I have to agree with you Jim, the number of real uses for a knife are limited. Sometimes I'll use it to help start a fire by making a fuzz stick, but in reality it's only used for gutting fish nowadays. So usually I only bring a light pocketknife. If I have done my planning properly and I make no major errors in judgment on my trek (and don't fish), the knife is dead weight. I have in the past brought three cutting tools with me on treks where I am traveling lighter than I do now and I got along quite comfortably with very little except food.

Still, I like to have the knife with me just in case. When Tica was young, I took her to the dog park for socialization. One time, 2 dogs playing somehow got wrapped up with the jaw of one getting caught under the round profile leather collar of a smaller dog. As it struggled to get free, the collar got wetter and the dog panicked. By the time we released what was happening (at first it looked like a dog fight) the leather collar was twisted multiple times. We tried to separate them, but could not figure it out. Then the smaller dog stopped struggling, passing out from lack of air. Holding the dogs in the air and using a borrowed knife, the only clear access I had the the collar was the inside of the larger dogs mouth; that is where I had to cut the collar with the knife. Somehow in the struggle, the collar had been twisted at least 4 times. The little beagle got mouth to nose and came around. Without the knife he would have died.

Unless I'm stripping down to the human equivalent of a flying gas can, I like bringing my knife . Even my larger knife doesn't weight much. And when you need it, it's there.

Flaking takes a certain amount of real skill on marginal rock. Unless you are next to some obsidian or nice chert, its harder than it looks. And then you have to avoid hurting yourself when using it even if it is a cobble with an edge for hacking. Very cool skill though. I once found points and scrapers in Montana made out of a fine grain basalt maybe 500 years old. I thought that was pretty impressive.