Old knife maker garage sale find

R

reevestx

Joined
Dec 15, 2009
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I just had to share this with you guys, a long story short. I came across a man that was selling his step dads knife shop, his tools and supply. So we talked on the phone a little and set a time for me to go and see the stuff he had..
Well lets say it was a truck and a 10 ft enclosed trailer load of everything you can think of. So I will not have to order anything for a good while.

THE COOLEST things I found were The American Blade Magazine from 1973 vol 1 no1 threw 1975 or so..:eek: there is some of the coolest pictures of Bob Loveless and a interview and lots of other greats from then.. how cool is that? I also got lots of other hard back books, any way I just had to share my good find and buy with you boys.. :D
 
Books, great, I love books. But were there grinders? Ivory and great blade steel and anvils and vises and an oven? What all did you score? I'm envious just imagining the trove.
 
He was a stock removal maker and he sent his heat treat out... I am just starting to go threw all the stuff but I counted over 100+ handle scales, with what i seen 4 sets of old yellowish looking Ivory .. a couple of Wilton bullet vise, I got one grinder that came from Texas knife makers supply and a couple of other motors that I guess he used to hollow grind on. He has a square wheel grinder but I just ordered a kmg grinder so I didn't want his.. I got his work benches and some sweet custom cabinet's and a machinist bottom tool box. as for steel I seen some 01 and ast 34.. The one thing I was hoping for was a heat treat oven but no luck there.. no anvils. I have lots of boxs to go threw. I am pumped up about it.
 
I wrote a switchblade article for American Blade. It's in Vol. 2, I think.
 
Miles Undercut said:
Go back and get that Square Wheel if it's the original, not the current Wilton.
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Even if it is newer, if it's a good deal snag it. Grinders are like drill presses, no such thing as too many... if you can't use it someone else will eventually.
 
Agreed get that old Olympic square wheel if you can, mine has been running since 1977--
You will never have too many grinders.
Ken.
 
The old Wilton bullet vises are going for a fortune these days on Ebay, www.owwm.org. A lot of their new vises, maybe all in fact, are Chinese, which to my mind is synonymous with garbage. This makes me suspicious of their Square Wheels.
 
The old "wilton" square wheels were actually made by a company called Olympic,
this is before they were called wilton square wheels.
Ken.
 
This is the sort of deal I live for. I troll estate sales and garage sales looking for things like this. Great score!
 
Miles Undercut said:
The old Wilton bullet vises are going for a fortune these days on Ebay, www.owwm.org. A lot of their new vises, maybe all in fact, are Chinese, which to my mind is synonymous with garbage. This makes me suspicious of their Square Wheels.
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I scored an old bullet vise with 6" jaws off ebay for 100 bucks. This was maybe 10 years ago. It sits proudly on a 36" high 14" wide silver maple stump in my studio.

Needs some fixing up, including new jaws (unfortunately, one of the jaw screws was re-tapped). but it works great for now. I've really beat the thing silly and the stump will give way before the vise will.
 
reevestx said:
...any way I just had to share my good find and buy with you boys.. :D
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What a SWELL guy you are!!! I'll expect to see a box of goodies showing up on my doorstep in the next day or two.

Naively and irrationally yours,

LonePine
AKA Paul Meske, Wisconsin
 
Well, that's just my personal opinion based on my experience with Chinese-made tools. I know they can do wonderful things, but so far they haven't shown me anything wonderul in their tools. My pre-Wilton Square Wheel is ancient, says Square Wheel on the tag, will check to see where it was built.
 
I didn't like the square wheel grinders mho. I opened the side cover and it looked like it had plastic idle wheels ? I think it has a 1 hp motor also. I don't know, but he sure is proud of it he is thinking its worth 1300 bucks. I gave him a bid with and without that grinder, really could not believe he took my offer on the rest of it, but he needed it out of his way. I am still going threw cabinets lots of stuff.
 
Reeve, the drum lock wheels- do you mean the type that comes apart at the rim so you can buckle abrasive paper around it? Those are old school.

Speaking of old school, I've got an Olympic Square Wheel myself. It was my first real grinder, and now it's my trusty backup. Since they are direct drive, it's real easy to get a cheap 2hp 3ph c-face motor and run it off the vfd you already have. At least that's my plan...
 
wish I lived closer , I would scoop up that Wilton . Had one and had to sell it , sure wish I still had it .
 
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