Did your Traditional knife get a workout today? -Part II

My F. Hartkopf, Solingen Lockback cut up a package that contained the Richartz, Solingen Jackknife I got some days before very cheaply from the Bay :D
 
Today my Conductor unzipped a bag of tamales and also neatly bifurcated a helpless bagel for breakfast! Surprising what such a small blade is capable of
 
here is my Mountain Man before it helped splice two boxes of rope.

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After dissection a couple of illegal & counterfeit bangers, my Aitor Castor helped work on a 'snack for tea' and this photo montage for Jack Black'a giveaway.

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^ Fantastic pics Scruff :thumbup:

My Case Sodbuster helped me make a hearty breakfast before going pipe-tool hunting in Leeds market! :D

 
My Case Peanut helped me prepare a light snack of (Scottish) oat cakes, good mature cheddar and cherry plum tomatoes:

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Still keep forgetting to track down some strawbs Jack. Apparently they are supposed to be the best British crop in years.
 
scruffuk said:
Still keep forgetting to track down some strawbs Jack. Apparently they are supposed to be the best British crop in years.
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Really? Certainly inexpensive. I've got some in the fridge. Had an expensive knife-buying day (more later), so might have to live on strawberries for a while! :D

Go for it P, good stuff! :thumbup:
 
^^ Me neither...but not due to the sharp tasting ingredients, more for the fact that it looks like its slipped off the plate already! :p
 
same thing today for the old mountain man. I bought 700 traps in ten pot trawls in april and the rope is all knots. I change out 3 or 4 a day and bring the boxes in, splice all the knots out of them, cut the buoy lines into 10 fathom lengths, splice eyes in them, replace gangions that have come unlaid from the battering of storms we took this past fall and winter, and cut all the knots out of the mainlines and splice them back together. From start to finish it takes about two hours to finish a box of rope that will make up a ten trap trawl, approximately 660 feet plus 240 feet of buoy lines. This rope is tough on the edge of the knife, the D2 holds up for 9 or 10 cuts with a toothy edge, the bone handles are pretty secure even when my hands are wet and slimy and there isn't any play in the blades. For two millennia sailors and fishermen have used folding pocket knives without locking mechanisms and sometimes, living in the oldest still active fishing port in the United States, I get nostalgic and stick the queen in my pocket.
 
Pete, you've picked a very capable knife for that work. My D2 MM cuts rope like crazy, even when it (the rope) is wet & caked with sand.
Pete1977 said:
living in the oldest still active fishing port in the United States
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I know more than a few Tangier Island watermen who may debate this assertion... ;)
(At work, we call 'em Tangerines....heh)
 
Pete1977 said:
same thing today for the old mountain man. I bought 700 traps in ten pot trawls in april and the rope is all knots. I change out 3 or 4 a day and bring the boxes in, splice all the knots out of them, cut the buoy lines into 10 fathom lengths, splice eyes in them, replace gangions that have come unlaid from the battering of storms we took this past fall and winter, and cut all the knots out of the mainlines and splice them back together. From start to finish it takes about two hours to finish a box of rope that will make up a ten trap trawl, approximately 660 feet plus 240 feet of buoy lines. This rope is tough on the edge of the knife, the D2 holds up for 9 or 10 cuts with a toothy edge, the bone handles are pretty secure even when my hands are wet and slimy and there isn't any play in the blades. For two millennia sailors and fishermen have used folding pocket knives without locking mechanisms and sometimes, living in the oldest still active fishing port in the United States, I get nostalgic and stick the queen in my pocket.
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Great post Pete :thumbup:

festerfromnzed said:
A typical salad for us with O blood type.. The L6 instantly started to patina ....Sharp wee critter.. FES

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Love the look of that owd 'un Fes :thumbup:
 
puukkoman said:
Pete, you've picked a very capable knife for that work. My D2 MM cuts rope like crazy, even when it (the rope) is wet & caked with sand.

I know more than a few Tangier Island watermen who may debate this assertion... ;)
(At work, we call 'em Tangerines....heh)
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haha every inch of the over 20 miles of rope I use is caked with sand.

and tell those Tangerines that we have 50 years on them. :D

I used to work as a fisheries observer operating out of Chincoteague VA and would make trips with the gillnetter Miss Priss out of Onancock. We would pass Tangier Island on the way to the croaker nets and the Capt. would tell me how isolated Tangier was. By 2007 there were only a few boats operating out of Tangier and any observer coverage was suspended. The last observer who worked on Tangier would go ashore from the mailboat, spend the night at an old Captain's home. His wife would cook them breakfast in the morning and they would go fishing, and when they got in, the wife would cook them supper and the observer would catch the mailboat back to (I think) Crisfield MD.

Jack Black said:
Great post Pete :thumbup:
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Thanks Jack :) The Queen is going to be helping make buoys today. We have to use a plastic link that has a 600 lb breaking limit between the buoy and the buoy line as a safety measure against large whale entanglement. They are tied to the buoy sticks with a 2 foot piece of rope. I have 26 buoys to put links on today and will have to cut 26 lengths of rope before I have to go to my other job. I have a rope burner which leaves a neater cut but using the knife is much faster. And while neat and shipshape is nice, the chances of these buoys lasting until August without being cut off by boats or broken off by storms does not make it worth the extra time to use the burner. Plus, using the Queen is much more enjoyable and educational. At some point I would like to downgrade to a smaller knife, such as a large stockman or a single blade sheepsfoot, and try out 1095 and stag on the water.

While I worked as an observer I mainly used a Schrade Old Timer Trapper, 96OT I think the model was. For a 14 day trip from New Bedford to Georges it was the only knife I used and even 200 miles at sea with limited (read no) maintenance, it held up very well.
 
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Pencil duties for this one today. Saturday spent in the shed. Can't beat it.
 
Great posts, Pete. I greatly enjoyed reading them.

Maybe I missed it, but I'd be interested in knowing which model Queen you use.
 
Queen Cutlery Co #3 with a D2 blade. It is a slipjoint Mountan Man I think. I meant to take pics of it today but usually I am so engrossed in getting the work done that I forgot. I will have it on the boat with me tomorrow. I got a coarse carbide bench stone to keep on the helm so I can sharpen it. Normally I use the sharpmaker with the diamond rods at the 40 degree setting and that seems to get the most out of the blade, plus that is the only way I can get it back to a sharp enough edge. I sharpened it three times this morning and have to use 20 passes per side. After 9 or 10 cuts of this rope (3/8" Everson Cordage brand sinking lobster warp) that has so much sand in the strands, I can see light reflected off of the whole edge.

Before this I used a cheap Snap On stockman with bone handles, mainly to see how well bone held up to constant salt water exposure. I could not keep the blade sharp enough for it to be a viable work knife. After 7 or 8 months of using it I finally relegated it to junk. No play, the bone was getting nicely worn, but I could not stop to sharpen that knife after every cut.

My 96OT trapper showed me that a slipjoint knife could and would withstand the rigors of commercial fishing work. That full size Snap On stockman showed me that I didn't need to baby bone. Eventually I will get something in stag and 1095. Probably a single blade and something a little smaller than the Queen. Preferably a sheepsfoot.

It is interesting that using only these three knives has allayed many of the fallacies that a slip joint knife is not good for hard use, and this use is hard, that carbon steel will rust to powder when exposed to salt water and needs to be babied, and that bone handles are fragile and only good for a display knife. And any day that I can learn something is a good day for me.
 
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