Spyderco Forums

Hello all, something Deacon talked about in one of the left handed threads really rang true for me. He mentioned about left handed individuals having to do "Parlor Tricks" for the true right handed knives. I went through all my knives and put away all my right hand only knives. It was semi painful. (I'm looking at you Rock Lobster). Granted, it was only about 10 or so of the 100 plus that I've collected. Just curious, if anyone else had this sort of Epiphany?
Thanks for reading!
Samuel

Being a "righty," I hadn't given it much thought until now. But, if it makes you feel any better, I usually try to use my left hand to open most of my right-handed knives whenever I get a new one. It's a bit harder than I anticipated!

Being left handed it was the liner locks and the frame locks that at first I thought would be trouble to maneuver but they are actually quite easy to unlock. Some like the Rock Lobster don't leave a lot of room to open up with the left thumb. In those cases a slight modification would be beneficial.

I have been carrying a knife on both my left and right sides for a few years now. Learning to become more dexterous with my left hand certainly makes me sympathetic to your struggles.

Seems like a good way to deny yourself some of the best knives in the catalog out of spite. I'd sooner adapt with what nature gave me and move on. There are far worse things in life that people overcome everyday than being a lefty.

I have realized some time ago that nothing in this life is perfect for me. With this realization came the my determination to adapt to less than perfect situations and objects. This has served me well in a lot of situations. Having the capacity to make the most of any situation is one of my goals in life.

I still try to unlock my LH Military and Sebenzas like a RH liner/framelock. Always a surprise when I have to use my left thumb, but a welcome one.

OP, I'd like to see pics of your LH specific models out of ~90.

Alas, it seems some people are missing the point of my post. It was not to complain or seek out advice. I was just curious if any other lefties had come to a similar conclusion about knife carry. As far as adapting, I do nothing but adapt. I live in a right handed world. This is not driving a car, so after 20 odd years of carrying knives, I have CHOSEN not to carry right hand only knives. To be fair I have started carrying "backup knives" on my right side. (Dragonfly, Cricket and the such)

I would like to see 90 pics of LH specific knives too. Never wrote the the remaining knives were such, only that they were ambidextrous. Sorry if that caused confusion.

crow2071 wrote:Alas, it seems some people are missing the point of my post. It was not to complain or seek out advice. I was just curious if any other lefties had come to a similar conclusion about knife carry. As far as adapting, I do nothing but adapt. I live in a right handed world. This is not driving a car, so after 20 odd years of carrying knives, I have CHOSEN not to carry right hand only knives. To be fair I have started carrying "backup knives" on my right side. (Dragonfly, Cricket and the such)

I agree and just to be clear, my perception of handedness is not about the lock so much as I can open liner locks and frame locks with ease left-handed. I am much more selective about clip position when those are right side only. It must be about aesthetics because the ability to add right/left side carry is common in some brands. I've noticed that Spyderco, which usually is king of clip positions, in 2014 has a few right side only carry models that I like but will probably not buy for that reason. Not to single out Spyderco I would love to get many knives but they are only right side carry so that is where I draw the line unless I can fabricate a left handed clip without too much trouble. I have one right handed knife, a Southard and I made a clip to go over the end of it to carry left side, carries deep, looks ugly but it functions.

Thank you Paul, I guess I wasn't being very clear on the subject. I agree, its not the locks that cause the problem but the right side only pocket clip. I would love to see a picture of your Southard. :D

Evil D wrote:Seems like a good way to deny yourself some of the best knives in the catalog out of spite. I'd sooner adapt with what nature gave me and move on. There are far worse things in life that people overcome everyday than being a lefty.

Some people are clearly missing the point.

We're talking about folding knives here. Finely tuned works of efficient engineering, most of which function optimally for the right-handed among us. Yes, there are incredible ambidextrous backlocks, CBBL, and other offering from other brands, but Lefties can and should voice their PREFERENCES here. Why the **** not?! And Lefties don't even ask a lot. Any LH Spyderco would be greatly appreciated, understanding the fact that us lefties are not the majority.

Look, extremely nuanced differences between steel capabilities are constantly discussed and debated here, yet if a lefty voices the most mild of frustrations with having to do 'parlor tricks' to unlock a Spydie, out come SOME Righty defenders of Spyderco. So unnecessary! And I can't even imagine any Lefty begrudging the idea of a specific-hand-appropriate folder for Righties.

I highly doubt many of us on this Spyderco Forum truly crave a high-end folding knife that is designed for what they are not.

No more 'parlor tricks' for me. :)

crow2071 wrote:I would like to see 90 pics of LH specific knives too. Never wrote the the remaining knives were such, only that they were ambidextrous. Sorry if that caused confusion.

No confusion, no worries. I worded my request to see how many LH specific knives you had out of the 90 in your collection. Out of my 35-40 I have three. Wondering if you had a similar ratio.

Sully wrote:Some people are clearly missing the point.

We're talking about folding knives here. Finely tuned works of efficient engineering, most of which function optimally for the right-handed among us. Yes, there are incredible ambidextrous backlocks, CBBL, and other offering from other brands, but Lefties can and should voice their PREFERENCES here. Why the **** not?! And Lefties don't even ask a lot. Any LH Spyderco would be greatly appreciated, understanding the fact that us lefties are not the majority.

Look, extremely nuanced differences between steel capabilities are constantly discussed and debated here, yet if a lefty voices the most mild of frustrations with having to do 'parlor tricks' to unlock a Spydie, out come SOME Righty defenders of Spyderco. So unnecessary! And I can't even imagine any Lefty begrudging the idea of a specific-hand-appropriate folder for Righties.

I highly doubt many of us on this Spyderco Forum truly crave a high-end folding knife that is designed for what they are not.

No more 'parlor tricks' for me. :)

No I see your point crystal clear, maybe you don't see mine.

This is an open forum, with many diverse opinions on pretty much everything. You can't expect everyone to jump in and agree with every opinion you have. Welcome to the internet. You can choose to get bent out of shape and see where that gets you, but I can promise you nothing constructive will come from it.

For the record, I was born a lefty just like my mother. I had a physician explain it to me years ago after taking a physical. I don't recall the numbers but I have something like 30% more strength in my left hand than my right. I asked my mother and she recalls me being young and favoring both hands but I was taught to do most things right handed. There are some things I can do left and some things I absolutely can't do. I can't write left handed, can't bat left handed, and I couldn't throw a ball left handed and hit you with it if you were standing 5 feet in front of me, and I can't throw a decent punch with my left either. But, I can pretty easily manipulate any right handed lock with my left hand quite easily.

On one hand I can understand people having preferences and that's totally fine we all do, but on the other hand I honestly just see it as non constructive complaining and I think the issue is constantly blown way out of proportion, especially when words like "minority" are thrown in. Lefties aren't victims, they aren't handicapped. There are some really excellent knives in the lineup that I would still own and carry if they had a lefty specific lock (Gunting), and I would deal with my own shortcomings in operating that lock because to me the act of unlocking the knife is a fraction of the actual use of it. That's MY preference, and I don't expect anyone to agree with it. And lets be fair, there are FAR more back locks and/or ambidextrous locks in the catalog than liner or compression locks so I'd say the options are more than fair. The reality is you're just gonna have to accept that ambidextrous locks will probably always be the option over dedicated lefty locks...that's just smart business. **** it would be smarter if EVERY lock available was ambidextrous, then we wouldn't even be having this discussion would we? Not to mention, even us rightys have to make choices. I've come to favor the Manix 2 over the Para 2 because, despite the fact I can operate the compression lock left handed, I can operate the CBBL lock left handed much easier.

As far as "pure left handed knives" I have a military, A DPZ hest and a 22 year old Sebenza

Dpx*

It's funny, I'm a lefty but I use my right hand for anything that requires strength/power. My left hand is used for anything requiring fine motor control. Kind of like using a left-handed glove to catch a baseball but throwing with my right. Not sure if I'm like a lot of you, I've adapted to using my right hand to open a right-hand only blade and then transferring to my left to do my cutting.

Heres a curveball, Im a heavy righty but my right wrist has permanently damaged cartilage...Im forced to use my very weak left and although Ive gotten better with knives it does royally suck so I do see the difficulties you lefties deal with. Im trying to train myself to be dexterous with the left, something lefties have dealt with all their lives with the right. Like what Evil is alluding to, theres several things in everyone's lives that they have to adjust to physically and not just handedness. Just gotta deal with it, but how you deal with it is of course up to you.

FCM415 wrote:Heres a curveball, Im a heavy righty but my right wrist has permanently damaged cartilage...Im forced to use my very weak left and although Ive gotten better with knives it does royally suck so I do see the difficulties you lefties deal with. Im trying to train myself to be dexterous with the left, something lefties have dealt with all their lives with the right. Like what Evil is alluding to, theres several things in everyone's lives that they have to adjust to physically and not just handedness. Just gotta deal with it, but how you deal with it is of course up to you.

I'm lucky that both my hands/wrists work fine, I just seem to find myself in situations where maybe my hands are full and I need to close my knife left handed. Seems like this happens all the time for me. Even if for no other reason than what if, I like to be able to operate my knives with both hands. Still, something like a liner lock, to me, is very easy to unlock with my left hand. Maybe I'll make a video playing around with my off hand unlocking various knives..

Spyderco may soon release the second ambidextrous flipper to ever be produced. You pretty much never see those.

I think people have been trying to rally up a lefty PM2 for a long time now. I think that may be a next best bet once the factory is finished.