Guardians of The Lambsfoot!

Cambertree said:
Thanks Dan, that’s great you’re able to get out for some good walks with your family while the weather’s good. I likewise often find myself looking for good Lambsfoot backdrops and photo opportunities whenever I’m out walking, and don’t consider myself ‘properly dressed’ unless I have a Lambsfoot knife in pocket when I leave the house!:D


Thanks mate, yes I’ve enjoyed seeing your Pho pics in the Leeds market - it’s addictive stuff, hey? Nice to see you’re enjoying some Aussie grapes too. :thumbsup:

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I think I might have posted these before, but oh well, they turned out OK. You can see the yellow vineyards again, off in the distance to the left of this pic:

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Cheers Harvey. I must admit, I often get a strange craving for caramel bars after viewing your photos of well worn Lambsfoot handles! And I don’t even really like caramel! o_O:D

Another Lambsfoot with food pic for you, my friend ;):

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That’s an interesting evolution of the modern Lambsfoot blade, Jack. I wonder what the provenance for that choice of blade shape was? I imagine Tim Leatherman is probably a collector of old knives and tools, but I don’t really know.

It’ll certainly get a worldwide distribution, so it’s good to see the Lambsfoot being adapted and preserved in that way.

Speaking of tools, this pic is one I had left over from the series John JohnDF JohnDF inspired of ‘Show Your Lambsfoot with Some Old Tools’.

These tools shown with my wonderful SFO Hartshead Barlow, are only a few years old, as I bought them new, but they’re certainly very well used, and are some of my favourites:

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Some German medical tweezers. These are so well made that the tiny grooves at the pinch point actually intermesh perfectly with the opposite side. All surfaces are contoured and edges smoothly chamfered.

A pair of Shozaburo scissors made by an old former sword smithing family in Tokyo. These are made out of SLD steel, the Japanese equivalent of D2, and are a wonder to use.

And a pair of springloaded Suwada Japanese nail clippers, forged out of SK5 high carbon steel, and made to be resharpenable for lifetime use.

And of course, the Hartshead SFO needs no introduction here, and is another lovely Old World crafted, heirloom quality tool.:cool::thumbsup:
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:eek:Beautiful landscapes. Great lighting and detail in all three lambfoot photos, you did a great job showing the different handle materials:)
 
Whoa- first of all -NICE Photo's everyone - I am just about to head out the door so liking everyone will have my already patient wife tapping her feet with arms crossed bless her.

Secondly - Jon and Vince- Happy anniversaries to you both- a special time to honour your Loved ones! Hope the day turned out well for you both!

Third, Interesting dating the English knives, Jack and Ed- great discussion- i love this and tend to over examine- and totally space everyone out by the time they have even got 1/4 of the way through my Theory of thoughts as to why and when.
As I said- really interesting, sometimes depending on the firm the jigged Bone pattern can tell a story, but to be honest, I find this a lot harder in English Knives as I do with American Knives.
Jack touched on this as the Stampings- not only do the wordings of course change in the Stampings but the Fonts used as well, and at times the type of Kick - as in Stove Piping can vary- but with me- Early English dating is bloody hard, but enjoyable- and I can say with such pride that every English Knife I have dated is........... probably miles out :D

I enjoyed viewing that Harrison Bros- and I think that even though this knife has been sharpened- it was meant to be! and it still looks Great - Really Great!

Heres my Lunch - my favourite, a good dose of Protein with my extra Mushrooms as well! and my way cool Knife!

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Crazy Canuck said:
Happy Friday, Guardians. Haven't been very active the last couple weeks, but have been trying to keep up. Was about a week behind today, but caught back up again. I've been doing a challenge at my local yoga studio for 30 classes in 30 days, and the times are all over the place. :confused:

Have a pot of chili simmering on the stove - should be ready in another hour or so, and man, does my house smell amazing right now :)

Hope everyone has a great weekend, and that my fellow Canucks have a great Thanksgiving!

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Looking good Mike :thumbsup: Have a Happy Thanksgiving :D
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Jack Black said:
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Thanks a lot Mark :) Seeming as the firm that made that knife can't be trusted not to try and replicate the designs, you might be seeing a few more pile side pics from me o_O :thumbsup:



LOL! :D Cool pic Mark :cool: :thumbsup:



Terrific Dan :) :thumbsup:
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Thanks Jack. Sorry to hear that you are having issues with them regarding your IP. I look forward to seeing more pile sides then!;)
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Cambertree said:
ETvjeX5.jpg


Some German medical tweezers. These are so well made that the tiny grooves at the pinch point actually intermesh perfectly with the opposite side. All surfaces are contoured and edges smoothly chamfered.

A pair of Shozaburo scissors made by an old former sword smithing family in Tokyo. These are made out of SLD steel, the Japanese equivalent of D2, and are a wonder to use.

And a pair of springloaded Suwada Japanese nail clippers, forged out of SK5 high carbon steel, and made to be resharpenable for lifetime use.

And of course, the Hartshead SFO needs no introduction here, and is another lovely Old World crafted, heirloom quality tool.:cool::thumbsup:
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Great picture and wonderful tools. :cool: :thumbsup:
 
Good morning Guardians!
Here my HHB is posing with the owner's guide for another made in Sheffield tool I own. This manual air pump will power my air rifle to 3,000 psi. I get 16 shots until the pressure falls to 2,000 psi. Then I pump it back up. But, I take my time doing that. :)

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Jack Black said:
Thank you very much for this Ed, this is a fascinating subject for me, so I greatly appreciate your reply. There are no fools here, we're all learning, and hopefully others can learn from your investigation. You are best placed to date your knife because you have it in hand Ed, but I think it's worth appreciating that there are certain differences between the way a Sheffield knife is manufactured and an American one, as these things can easily throw one off. For reasons which I have gone into before (but which I'm happy to go into again), I think they're also considerably harder to date, and it's very rare that you can date a Sheffield knife to within a couple of decades, let alone a few years. Your knife isn't held together with 'pins' strictly speaking, though a Sheffield cutler would call them that, but by lengths of wire. Holes are drilled in the liners and covers, and the wire is fed in in short lengths. The wire is peened on the inside (which is why they are slightly domed), and when the knife is assembled, the lengths of wire are snipped off, and in the case of an irregular surface, such as stag, are peened flat, and in the case of regular surfaces, such as wood, they are ground smooth. That is how Sheffield knives were made a hundred years ago, and they are still made the same way today. If you look carefully inside one of your modern Lambsfoot knives, you will be able to see the peened ends of the 'pins', just like on your old Harrison Brothers & Howson knife. So that form of construction doesn't help us with dating a Sheffield knife unfortunately. Steel liners were still being used in the 1980's, and even today, so in itself, that doesn't help either, though I think it's an indication of an older knife. Lambsfoot knives have always been working knives, so nickel silver bolsters would tend to indicate a later knife, but it would be useful to have sight of a Harrison Brothers & Howson catalogue, to see if, unusually, they made an earlier ones. The style of the bolster is not typical of an early 20th century Sheffield Lambsfoot, but that does not mean it is not from that period. In terms of stag, intuition is not a bad thing to go on, along with your experience of course, but stag is often decades old when it is used, and 50 year old stag is old stag. In terms of the blade, can that tell us anything? If it is hand-forged, hand-forging was still going on in Sheffield well after WW2. The kick is much the same as we might see on a Sheffield knife today. Might I suggest looking at the stamp, these can also be very misleading (again for reasons I've posted about before, but am happy to explore again), but you can probably find examples of other Harrison Brothers & Howson stamps online (well I know you can!), not just the stamps, but their style, and the fonts used. However, beware of dates given by sellers in relation to those stamps. Finding catalogue images would be a great help. This is an example of an early 20th century Harrison Brothers & Howson tang stamp (I know it's from that period because it's on a military knife, the pattern of which I can date):

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My apologies for the very poor quality image (I'll try and get a better one tomorrow, and find some more examples - I actually got out of bed to make this post, found the knife, and snapped the pic in poor light in my kitchen!). It might be worth noting the kick on that knife too.

Here's a Victorian one:

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You'll find others online, and you may find knives with the same stamp as on your Lambsfoot knife (though bear in mind that the same stamp could be used for decades). The fonts used on older stamps tends to be different to those on newer stamps (and note the small 'S' in 'Bros' for example).

We know that the Lambsfoot doesn't date back before the late 19th century, but became popular quickly. Someone like H herder , with his superb collection of Sheffield catalogues, may have an idea when Harrison Brothers & Howson put the first Lambsfoot in their catalogue, or at least be able to narrow it down. Lots to think about (I'm off back to bed!) :thumbsup:
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A wonderful summarization!!!
Jack's thorough knowledge of Sheffield cutlery is well paired with his skill in conveying that information to others.
I can't add much to Jack's concise statements other than to emphasize his point that dating a Sheffield knife can often be difficult. Sheffield cutlers commonly offered "classic" patterns, often unchanged, for decades on end. While I don't have any Sheffield cutlery catalogs specific to Harrison Bros. & Howson, I do have many other catalogs for comparing various models such as the Lambsfoot. Without having the knife in question in hand, I would venture a guess that it dates to around the WWII era, mostly based around the bolster style and use of nickel silver for it. As Jack mentioned, the Lambsfoot was a "working man's" knife and those early models nearly always had steel bolsters. And the majority of bolsters seen on older Lambsfoot models from the late 1800s to early 1900s were generally "rat tail", "fluted", or "pinched" types. Flat styled bolsters were mostly a later product of cost cutting in an increasingly competitive market. A fine old knife regardless of its age.

A picture to remember summer by, bye summer... :)

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herder said:
Jack's thorough knowledge of Sheffield cutlery is well paired with his skill in conveying that information to others.
I can't add much to Jack's concise statements other than to emphasize his point that dating a Sheffield knife can often be difficult. Sheffield cutlers commonly offered "classic" patterns, often unchanged, for decades on end. While I don't have any Sheffield cutlery catalogs specific to Harrison Bros. & Howson, I do have many other catalogs for comparing various models such as the Lambsfoot. Without having the knife in question in hand, I would venture a guess that it dates to around the WWII era, mostly based around the bolster style and use of nickel silver for it. As Jack mentioned, the Lambsfoot was a "working man's" knife and those early models nearly always had steel bolsters. And the majority of bolsters seen on older Lambsfoot models from the late 1800s to early 1900s were generally "rat tail", "fluted", or "pinched" types. Flat styled bolsters were mostly a later product of cost cutting in an increasingly competitive market. A fine old knife regardless of its age.
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H herder - Thanks very much for your input. Well thought out and presented. Any nugget of information is always appreciated not only by myself but by others too.
 
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