waynorth
Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
- Joined
- Nov 19, 2005
- Messages
- 32,437
I have had a flood of questions about the knives that will follow here.
Now that I have none to sell, I thought it would be a fair and politic time to tell this tale.
It is a bit about my journey, and a bit about the present state of cutlery making in America, but mostly a lot about my love of this pattern.
15 or so years ago, I became intrigued with the Harness Jack (HJ). A somewhat rare variation of the Jack knife, I thought it would be an exciting series of searches, and a way to limit my vintage knife habit. Also, having made my living doing leather work many years before, I had an affinity for the punch as a tool.
I had no idea that my collecting of old HJs would drive the price up so much in this small niche market! Also, the supply dried up in short order, because others were bitten by the HJ bug, especially after I wrote an article for KnifeWorld magazine in 2005.
Because of the demand, I thought a Cutlery manufacturer should revive the pattern, which had died out pretty much as horses had disappeared from daily life in the automobile age. None were much interested, even though I wrote or called all the ones I could find, some more than once or twice.
A Special Factory Order (SFO) occurred to me, but the required orders were too big for me.
Then I found someone who regularly did SFOs, and we split an order, hence HJ1.
Modeled after a Robeson, and equipped with their Robeson's punch, this old Teardrop pattern turned out great - pretty close to what I had in mind.
It was so much fun, I came up with another one, and Queen, who did the first order, agreed to a smaller order of Regular pattern Jacks, with another patent punch. In the process, I got to know the guy who designed and guided both knives through production. And along came HJ2.
In a similar fashion, I ordered another pattern, the Equal End jack, with a punch that worked like, but was not a copy of, an Empire punch. And so was born, HJ3!
I will post chapter two in another post!
Now that I have none to sell, I thought it would be a fair and politic time to tell this tale.
It is a bit about my journey, and a bit about the present state of cutlery making in America, but mostly a lot about my love of this pattern.
15 or so years ago, I became intrigued with the Harness Jack (HJ). A somewhat rare variation of the Jack knife, I thought it would be an exciting series of searches, and a way to limit my vintage knife habit. Also, having made my living doing leather work many years before, I had an affinity for the punch as a tool.
I had no idea that my collecting of old HJs would drive the price up so much in this small niche market! Also, the supply dried up in short order, because others were bitten by the HJ bug, especially after I wrote an article for KnifeWorld magazine in 2005.
Because of the demand, I thought a Cutlery manufacturer should revive the pattern, which had died out pretty much as horses had disappeared from daily life in the automobile age. None were much interested, even though I wrote or called all the ones I could find, some more than once or twice.
A Special Factory Order (SFO) occurred to me, but the required orders were too big for me.
Then I found someone who regularly did SFOs, and we split an order, hence HJ1.
Modeled after a Robeson, and equipped with their Robeson's punch, this old Teardrop pattern turned out great - pretty close to what I had in mind.
It was so much fun, I came up with another one, and Queen, who did the first order, agreed to a smaller order of Regular pattern Jacks, with another patent punch. In the process, I got to know the guy who designed and guided both knives through production. And along came HJ2.
In a similar fashion, I ordered another pattern, the Equal End jack, with a punch that worked like, but was not a copy of, an Empire punch. And so was born, HJ3!
I will post chapter two in another post!
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, I have become a big fan. I want to learn more about them.
