"Carl's Lounge" (Off-Topic Discussion, Traditional Knife "Tales & Vignettes")

Cambertree said:
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Interesting that there appear to be women cutlers at work too.

(One of the Sheffield women migrants quoted in the GEC book, recalled how there were quite a few women cutlers back in her day, in the 'old country' IIRC).
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Since the napoleonic wars, lots of women had no choice than working in factories.
The WWI was another reason later.
But I doubt they ever had the same salary... :mad:
 
Cambertree said:
On a slightly different note, I think I may have posted this pic before, of 19th century French cutlers with their dogs keeping their legs warm, but I like it so much I'm posting it again.

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Interesting that there appear to be women cutlers at work too.

(One of the Sheffield women migrants quoted in the GEC book, recalled how there were quite a few women cutlers back in her day, in the 'old country' IIRC).
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Great picture!
My cat always tries to jump on my lap when I'm trying to concentrate on something. Maybe she's just trying to keep my legs warm. :D
 
Jack Black said:
Chui-888 drew my attention to this document yesterday - Proposals for changes in the UK knife laws - https://www.gov.uk/government/uploa...nsive_and_Dangerous_Weapons-Consultation-.pdf

Not the place for political commentary, but I'm posting this for the information of our other UK members, and those visiting the UK - Your Svord Peasant could be set to be reclassified as an illegal 'flick knife', you may no longer be able to purchase knives online, and knives in your private collection are in danger of being seized. Read it and weep! :(
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Sucks the big one, as a dear old friend of mine used to say.
 
Jack Black said:
Chui-888 drew my attention to this document yesterday - Proposals for changes in the UK knife laws - https://www.gov.uk/government/uploa...nsive_and_Dangerous_Weapons-Consultation-.pdf

Not the place for political commentary, but I'm posting this for the information of our other UK members, and those visiting the UK - Your Svord Peasant could be set to be reclassified as an illegal 'flick knife', you may no longer be able to purchase knives online, and knives in your private collection are in danger of being seized. Read it and weep! :(
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I've read the whole thing, and it left me stunned! Way too much ambiguity and vague terms. I guess there goes my fantasy of living on a canal boat for a while in the idyllic English countryside! I wonder if they will still let me smoke my pipe in the pub while playing a game of darts? Darts are sharp you know!
 
scrteened porch said:
Sucks the big one, as a dear old friend of mine used to say.
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jackknife said:
I've read the whole thing, and it left me stunned! Way too much ambiguity and vague terms. I guess there goes my fantasy of living on a canal boat for a while in the idyllic English countryside! I wonder if they will still let me smoke my pipe in the pub while playing a game of darts? Darts are sharp you know!
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Not a chance I'm afraid Carl :( I fully expect to see pocket-knives completely banned here within my lifetime :(
 
Jack Black said:
Not a chance I'm afraid Carl :( I fully expect to see pocket-knives completely banned here within my lifetime :(
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Another example of an insane thirst for criminalizing every activity - in response to media hysteria and misinformation. Knife Crime, as it's so thrillingly referred to in the media, is the preserve of youth gangs or mentally deranged terror aspirants, and almost always committed with common kitchen knives. Innocent until proven guily begins to take on an Orwellian twist....
 
I mostly wonder how will I cut my roastbeef without a knife... because if they go till the end of the reasoning, all steak and kitchen knives will be banned as well.
UK getting vegan? But even for vegetable one need a knife sometime...a057.gif
 
British fast food will become "Fish and Spud" where you get an entire fried fish - head, tail, scales and all, along side an entire uncut potato, which you must use your plastic spork to try to eat.

I guess I will see all you British folk over on SpatulaForums at some point. Here's a nice wood-handled traditional carbon steel model. Start collecting now before they outlaw metal.

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Jack Black said:
Not a chance I'm afraid Carl :( I fully expect to see pocket-knives completely banned here within my lifetime :(
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But this is England, d--m it!

Once upon a time, the sun never set on the British Empire. And that empire was fought for and maintained by British soldiers and sailors, and merchants. And every one of those redcoats and Jack tar's had a pocket knife on them made in Sheffield. The good old clasp knife. Sheffield's products went around the world with the empire, from North America to India, to Australia to the center of the African continent.

So the Sheffield products, knives, are central to the whole history of the British Empire, and therefor the English people. To not carry a pocket knife is actually, when you get down to it, un-British! Against the grain! Subversive! Seriously.

Looking at a globe at the size of the little island nation that once conquered the world, one must realize that the Brown Bess musket and the later Matini-Herry did the work, with a bayonet of course. And those bayonets were from Sheffield. All those red coated boys who held off howling Zulu's at Rouke's Drift, or fought their way foot by foot up the Kyber Pass, were all carrying British cutlery. I wish I could address your Parliament to tell them how they are crapping on British history. If anything, every swinging Richard there should be required by law to have a real lamb's foot pocket knife on them, and a loaded Martini hanging on the wall at home.

Heck, I doubt America could have been settled without Sheffield cutlery! Before the self contained metallic cartridge, when percussion revolvers took 5 minutes to reload, the Bowie knife was a typical American knife. Yet half the Bowie knives in the United States came from Sheffield. I wonder how many lives were saved by some Sheffield Bowie knife carried by some homesteader or wagon train scout when fighting screaming Comanche's or night raiding Apache's. Or some young soldier at a place like Gettysburg or Shiloh. The night John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln, he was carrying a Sheffield Bowie knife that he used on Major Rathbone.

And if the Bowie knife is the hallmark American knife, half of which were made in England, what of the famous and iconic "British Commando knife?" I don't know of any more distinctly looking and instantly identifiable knife as that. Even was copied for the U.S. Marine Raiders and O.S.S. knives. From the jungles of Malaysia to Norway, it served and did it's job. Proudly made in England, and carried by many, in many places.

Instead of outlawing knives, the British government should be promoting and celebrating the history of Sheffield and all the products of it. There was never anything like it, and Never will be again. As an American, I'm outraged by the actions of Parliament. Our British cousins need to march on London in massive protest.
 
Thanks for the eloquent and supportive post Carl :thumbsup:

After all they have had to go through over recent decades, the last thing the few remaining Sheffield cutlery firms need is to be effectively barred from the internet. With all the brick and mortar cutlery shops virtually gone, online trading is obviously important to them, and the businesses they supply, as it is to most traders these days. This might be the final nail in the coffin :(
 
One of my favorite parts of our area is the Blue Ridge Parkway. There is a section of it called the Linn Cove Viaduct about 90 miles from where I live. I came across these pictures of it today and thought I would share them. This 1243-ft. concrete segmental bridge snakes around the slopes of Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina. It was completed in 1987 and was the last section of the Blue Ridge Parkway to be finished.

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