A lot of my coworkers find the monthly safety meeting a complete waste of time, except for the donut you snag after you sign in. I don’t share that view. Safety meetings have a lot of useful information. Sometimes they remind you of how insensitive companies can be and other times it can be quite amusing.
One of our departments uses homemade utility knives. Picture a foot long, one inch wide strip of steel. Like from the duct work in your house. Now bend it in half. That’s the body of the knife.
Image a second piece of the same material, but this one is a 1x2 inch rectangle. Fold it short ways over the back of the knife body so that about half inch of metal overlaps from the back to the front of the knife body on both sides. This forms a locking buckle that can be slid up and down. That’s the knife, almost.
Slip an industrial utility knife blade in the front of the knife, slide the buckle forward until the extra thickness of the utility blade jams the buckle and ...Presto! a homemade utility knife.
They showed a picture of it. It was the nicest prison shank I have ever seen! The buckle was made from brass, so little tapping with a hammer tightens it up nicely.
The back end of the blade is exposed to your fingers, but that didn’t seem to bother anyone. I know a lot of people wear the cut resistant yellow Kevlar gloves at work, so maybe they figure, what the heck.
The company is now going to replace them after a worker took a swing at the plastic sheeting that pallets come wrapped in, missed and cut his arm. The only question from the workers was, “Are they paying for new ones?” The answer was yes, which made everyone happy.
Me, if I need a utility knife and the company didn’t pay for it (why else would you make a utility shank?), I’d buy one. This seems a lot safer and easier than making a POS* knife.
Knife front:
I ran into a fellow who was shopping for a knife with a sub 3-inch blade at the last gun/knife show. He didn’t find anything at my table, but I asked him why he needed that length. Many cities have sub 1.5-inch or a 3-inch no serrations blade rule. I was wondering if his company has a similar knife policy. (Me? I carry two pocket knives with different blades for different cutting conditions. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.)
Him: I need it for work.
Me: Where do you work?
Him: The jail.
Me: I’m surprised they allow you to carry a knife on the job.
Him: Everyone is supposed to have a cut-down knife.
Me: Oh!
I’m still surprised about this, but police tell me most people in jail are on good behavior because they are going to trial and hope good conduct will buy them some juice with the courts.
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