Dynamite Knife Questions

3

30-30remchester

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Nov 22, 2009
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Enclosed are some photographs of a E. B. Sears dynamite knife circa 1892 that I bought in an antique mall in the mining town of Leadville, Colorado. For those that do not know how these were used, the hole in the bolster was to insert a blasting cap and fuse through, and the unusual cutout in the tang of the blade was the crimper. To use you inserted a fuse into a blasting cap, positioned it into the hole in the bolster, then closed the blade and squeezed the blade. This then crimped the fuse and cap. I worked in construction and was a licensed explosives user for 20 years and used dynamite daily in my work. However I have no clue what the tool in the butt of the knife was used for. If you will notice, it inserts in the butt between the liner and the handle and is flush when fully stored. Does anyone have any knowledge as to what this tool was used for? To defray any nasty words of wisdom, yes I am aware that the knife has been poorly cleaned and sharpened with a grinder, however this knife came directly from the mines of Leadville and was nothing but a tool. Thank you for any help you can provide.

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Maybe it's to help extract the blasting caps from the handle, if they get mashed in there from crimping?
 
I can't see the dimensions of the two, but could it have been to complete the blasting cap? I mean, go around the cap after it is secured by the tool in the handle? Thereby getting it to fit better (tighter) than with the pincher alone?

Just a guess. Any way, a very nice piece of history. (Maybe an older person who was a miner could tell you.)
 
I googled "dynamite knife" and looked at one link relating to vintage multi-tools. There was a reference on that page to dynamite knives in a section of Bernard Levine's guide. You might post this question w/your pics in Bernard's subforum here on BF. He might be able to help you out.

Here's the link to his subforum here on BF:
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=691

Cool-looking knife, BTW.

Edited to add:
The reason I didn't include the link to the other page I found, is that I'm not sure if that's kosher here (cross-linking to other forums). The other page didn't mention your type of knife specifically, so I'm not sure it would've been helpful otherwise.
 
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Found this on Google Patents:

http://www.google.com/patents?id=okB2AAAAEBAJ&printsec=drawing&zoom=4#v=onepage&q&f=false

By the description, it sounds like the knife/handle is used to hold the cap & fuse in place, and the secondary tool is used as the 'crimper', to rotate/turn all the way around the cap, thereby making a continuous groove/crimp, rendering the assembly impervious to water penetration.

I found the above info after seeing another knife (in another forum) which was labelled as a 'Griffin's Waterproofer' for use with dynamite.
 
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