Canal Street Cutlery Aesthetics Feedback Request

Funny, one of my favorite traditional knives has no shield or blade etch - my GEC #92 Eureka Jack in ebony.

One of the things with a Canal Street Cutlery knife is that you pretty much know what the shield will be. They pretty much use the same one on all their knives so you just have to accept it. Some patterns & scale materials it works great, others maybe not so much.

Then you have GEC and their wide variety: Northfield, Tidioute, UN-X-LD, Cloud, Bar, Hound Tooth, Acorn, Rose, and Beaver. I really like my #6 Pemberton, but I'm not as fond of the bar shield it has. I think a more compact shield would look better on a small knife like the Pemberton. I'd love the acorn shield, but that only goes on the knives with 440C blades. The rose would be nice too, but that only gets used on patterns with yellow bone scales. I liked the cloud shield, but that was only offered on the 2-blade versions. I liked the black olive jigged bone version better than the ebony, but didn't like the Tidioute shield.

See how confusing that makes it :)
 
BrotherJim said:
I too hope that to be true Jake. I also think the quality/fit finish of American production knives right now, is arguably as good or better than it's ever been. Steel is certainly better overall ... but was it ever really that bad?
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In comparison to knives that are 100 years old, the steel is much harder on the newer knives. Another difference is that many of the really old knives were forged rather than formed by stock removal. It was usually emphasized in the advertising. ....A few are still forged but it's a lot less common. There were differences in quality then as there are now. Some of the oldies were incredible examples of the cutler's art.

It's a good time to be a traditional knife aficionado. GEC and CSC are doing really well in regards to quality and fit. Every company makes mistakes but the reliability has been excellent. Both are new companies and started with high standards but they seem to be constantly improving as well. Case has also improved, especially if your compare as far back as the late 80s. In my opinion, Queen is not yet reliable. But I'm rooting for them.
 
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This one was a gift from Robbw a while back, very well made and fairly easy opening, love the shield on there on this wood they used too.

canal_slipjoint.jpg~original


Thanks again Robb !

G2
 
I have several canal street knives and i prefer the etched bolsters compared to the shields. Some handle materials do look good with the gold colored shield though.

Also to note that canal street does use a silver colored coin shield on some of their knives. I have a stockman with the black corn cob bone that uses the silver shield.

 
It does my heart good to see your stunning pic of that knife, Gary! :thumbup:

Jim, the antique-barn chestnut handles are booked. See that tiny knot or wormhole in the upper left corner? It carries through to the other side. Exceptional craftsmanship--like a fine cabinet.
 
I really like what CSC is doing, and also appreciate having options. I picked up a dogs head coppersmith for many reasons (not the least just looking dang nice). One reason was to test out quality, and was more than impressed. So it probably goes without saying that I'm looking forward to the forum knife even more now. :).
 
I think this one is like Gary's, but as a Ka-Bar with copper and 14-4CrMo steel. It has a long slim blade of a trapper and is stainless, good for food, so it's the one I carry most often nowadays.

PA310088.jpg~original
 
This is the only CSC knife I own. Never gave the shield much thought. But what I can say is, it is the nicest fit/finish traditional knife I own. Their attention to detail is second to none.

 
BrotherJim said:
It's just not good taste to start a nit-pik thread about a cutlery over some minutia you may not be happy with IMO.
At the end of the day, it doesn't matter to me how CSC or GEC or Queen or whoever chooses to present their products. They are all fine production traditional pocket knifes on the whole.
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Really? There are threads started here all the time with the intent of gathering folks' opinions about a particular knife or knife line. Take the recent thread on the Everyday Barlow. Lots of opinions and comments about the knife's design there. Imagine all the discussion about "minutia" that went into the design of each year's forum knife.

It may not matter to you how a company designs their products, but others may have an opinion about a knife's aesthetics. Forums are where people discuss just that. I even mentioned in the OP that I was being pedantic, and that was brought on by a retailer offering two versions of the same knife for sale on the same day. Check out this thread for the details: http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/1337539-Just-saw-this-new-CSC-Boy-s-Knife Strange, no? Did they all of a sudden change the knives they had on hand? If I had ordered one based on the first photo, I would have been pleased, but had I placed an order and received the knife in the second photo, I would have been disappointed.
 
blee said:
I think this one is like Gary's, but as a Ka-Bar with copper and 14-4CrMo steel. It has a long slim blade of a trapper and is stainless, good for food, so it's the one I carry most often nowadays.

PA310088.jpg~original
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hows the pull on that? the lighting sorta made the scales look black on the bay, so i pounced on one since amazon let me down the last time
 
mrknife said:
hows the pull on that? the lighting sorta made the scales look black on the bay, so i pounced on one since amazon let me down the last time
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I just compared the pull to my SAK Pioneer. It's just slightly harder, so maybe 5.5, very nice. It's comparable to the main blade on the CSC stockman. They seem to have the main blades dialed in, but the smaller blades on the stockman are a bit tighter than I like. Mike at CK carries this knife, and it's were I got mine.
 
I'd probably like a silver shield a little better, but I'm not hung up on it. What I'd like to see is great bone jigging. With the Schrade background, I'd really hope to see some of that peachseed that they did so well.
 
I don't care to much for it either, although if there was a pattern I wanted bad enough I wouldn't let it keep me from getting it. I much prefer my Ka-Bar shield and I concur with the above post! Woodrow thought out loud for me!
 
blee said:
I just compared the pull to my SAK Pioneer. It's just slightly harder, so maybe 5.5, very nice. It's comparable to the main blade on the CSC stockman. They seem to have the main blades dialed in, but the smaller blades on the stockman are a bit tighter than I like. Mike at CK carries this knife, and it's were I got mine.
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thanks, im looking forward to it, should be in any day now. dont get me wrong, i love my HMTs ive wanted them since 4 years ago when all i did was google trapper knives and look at pictures and not join in on bladeforums discussions. heck most of the pictures that came up of CSC knife collections are from 2dead!
 
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