Bolster Styles

Bolsters are not normally a detail I pay much attention to. When done right however, they greatly add to the eye appeal of a knife.

This Norfolk has pinched, threaded, slant bolsters. :thumbsup:

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One of the spots on my list is reserved for a knife with tip bolsters, hopefully in pearl. Something like this Erickson.

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image by Ken Erickson
 
Cambertree said:
Here's a fluted and pinched bolster from a congress knife, recovered from the wreck of the SS Schomberg, sunk off the coast of southern Australia in 1855.



The fluting is narrower than rat-tail filing, and bordered by threading. Your example posted above, Greg, is just a kind of wide threading, I think.

Good idea for a thread, Greg. It's interesting to me that this whole intricate field of pocket knife craft is almost a lost art, despite the current popularity of traditional styles and patterns.

It seems most bolsters now are drop forged, and I don't recall seeing contemporary custom traditional knifemakers really going all out with the old bolster pattern recreations, either.

As an example, look how wild some of the styling and shaping is in some of these bolsters from Smith's Key (1816).



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The Smiths Key images are amazing. Interesting to see the intricate bolster work. The knives with the finger grooves are new to me too... something you see often in modern folders, but I've never seen anything like that in a traditional. The cover material on the knives and blade shapes are also fun to look at. I wonder what the green covers are? Thank you for posting them!
 
Then you have what Case calls "worked bolsters" - which seems to cover a lot of territory based on their previous renditions. This is the current incarnation:

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A superb thread, well done ladies and gentlemen :thumbsup:

kamagong said:
One of the spots on my list is reserved for a knife with tip bolsters, hopefully in pearl. Something like this Erickson.

34594734452_d50051a5c4_c.jpg

image by Ken Erickson
Click to expand...

That is absolutely stunning! :D

jc57 said:
Then you have what Case calls "worked bolsters" - which seems to cover a lot of territory based on their previous renditions. This is the current incarnation:

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Click to expand...

That is absolutely not. :p
 
Great stuff folks. Examples, reference charts, and discussion: I'm enjoying it all and learning a bunch, too. :) :thumbsup:
 
This is one of the coolest knife threads I've read, ever. It's only shadowed by the Barlow thread...but this is great stuff to learn. Thank you folks!
 
Thanks for the great posts and kind words, folks.

Just as a matter of reference, if any of you don't have the free pdf of Smith's Key from the French national library, here's the link (download button's on the left side).

https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/blog.lostartpress.com/2013/05/14/free-download-smiths-key/amp/

It's intriguing to think that there must have been a whole specific nomenclature - at least on the shop floor level - describing all those bolster stylings and filework types.

I suppose a working cutler of the time, much like a stonemason, could receive a brief set of verbal instructions from their foreman or factor, and then go and make one of those worked bolster sets, knowing exactly what was meant.

(Of course, there would have been template patterns too, I guess.)

I'd love to know if any of those old terms for the different filework styles on those fancy Smith's Key bolsters still survives.

Just to clarify my earlier comment about contemporary bolsters being die forged: I meant this in the context of 'worked' bolsters only, like the TCs, and Northfield types. The simpler bolsters are obviously still ground to shape from brass blocks soldered to the scales, by some makers.

Like this Trevor Ablett work sequence display board:

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Here's some Thomas Turner & Co. bolsters from a 1901 display board, now in the Millennium Gallery in Sheffield.

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Your guess might be as good as mine, and like knife patterns, I suppose bolster descriptive terms aren't an exact science - but I would say (from L to R) you might have rat-tail filed; rat-tail filed; threaded and fluted; threaded; and maybe fluted in the above pictured knives?

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What do you think?
 
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Cambertree, Thank you for sharing the wonderful photos of Ablett's sequence display board and the beautiful exhibit of Turners :thumbsup:
 
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