A question about history

Jsega51 said:
Well, from a hunting standpoint the design did have a purpose since the Loveless knives that featured it were mainly designed for big game processing.The tip section of the knife was ground thinner for better skinning proficiency but the grind at the rear was left thicker so it could handle splitting through animals pelvic bones and joints without suffering damage or breaking. Many of these design requirements seem to come from some idea of necessity which may hold true in that case but I don’t see the need for it on a tactical folding knife.
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Jsega51 Jsega51 , the best answer so far, I think. I hunted with guys back in the 60s/70s that had larger German made knives (the kind we have all seen hundreds of!) that had a differential grind as you describe, but were also sharpened in two different ways.

These knives were about 12" overall and had about a 7 - 8" blade. They all seem to have large, thick spines and deep fullers. As you described about using the knife as a hunting tool, that is exactly how those guys (including my own grandfather) used them. My grandfather had a large knife as described above that was part of a set that had a much smaller knife with a large belly in it for skinning. He was doing that "two edges on the same knife" back in the early 50s. Not sure why a differential sharpening technique derived for practical use would generate an opinion that it was from someone that didn't cut anything.

While grandpa was careful with the 2/3 of the blade towards the point that was actually pretty sharp, he used the 1/3 back towards the handle to cut up small sticks, etc., for a fire as well as his animal processing. The first third towards the handle was his "mini chopper". IIRC, he also used that knife to cut the feet off of the ducks he shot when cleaning them up.
 
shane45-1911 said:
I don't know who invented it, but it's Mick (not Mike). :)

Unsolicited and gratuitous pic of one of my custom Strider Nightmare grinds:

J8sIFXg.jpg
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Wow, that's the only Strider I've ever taken a second look at. Like, really sat and took in the picture/admired. That means, by my useless metric, you have the best Strider I've ever seen.
 
I imagine some dude on a forge back in something BC made the first multi-grind. I don't think any man that we can name is truly responsible for this. The caveman flint knife pic may have been a joke, but it's probably the best answer. It's like "who invented the drop point", cavemen did.
 
Hashishiin said:
Wow, that's the only Strider I've ever taken a second look at. Like, really sat and took in the picture/admired. That means, by my useless metric, you have the best Strider I've ever seen.
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LOL, thanks man. It is kind of bittersweet, knowing the history of Mr. Burger. :(
 
Oh, I would imagine. Being bought and paid for, though, I'd feel no guilt. But there's an aspect of pride to it that is taken away... I get what ya mean.

I'm not a Ti Framelock dude, but for those who are, I'd imagine the Strider sitch feels like when one of your favorite musicians commits a sex crime.
 
midnight flyer said:
Jsega51 Jsega51 , the best answer so far, I think. I hunted with guys back in the 60s/70s that had larger German made knives (the kind we have all seen hundreds of!) that had a differential grind as you describe, but were also sharpened in two different ways.

These knives were about 12" overall and had about a 7 - 8" blade. They all seem to have large, thick spines and deep fullers. As you described about using the knife as a hunting tool, that is exactly how those guys (including my own grandfather) used them. My grandfather had a large knife as described above that was part of a set that had a much smaller knife with a large belly in it for skinning. He was doing that "two edges on the same knife" back in the early 50s. Not sure why a differential sharpening technique derived for practical use would generate an opinion that it was from someone that didn't cut anything.

While grandpa was careful with the 2/3 of the blade towards the point that was actually pretty sharp, he used the 1/3 back towards the handle to cut up small sticks, etc., for a fire as well as his animal processing. The first third towards the handle was his "mini chopper". IIRC, he also used that knife to cut the feet off of the ducks he shot when cleaning them up.
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Very interesting do you have any pics?
 
Image swiped from the internet. Grandad's knives came in a set, and his skinner looked exactly like this. (Look at the sweep on the belly!) No doubt you have seen these before - they were gun show staples throughout the 60s/70s./80s/ and even the 90s. I saw so many that were exactly the same; same exact profile, same polish in the steel, I mean EXACTLY the same. One of the vintage/used knife guys at one of the gun shows told me to hang onto the knives I had as they were produced in the hundreds of thousands, and simply had different names stamped on the blades. I believe that as they were very popular souvenir knives for Army and Air Force soldiers stationed in Germany after WWII. They all had the same stag handle with the spacers on both end, the brass sheet metal guard, the aluminum butt cap with brass nut inside it to hold the whole thing together by the tang.

My grandfather actually got his set from my father who was stationed in Germany '51 - '53. Dad bought himself a set, my grandfather a set, and one of my uncles a set. I know they could not have been expensive as my Dad didn't spend money on knives. Guns, yes. Knives, no. Sadly, he came back with a bunch of Boker folding knives that were trappers, jacks and such, but either gave them away as presents or sold them. Out of about a dozen or more, there were no survivors.

Obviously, the sheath below is not OEM.

1658135588220.png

This is very similar to the set he had, down to the second sheath (really a pouch) on the front of the bigger knife. His large knife had about 10" inches of blade, and unlike the example below was a spear point. The fuller (like this one) is deep and on grandad's (can't tell here on this one) the spine was a little more than 1/4" thick. The blade is so perfectly straight and long, it was easy to sharpen the first third a the handle with the coarse stones he had, then finish up the last 2/3rds with he finishing stones. These were not sexy knives like PUMA or some of their contemporaries. They were simple work knives.

1658136551247.png
 
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midnight flyer said:
Image swiped from the internet. Grandad's knives came in a set, and his skinner looked exactly like this. (Look at the sweep on the belly!) No doubt you have seen these before - they were gun show staples throughout the 60s/70s./80s/ and even the 90s. I saw so many that were exactly the same; same exact profile, same polish in the steel, I mean EXACTLY the same. One of the vintage/used knife guys at one of the gun shows told me to hang onto the knives I had as they were produced in the hundreds of thousands, and simply had different names stamped on the blades. I believe that as they were very popular souvenir knives for Army and Air Force soldiers stationed in Germany after WWII. They all had the same stag handle with the spacers on both end, the brass sheet metal guard, the aluminum butt cap with brass nut inside it to hold the whole thing together by the tang.

My grandfather actually got his set from my father who was stationed in Germany '51 - '53. Dad bought himself a set, my grandfather a set, and one of my uncles a set. I know they could not have been expensive as my Dad didn't spend money on knives. Guns, yes. Knives, no. Sadly, he came back with a bunch of Boker folding knives that were trappers, jacks and such, but either gave them away as presents or sold them. Out of about a dozen or more, there were no survivors.

Obviously, the sheath below is not OEM.

View attachment 1873803

This is very similar to the set he had, down to the second sheath (really a pouch) on the front of the bigger knife. His large knife had about 10" inches of blade, and unlike the example below was a spear point. The fuller (like this one) is deep and on grandad's (can't tell here on this one) the spine was a little more than 1/4" thick. The blade is so perfectly straight and long, it was easy to sharpen the first third a the handle with the coarse stones he had, then finish up the last 2/3rds with he finishing stones. These were not sexy knives like PUMA or some of their contemporaries. They were simple work knives.

View attachment 1873808
Click to expand...
Awesome looking knives! Very stylish but they seem to be differentialy sharpened. but the knives that I was posting about originally look more like this,
Internet pic I think off of blade forums!?

https://flic.kr/p/aPRPSr

A grind like a saber or a scandi that turns into a full flat grind
 
midnight flyer said:
Image swiped from the internet. Grandad's knives came in a set, and his skinner looked exactly like this. (Look at the sweep on the belly!) No doubt you have seen these before - they were gun show staples throughout the 60s/70s./80s/ and even the 90s. I saw so many that were exactly the same; same exact profile, same polish in the steel, I mean EXACTLY the same. One of the vintage/used knife guys at one of the gun shows told me to hang onto the knives I had as they were produced in the hundreds of thousands, and simply had different names stamped on the blades. I believe that as they were very popular souvenir knives for Army and Air Force soldiers stationed in Germany after WWII. They all had the same stag handle with the spacers on both end, the brass sheet metal guard, the aluminum butt cap with brass nut inside it to hold the whole thing together by the tang.

My grandfather actually got his set from my father who was stationed in Germany '51 - '53. Dad bought himself a set, my grandfather a set, and one of my uncles a set. I know they could not have been expensive as my Dad didn't spend money on knives. Guns, yes. Knives, no. Sadly, he came back with a bunch of Boker folding knives that were trappers, jacks and such, but either gave them away as presents or sold them. Out of about a dozen or more, there were no survivors.

Obviously, the sheath below is not OEM.

View attachment 1873803

This is very similar to the set he had, down to the second sheath (really a pouch) on the front of the bigger knife. His large knife had about 10" inches of blade, and unlike the example below was a spear point. The fuller (like this one) is deep and on grandad's (can't tell here on this one) the spine was a little more than 1/4" thick. The blade is so perfectly straight and long, it was easy to sharpen the first third a the handle with the coarse stones he had, then finish up the last 2/3rds with he finishing stones. These were not sexy knives like PUMA or some of their contemporaries. They were simple work knives.

View attachment 1873808
Click to expand...
Just want to say how awesome these types of posts you make sometimes, just talking about a knife, it's history and your history wtih said knife, are. Me, and probably a lot of others, could read these kinds of stories all day.
 
Josh1992 said:
Awesome looking knives! Very stylish but they seem to be differentialy sharpened. but the knives that I was posting about originally look more like this,
Internet pic I think off of blade forums!?

https://flic.kr/p/aPRPSr

A grind like a saber or a scandi that turns into a full flat grind
Click to expand...
J Josh1992 , gotcha. I can see I was unclear. I was stuck on the "history" of the idea and not the actual practice. In my own personal opinion (and just that) the differential grinds came from the history of differential sharpening. My grandfather and his guys didn't have hundreds to spend on several different knives to do highly specialized tasks, so they used their own methods to cope and utilize what they had. The example of the large knife I posed that belonged to my grandfather was nice and clean. My grandfather's looked like it was ground differently as he had the bevels re-worked in thirds, but in fact it was just a differential sharpening job.

I think we will see a lot more of the ground knives in the future as knife makers/vendors/collectors are always looking for something different. In these days of machine cut blanks and CNC sharpening, the sky is the limit. Check out this ugly mess:
1658188657499.png

Back on a sexy differential grind check out the Spyderco Vallotton:

1658188918924.png

I have this knife, and it is so perfect I can't bring myself to take it out to the job site. It was gifted to me about ten years ago by a client after a full rehab of his Mother's house as his appreciation. It is a heavy knife and Butch Vallotton (the designer) claims it was intended to be a work knife (sorry... can't do it). This knife gets wolf whistles nearly every time I pull it out... sometimes from me!. The fit, finish, the execution o fhte complex grinds says so much about Spyderco quality. The blade itself is flat on the spine until about the last third, which changes to close to the point. But it is also deeply hollow ground which changes the geometry again along with the resulting profile on the spine. The last grind made was to shorten the tip so that it could be thickened to allow for piercing. (R.I.P. Butch, by the way).

As a sidebar, I have a friend that bought a Tom Brown Tracker style knife (TOPS version I believe) because he was sure it could do anything. But after some use, he did indeed confirm that it could do just about anything, just nothing well.
 
midnight flyer said:
J Josh1992 , gotcha. I can see I was unclear. I was stuck on the "history" of the idea and not the actual practice. In my own personal opinion (and just that) the differential grinds came from the history of differential sharpening. My grandfather and his guys didn't have hundreds to spend on several different knives to do highly specialized tasks, so they used their own methods to cope and utilize what they had. The example of the large knife I posed that belonged to my grandfather was nice and clean. My grandfather's looked like it was ground differently as he had the bevels re-worked in thirds, but in fact it was just a differential sharpening job.

I think we will see a lot more of the ground knives in the future as knife makers/vendors/collectors are always looking for something different. In these days of machine cut blanks and CNC sharpening, the sky is the limit. Check out this ugly mess:
View attachment 1874468

Back on a sexy differential grind check out the Spyderco Vallotton:

View attachment 1874479

I have this knife, and it is so perfect I can't bring myself to take it out to the job site. It was gifted to me about ten years ago by a client after a full rehab of his Mother's house as his appreciation. It is a heavy knife and Butch Vallotton (the designer) claims it was intended to be a work knife (sorry... can't do it). This knife gets wolf whistles nearly every time I pull it out... sometimes from me!. The fit, finish, the execution o fhte complex grinds says so much about Spyderco quality. The blade itself is flat on the spine until about the last third, which changes to close to the point. But it is also deeply hollow ground which changes the geometry again along with the resulting profile on the spine. The last grind made was to shorten the tip so that it could be thickened to allow for piercing. (R.I.P. Butch, by the way).

As a sidebar, I have a friend that bought a Tom Brown Tracker style knife (TOPS version I believe) because he was sure it could do anything. But after some use, he did indeed confirm that it could do just about anything, just nothing well.
Click to expand...
Awesome post thank you for adding so much to this thread! Really great info and I too see where the miscommunication was. I like that you had some personal experience from your grandfather! Cool stuff man! I like that spyderco too! I really like the concept as I have said and I think if well done it could be used to make a knife that’s good at wood work and food prep. Something where most saber and scandi knives are awful at food prep and most full flat grinds only do ok at wood work. So maybe to find a decent balance of the two? If that makes sense?
 
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