Bowie Knives of the 1800's not a "Brute de Forge" among them

AVigil

AVigil

Adam Vigil working the grind
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When did the Brute de Forge look become popular? Watching the video "Bowie Knives 1820-1870's" there was not on Brute de Forge style among them.

Having been to the Western Heritage Museum where there are many blades on display there was none to be found either.

Where are the examples of Brute de Forge from the past?

Here is the Bowie Video

[video=youtube;OgDLPTAGw-k]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgDLPTAGw-k&index=33&list=WL[/video]
 
like the video said, 95% of those bowie knives came from England. Not too much call for "rough" knives in those price ranges.
 
jdm61 said:
like the video said, 95% of those bowie knives came from England. Not too much call for "rough" knives in those price ranges.
Click to expand...

There were plenty of examples of American made Bowies as well in there from California , Philadelphia, Texas etc.

There should be some examples somewhere.
 
It must be a new thing... Don't recall seeing any in Flayderman's book either.
 
the only place I'd expect to see a brut de forge bowie of this vintage would be in a blacksmith's shop. I can't imagine there'd be much value attributed to a roughly finished knife during those days
 
"Brute de Forge" has become, as a term, very loosely defined. Seems like most folks are now using it to describe remnants of forge scale, which can be had with no forging whatsoever.
Or maybe simply the forging blows underneath.
Others use the term to describe the SHAPE as left by the forging only with no profile refinement.
What are you referring to?
 
Karl B. Andersen said:
"Brute de Forge" has become, as a term, very loosely defined. Seems like most folks are now using it to describe remnants of forge scale, which can be had with no forging whatsoever.
Or maybe simply the forging blows underneath.
Others use the term to describe the SHAPE as left by the forging only with no profile refinement.
What are you referring to?
Click to expand...

Well for clarity lets hear about all three
 
Lorien said:
the only place I'd expect to see a brut de forge bowie of this vintage would be in a blacksmith's shop. I can't imagine there'd be much value attributed to a roughly finished knife during those days
Click to expand...

But, historically did blacksmiths actually leave a blade with that finish?

There should be some examples of that.

I live in the West and there is a lot of examples of what blacksmith made, during that period, at the various museums and non show any knives with that finish.
 
Interesting, keep the info coming. unless it was a user quick knife that did not need extra finishing because it was meant to be used and therefore extra refinements were not necessary, I think it may be more of a modern appeal to something that looks old or rough hewn from a blacksmith shop. I like the Brut de forge look, especially with the guard hammered out from the blade.
 
Here's an example from the book "Bowie Knives and Bayonets of the Ben Palmer Collection". Captions on pics by Bill Moran.

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Tad
 
If I had to guess I would say that "Brute de Forge" style knives from that time period were considered low end or low cost knives. I would also guess it wasn't done in a stylistic way as we do today it was probably a way to skip the finish by hand with stones phase. If my assumption is right then I imagine that is why we don't see them in books or museums, who wants to see a low end knife. I would liken it to having cheap chinese made cutlery in a museum 500 years from now. This does make me want to know when smiths started making knives and intentionally leaving forge scale on the blade for aesthetic purposes. Anyone know?

Keep in mind this is all conjecture on my part.

As a side note when I took the two week ABS class last year I worked with 3 or 4 ABS instructors and all of them referred to a brute de forge knife as a knife with some forge scale and a flared guard on the finger choil made popular by Joe Keesler.

-Clint
 
nice work, Tad!
 
Augus7us said:
As a side note when I took the two week ABS class last year I worked with 3 or 4 ABS instructors and all of them referred to a brute de forge knife as a knife with some forge scale and a flared guard on the finger choil made popular by Joe Keesler.
-Clint
Click to expand...

Precisely. And that forged flared guard is hammer-forged to shape with no refinement. My point up above.
Simply calling something "Brute de Forge" solely because it has some forge scale on it undermines the meaning of the phrase.
 
I'm with Karl, the specific term "brute de forge" is a Keesler design/term as far as I know.

I do a fair amount of knives with scale or texture left on top, bottom, and sides with finished bevels...I wouldn't describe them as brute de forge. I would say "forge finish".

Tad
 
Just a note, Brut de Forge means "as forged finish" in French (no E on the end of Brut) or more literally "roughness of the forge"

By the way, great find on that old bowie, Tad!
 
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in italian, brute de forge translates to "ran out of sandpaper" ( just kidding) i have a few antique bowie books, i do not recall seeing any.
 
I asked my friend in Finland, Pekka Tuominen, to make me a "Brute de Forge" field puukko, with the flats left rough, and he did, but pointed out that the rough finish on puuukkos and leukus is a recent development. Old time puukkos and leukus were normally well finished. John
 
Every forged blade I make is forge finished. I consider the "brut de forge" style to be the Keeslar style with the upset finger guard, often forged from a file.

I'd say a lot of the forge finished blades out there these days are influenced, directly or indirectly, deliberately or not, from the Neo-Tribal Metalsmithing movement. While I think there are fewer knifemakers deliberately making Neo-Tribal-style blades, I think certain aspects of the movement have become more mainstream, especially among new knifemakers who are forging. Neo-Tribal blades are not necessarily forge finished, and forge finished blades are not necessarily Neo-Tribal, but the movement is often associated with forge-finished blades.

As such, it's a relatively new thing, and in part grew out of a reaction against making knives the same way everyone else was. I liken it to the rat rod vs. billet rod movement in the custom car world.

Compare a forge-finished blade, especially a good example of a Neo-Tribal knife such as those made by Tai Goo and Tim Lively, with your typical custom knife made today or in the '80s and '90s when the movement was getting going and taking root, and many of them will not look like they were made in the same century or same continent. Which was kind of the point. :)
 
So, specifically to answer the question of when forge finishes gained popularity as a pursued style, I would say in the '90s would be the big launching point. Before that there were plenty of examples of working blades that were locally made (and not from the big knife manufacturing centers like Sheffield and Solingen) that would have been forge finished with varying degrees of skill, but were not as revered or preserved as the smooth-finished knives.

A good example of this is the Caiaphas Ham knife on display in the Long Barracks of the Alamo, given by Rezin Bowie to his friend Mr. Ham. It's forged from a file, with the shape forged with a minimum of stock removal. It's a working knife, but the shape is skillfully done by the smith, complete with a tapered tang. There isn't much of a tip on it, but it is built largely as a chopper and butcher knife and doesn't need one. You can see how the spine has been forged thinner to keep the blade from upsweeping too much as the edge was forged out, as well as the spine above the point being tapped with a hammer for the same reason. It wasn't made pretty but to get the work done. The smith would probably be pretty surprised to find that someone thought enough of the knife to preserve it and put it on display.

There may have been fewer forge finished blades floating around in the 1800s due to the volume of factory knives available, but I would hazard that a good number of those didn't get preserved as much as they were simple tools.
 
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