1954 Randall

B

bbrilmyer

Joined
Apr 20, 2011
Messages
4
Hey Guys,

I figured this would be the place to ask....

Came across this knife at an estate sale today. Didn't pay anything for it and am pretty ignorant about knives in general. All I could figure out is who it was made by (which is why I'm posting here) and roughly when it was made (the date 1954 is enscribed on the handle).

The knife is obviously in pretty rough condition. I'd love to hear from the experts on what it may be, if it could be refurbished back into cutting form again, if its worth anything...really anything you could tell me would be more than I know at the moment.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Ben
 
You will have to have a host site like flickr and post your pick on it,Then copy and paste the bbc code to your post on this forum. Otherwise, you have to pay for a gold membership to post pics thru the forum.Welcome to BF! I would love to see some pics of the old randall. If you want to email me a pic, I will post it for you if you don't have a host site that you use.
 
Hi Ben,

It looks like a 6" Model 5 to me. I wouldn't put it any later then '54. Could even be a few years earlier. The Randall shop could "clean" it (Re-grind), but IMO that's a pretty drastic measure for a knife that looks lke it may never have been sharpened. It's going to depend on the depth of the rust, i.e. the degree of pitting. Try rubbing the blade with a soft cloth and mineral oil see if you can see how bad the pitting is. There's a named Grady McCotter who could recondition the sheath. If interested you can contact him at (252) 633-5697.

Best,
 
Thanks for the info. Yea I do think ill take some mineral oil to it and see what underneath it all.
 
Ron,

Great minds and all. Looking at the sheath alone, I was thinking '52/'53ish - and thought as well, if it was mine, I'd just drop the whole thing in a tupperware filled with mineral oil and check back on it the following week....didn't want to come across as snarky tho', so didn't respond at the time...
 
Shel,

Yeah, the sheath plus what looks to be a brass nut.

Since snarky is out of the bag, there are a few other ways to skin that cat if you're not worried about it being a collectible (Or being beaten by BRL :D): I've taken out pits by hand sanding with 200=>400=>600 grit and then put a patina back on with some hot vinegar. However, it usually takes a good deal of time and patience. Another way I stumbled on about 6-7 years ago was "electrolytic rust removal":
http://www.oldengine.org/members/orrin/rustdemo.htm
I had picked up an old Scagel off of e-bay on the cheap because it was a solid hunk of rust and most everyone shied away from it. When it showed up at my door, it was even worse than the photos. I didn't know what to do, so I did some research and came across that article and said to myself WTF I don't have a lot to lose!. Before I committed the Scagel I ran a few tests and the results were quite suprising. In went the Scagel and wellah the results:

orig.jpg


The surface was mottled, but otherwise OK. An amazing transformation. If you ever try it, just make sure it's the negetive electrode you attach to the item you want to de-rust or you'll remove material from it.

Best,

Ron
 
Wow, I know this is the Randall forum, but that Scagel was coated in rust so bad it wouldn't sell? That's something there.

When I saw the knife (Model 5 above) posted I wanted to say clean it up professionally, because it isn't a collector. Glad I kept my mouth shut, but happy my notion wasn't wrong just the same. :D
 
Ron,

"On the cheap" was a relative term. It went for less than half of what it would have gone for without the rust.

Best,
 
Ron,

It looks like the blade retained the same grain pattern as the leather sheath. Is that just coincidence or is it from the knife being stored in the sheath?

Neat knife!

Tom
 
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