Let’s See Your “Rescue” Knives

ScottK

ScottK

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May 25, 1999
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Many of you have posted picture of old, used, beater knives that you have picked up at flea markets, swap meets, yard sales and in trades. While new shiny knives are great, I personally enjoy finding old used knives that need repair and tinkering with them to transform a former junk knife into a viable user, somewhat like the car community has done with their “Rat Rods”. These are functional knives that are proudly showing some of their “history”.

I’m carrying an 80’s era Case XX 6254 CV that was found in rough shape with a broken clip blade, cracked and loose bone scales and covered in rust and gunk. I disassembled the knife, cleaned up the internals, stabilized the scales with epoxy, removed the broken blade, reshaped the remaining spey blade to a spear blade and put it back together as a serviceable single blade folder.

Let’s see pictures of your “Rescue” knives.

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I haven't tried it yet but I'm looking forward to the replies. This should be an interesting thread.

Nice work there, Scott! :thumbup:
 
Not sure if this is exactly a 'rescue', since it's not really in that bad of shape. I picked it up at an antique mall this weekend, needing sharpening, light cleaning, and maybe cleaning up the blade a bit. I'd been thinking about getting a knife with a bail, and thought this one looked interesting.



 
I rescued this John Primble from a knife show for less than the cost of a decent steak :). Still has plenty of life left, and really good walk and talk.



The previous owner used it a lot it seems and sharpened the heck out of it.



Finds its way into my pocket weekly.
 
I had this Remington R603 with broken tip and ugly chip, which I modified to a decent shape. I think.
No mechanical tools were involved.

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Mike
 
mrszeontestpilot said:
Not sure if this is exactly a 'rescue', since it's not really in that bad of shape. I picked it up at an antique mall this weekend, needing sharpening, light cleaning, and maybe cleaning up the blade a bit. I'd been thinking about getting a knife with a bail, and thought this one looked interesting.
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Is that IKCO on the tang? Sweet!

Whetstone39 said:
I rescued this John Primble from a knife show for less than the cost of a decent steak :). Still has plenty of life left, and really good walk and talk.

The previous owner used it a lot it seems and sharpened the heck out of it.

Finds its way into my pocket weekly.
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Beautiful knife, Tom. You sure do know how to photograph knives!

mike Berkovitch said:
I had this Remington R603 with broken tip and ugly chip, which I modified to a decent shape. I think.
No mechanical tools were involved.

Mike
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Great job, Mike!
 
Here's a Buck 701 that the main spring let go on. I disassembled the knife, re-ground the main into a wharnie, and re-assembled it with two blades and one spring. Both nicks are on the same side, but I can just make purchase on the sheepsfoot blades nick to get it started. The shield was lost, so I sanded the covers and bolsters down to where the hole for the shield was.


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Next I've got a Buck Duke that came to me severely abused, it had a lot of dings and dents, the covers looked like a dog had chewed on them, and the bolsters were all dinged up badly. The blade was about 1/2 it's original length and the blade pivot was spread from some serious prying. I took pity on the poor thing, and sent it in to Buck for a new blade, and offered to pay them whatever the cost was to repair it. Buck replaced the blade, tightened it up and polished the knife as best they could.

When I got it back, I decided to remove the covers and dress it up a little, so I took an elk round and made some slabs...


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I left the evidence of its former abuse along the lockbar, we've all got a few scars, no? :)


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Really nice work, Duane! I've seen some 701's with the shields missing and the hole looked pretty deep. Lots of sanding involved there, I would imagine. Great job on that main blade.

That Duke looks like it came from Buck's Custom Shop! Sweet!
 
Railsplitter said:
Really nice work, Duane! I've seen some 701's with the shields missing and the hole looked pretty deep. Lots of sanding involved there, I would imagine. Great job on that main blade.

That Duke looks like it came from Buck's Custom Shop! Sweet!
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Thanks Rick :) That one was a fun project, Buck wasn't selling the 500 as a regular production product during the timeframe when I acquired that one off the bay. It holds a very special place to me among my many knives.
 
Thanks Mark and Rick, I could have spent more time reshaping the blade and swedge but I had only course stone and files, anyway it was fun and satisfying eventually.
Mike
 
mrszeontestpilot said:
Yes, it is. The sticker on it said it's from the 50s. I've done a little research on them, but not quite an expert yet. :-p
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Thanks for the reply. I'm just getting my feet wet in regards to vintage knives. Learning very slowly. In fact, I had only recently heard of the IKCO tang stamp and it's the first time I've ever actually seen it. Now I know what it looks like! Thanks for the photo.
 
Pretty pitiful, ain't it?

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But I reckon I like a challenge ;)



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Underneath all that rust was a vintage Marble's Woodcraft. Still ain't pretty, but serviceable





More pitifulness. On this one, the pen blade was "welded" shut with rust. The clip and the spey could be opened/closed, but with much effort...

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All 3 blades of this now-identifiable Ulster stockman have pretty fair walk and talk. It'll be usable once I sharpen the blades. (Had kinda forgotten about this one until I saw this thread).

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Nice rescue Al!

I am not an expert on identifying vintage knives, but the seller informed me this Queen is from the 1920's.



Love the old tang stamp:

 
In the 90's, I was modelling metal OO buses and lorries and once, while having the painted parts drying in the oven I realized I had left my Swiss knife inside.
To late for salvage, the handles had nearly melted, the blades were stuck so hard that I needed pliers to open the screwdriver or else, so I forgot this knife and used her only to open paints jars, which happens rarely I must admit.
Then, a few years ago, reading in a forum I discovered that spare handles were available.
I removed mines, and put the knife in Degripoil ,an equivalent of WD40. 2 weeks later the blades were opening quite normally and I washed the knife and oiled her consciously.
Then I went to the official Victorinox store, where I had hard time peering at knives all sorts and sizes, the same for the ladies selling them.
I handled the knife to a nice fellow. Down the stairs he went and about 1/4 of an hour later he came back smiling, with a new black (I wanted blue but was not available then) SAK , with all the gadgets I had lost and even a screwdriver that did not exist when I bought her.
When I asked how much for the job, I was answered 3 Euros... and he apologized 'cause he could not mend the scissors because the spring would not fit.
I was so happy I could have sung the Cantique suisse if I had known the words! :D

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That's a fun story. Thanks for posting that.
 
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