JBF Champlin & Sons Cutlery next offering

galvanic1882

galvanic1882

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I am very happy to have upgraded to a dealer in order to promote our next offering. Derek & I have been looking for just the right knife and have found an old Cattaraugus pattern called a Plumbers Whittler and knew it was to be our next knife. This latest offering will be made by Queen cutlery and we are very excited to be working with the Daniels Family and Queen on this next project. Now about the knife.

It is 3.85 inches closed and will have a carbon steel blade and all steel hardware in keeping with the period, pre 1900. We will be offering 50 knives in Smooth bone and 50 in the Cattaraugus handles that we found at the factory. They are serialized 1-50. The thicker main sheepfoot blade will be deep etched ELECTRIC and the tang will be marked ELECTRIC CUTLERY. I have attached a picture of the box label which has the etch right in the center. Prices will be 165 for the bone and 175 for the Cattaraugus wood. Shipping is free if you buy a set. Please look our site over and if you have any questions please email or call for more information. We except delivery of them to be around Sept 15th. I usually try and get them out 1 or 2 days after I receive them.


http://www.jbfchamplin.com/

View attachment 362765

Thanks for all those that have bought knives from us in the past. Mike & Derek
 
Mike,
I had some questions about this knife. What color will the bone scales be? Will the knife have a Federal-style shield like the sample knife, or has something else been selected? If there is a shield, will it be pinned? Will there be one or two secondary blades, and what will (they) be (the sample looks like two spears)? If there are two secondaries, will the construction be split-spring? Do you have any information on where/how the "Plumber" whittler originated? Was there any particular reason why Queen was selected as the maker for this knife (GEC did an outstanding job on the Eureka Jack)? Thanks.
 
Hi and thanks for the questions. The bone will be natural but oiled not colored, The shield will be the same as on the newest Queen toothpick, I went to the factory and looked over the shields and picked that one because it was different and wanted something Queen to be on the knife since they were making it. I would guess that the shield would be pinned yes, the secondary blades will be a pen and a coping blade, I really like the coping blade, it will not be split back spring but made the way Cattaraugus made them years ago and if you have an old Cat whittler you can see the construction. I will take some pics later today and post them, not sure why it was called that in the old catalog but that is what it has etched on it in the picture and when I found the knife on ebay I bought it so it could be used as the pattern for the knife. It is the first time I ever had or seen one so I thought wow this is special lets do this one. The construction is all steel and the blades are 1095 with a satin finish which in my opinion makes them look more vintage.

About the change to Queen, Bill at GEC said he could no longer make our knives because as he put it we wanted a custom knife and his production model does not work well for that. I was disappointed and many friends told me to contact Queen and see if they would work with us and Ryan was really happy to change things around at Queen to accommodate us. They have been fantastic to work with from the start. We hope to be having knives made every 3 months by Queen or 4 knives a year. We have the next 2 knives picked that we want to do after this one.

One last thing, I have read that many are asking why the higher price then the GEC versions of the Eureka, well for one how can I compete with the manufacturer on the price of a knife really. He is going to make a profit on the knives he sells me so that is one thing. Plus they don't have the detail that the ones I have made have like the deep etch and the markings on our knives. Plus we supply our own box and design the labels and I put them on myself they are not in tubes, which is not in keeping with our idea of making new knives the old way packaging and all, lastly we put something special with each knife, wiping cloths the first time and then a blade opener that has the old Cattaraugus wood on them that I found at the factory.

I hope I answered all your questions and please email or call me if you have more. I love to talk knives on the phone, my number is on the website.

All the best, Mike & Derek
 
Thank you, sir, for all the great information. I look forward to seeing how the plumber's whittler is constructed, as well as seeing what the next patterns will be in time. Sorry to hear that GEC bowed out; they really set a high standard with those Eureka Jacks and I sincerely hope that Queen is up to the task. I guess those "rare" GEC-made knives were worth the cost, after all. :p With a targeted production rate of four knives per year, I'm gonna need a second job! :D
 
That's funny I do have a second job to make all this happen!!! Have you bought any of our knives before??
 
galvanic1882 said:
That's funny I do have a second job to make all this happen!!! Have you bought any of our knives before??
Click to expand...

No, I haven't. I really regret missing the Eureka Jack...I should have been paying more attention to how things worked. I assumed they would be for sale on the site, or that there would be a big announcement of their availability. Then members here started posting pictures, and then they were gone! ARGH! :grumpy: My fault: I should have done a little more digging and questioning before it got to that point. Oh well, I won't miss this one. :) I was reading the article on the Champlin website a few days ago about how you discovered the vintage wood scales in the old Cattaraugus factory; that really must have been an adventure. How many salvageable scales do you think you recovered? Would ebony have been the planned material if you hadn't made that incredible find? Were there any other types of wood being discussed (Cocolobo, Blackwood)?
 
Sorry you missed out on the Eureka's, I have bought some back in last few months but have a waiting list for them so they are sold before I even get them. When we started this we had no idea they would sell so well and we really just went with it. We thought we would have them for sale on the website also but it only happened on the last of the first run. Right now 70 knives are spoken for. Contrary to what people have been saying we always sold and are selling single knives and never in just sets.

About the wood handles there are a few species but most are what Bill Howard called a cocobolo, rosewood. There have been some ebony pieces mixed in but not enough to do a run of knives. I would have probably gone with ebony or another wood if these were not found.

Mike
 
Here is an old Cattaraugus whittler that I just picked up and it is made the same way the old Plumbers Whittler is made. This knife does not have Little Valley on it and I think it is of the same era as the Galvanic1882 knives shown in my avatar, thick old pearl and now brass in the hardware. I was really happy to get this knife. The etch is still on it after all these years!!!View attachment 364861View attachment 364862View attachment 364863
 
Mike can we get some clues as to what the next few offerings will be?

My JBF Eureka with stag is still one of my favorite knives.
 
galvanic1882 said:
Here is an old Cattaraugus whittler that I just picked up and it is made the same way the old Plumbers Whittler is made. This knife does not have Little Valley on it and I think it is of the same era as the Galvanic1882 knives shown in my avatar, thick old pearl and now brass in the hardware. I was really happy to get this knife. The etch is still on it after all these years!!!View attachment 364861View attachment 364862View attachment 364863
Click to expand...

I'm sure that ol' knife has a lot of stories to tell, Mike! I wanted to ask you about the construction. It appears that there are two individual backsprings that rest adjacent to each other with no spacer plate in-between; is the "spacer" between the secondary blades just a separate piece held in place by the pivot pins? (maybe I'm missing something here?)
It also looks like the backsprings were ground in such a way to allow for clearance of the main blade between them...?
 
Justin at this time we are looking at possibly a double gunstock for our next offering after this one and then an old NYK company pattern knife.

Shaggy you are right about the construction of the knife. It is an older way to make a whittler I guess and we have seen Freidmann & Lauterjung whittlers made that way. They held the Electric trademark and maybe JBF picked up this type of construction from them, who knows.

By the way we have only 2 sets of knives left and 4 bone handled knives left for sale, all the rest are spoken for.
 
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