much for just a dollar and a quarter, depending on what you find for a knife as the “base” for your self-defense item.