If you went back in time 200 years…

Hunting back then was different...
You didn't waste meat: so the perfect kill gave you a perfect carcass.
They even boilled the brains and all tissues off of and out of the skull.
You never actually shot small game, if you could kill them with a fall out of a tall tree...
 
1821.... well, if I want to REALLY impress them? In terms of a simple, but profound improvement?

I'd introduce them to H1 steel.

Never rusts, takes and holds a good edge, tough, work-hardens with sharpening. There's very little else like it, even today.

That would be the piece of technology I'd show off to them. Any folding knife technology wouldn't be that unusual to them I don't think, and I can't imagine fixed blades have changed much since then in terms of design.

But if you showed them some modern MATERIALS, specifically some of the really high-quality, specialized steels, you'd probably impress people pretty good. While I'd personally take H1, you could bring back a lot of really unusual modern blade materials and get some pretty interesting responses, I think.
 
1821, why bothering with folder size yay!
I guess an Opinel N° 13 or a beefed up Espada XXXXXL will be sought after.
 
The Sebenza. It completely changed the knife world 30 years ago, imagine 200 years.
 
Raylas said:
1821.... well, if I want to REALLY impress them? In terms of a simple, but profound improvement?

I'd introduce them to H1 steel.

Never rusts, takes and holds a good edge, tough, work-hardens with sharpening. There's very little else like it, even today.
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I was thinking along these lines. Something you could drop into that old leather sheath still wet... and not worry about it.

You could sharpen it up with the old Carborundum stone on the kitchen counter, strop it on a leather bit or harness and be good to go for tomorrow and beyond.

I believe that would impress somebody more than something that launches out-the-front or had some whizz bang locking mechanism.
 
Velitrius said:
I was thinking along these lines. Something you could drop into that old leather sheath still wet... and not worry about it.

You could sharpen it up with the old Carborundum stone on the kitchen counter, strop it on a leather bit or harness and be good to go for tomorrow and beyond.

I believe that would impress somebody more than something that launches out-the-front or had some whizz bang locking mechanism.
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Exactly!
 
I think a regular liner lock would have the biggest impact, since it could be made fairly easily with the materials and manufacturing available in the early 1800s. One-hand opening would be novel and useful too. Spyderco Tenacious or something similar.
 
You guys are funny.

200 years ago would be 1821. Do you really believe knife technology has increased that much since then? They had lock-back knives (the Navaja and Laguiole, as two examples, are older than that). They had good steels. They had time proven designs. Almost everyone carried a knife, to include women and children. Folding knives were extremely popular, and many of them were bigger than what's considered normal today.

I invite you all to take a look at the cargo of the steamship Arabia, which sank in 1856 (which incidentally is the same year the Bessemer steel became the next big thing).

Modern materials might impress, but I doubt most of the knives would make much of an impact. remember, this was a rural, agrarian, society. The knife was a tool used daily and expected to last decades. Anything that could gum up or would need very specific maintenance would not impress.

Before you start pointing out just how good most modern designs are I invite you go go work a farm or ranch for a couple months with that fancy folder or auto. I think you'd quickly realize most of them are not that useful. Blade shapes had specific uses, and they still work for those, and many are 1000 years old.
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LOL! Pretty much on the spot!

What people in these types of threads forget is - the human factor. They forget that what they themselves bring to that party is exactly nothing but an empty mouth to feed.
Within 3 or 4 days, if they don't succumb to some disease from drinking water from an open sewer, they'd sell that marvelous wonder knife for a hot meal.

See - it wasn't the tools people had back then, it was the know how.
 
What common people in 1800 would like in modern knives:

Secure locking mechanism like triadlock or linerlock.

All fancy designs linked to traditional designs like Buck 110, Civivi Dogma and Rustic Gent, WE Blocao, Gitano by Gudy van Poppel, CRK Mnandi and Impinda or Pena swaybacks.

What they wouldn't like:

Thick blades with thick edges, their knives were thin, look at modern traditional navajas. Most of modern knives have too thick blades. WE Knives is only modern production company I know with really thin edges. Knife had to work hard in 1800. They had no Instagram, but many works to do.

Pocket clip - they had no pockets in pants, so no use for that, also they would like to hide knife on them in most cases. but maybe I'm wrong in that case.

All that super steels hard to sharpen and easy to broke tip off. Their knives were made of carbon steel, not very hard, so easy to sharpen and tip was more durable this way, considering that blade was thin.

Design of many knives like Spyderco. They liked nice things with many details, ornaments, nice and shiny finish etc. For sure they would laugh at brut de forge.

Ball bearings - no reason to have for them.

Spring asissted, automatic knives would be maybe liked by thugs until spring broke or dirt ruined action.

Torx screws, Microtech screws etc.

G-10 agressive facture etc. Their clothes were quite expensive to get and very often they had only one pair of pants at once. So if knife would ruined their pants, they would be very mad about it.
 
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I would like to ask, have any of you fans of modern tool steels ever tried to sharpen them on 100 year old equipment?

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Now, with diamond hones, I can set the bevel, get a toothy edge, and then, use a medium india stone

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to smooth the edge out. Before I had diamond stones, I could not get a decent edge on the harder tool steels. It was because traditional sharpening stones, Arkansas, Washita, are not aggressive enough, and all I ended up doing was creating a rounded edge.

I think the India stones were 1890 ish, previous to that, natural stones were used to sharpen. I can put a decent edge on 1095 or 1055 with a natural stone, but not on a Rc 58-60 modern blade.

So, you drop back in time with a modern blade, you better also carry modern sharpening equipment, as when the knife loses it edge, they won't be able to restore a good edge, and then they will stop using it.
 
OK, I went back in time 250 years and

discovered my fork - Brithish Navy fork around 1750-70
Very useful piece still perfectly good today
Sadly his blade brother is missing ...

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