Picked up some heritage at dads last night..

[screened porch]

Great stuff! You're a lucky man. That big FB in the middle looks like a Western by the handle and a Remington/Pal by the fuller. Any marks?

 

[Hawk45]

Congrats on the awesome gifts.

One of my grandfathers passed away when I was about 2 years old, so I never really knew him. My other grandfather lived in Virginia, and I only saw him once a year when we went on vacation to help him with the tobacco harvest. He was a fascinating man to me as a kid, and always carried a pocket knife - I remember several that he carried over the years, but they were all harshly used and to my knowledge, none survived. To this day, he's one of the toughest men I've ever met, and he was equally tough on his tools, including his knives. He was not above using the blade of a knife as a screw driver or pry bar, or whatever the situation called for. As far as I know, he never owned a new pick-up truck, and would use the rusted out floorboards of his trucks as de facto tool boxes. I can remember riding around the farm with him as a kid in those trucks, and rummaging around the floorboards and finding a variety of knives with broken blades that he couldn't bring himself to completely discard, but rather just relegate to the floorboard. The one undamaged (at the time) knife of his that I recall most vividly, was a Buck 110. I remember that one for two reasons: 1) that it was bigger than any other folding knife that I had seen to that point in my life, and 2) because he'd do a magic trick with it wherein he would balance an opened 6 foot folding wooden ruler equally off the edge of a table or the tailgate of his truck (which was difficult enough to accomplish), and then open that big Buck up and place it on the end of the ruler that was suspended mid-air and somehow the thing would balance and not tip the whole contraption over. I can remember as a teenager, begging him to teach me that trick, but to no avail. So both his knives and the knowledge of how to do that trick have both vanished, leaving me with nothing but cherished memories.

Similar here, I was very young when both my mothers parents passed. He (grandpa) was an electrician and had a ton of tools.. the good old big heavy stuff. I used a bunch of his files on 1084 carbon steel to make some of my first knives I made a year ago. Though you may only have memories, those are the most important things.

 

[Hawk45]

Great stuff! You're a lucky man. That big FB in the middle looks like a Western by the handle and a Remington/Pal by the fuller. Any marks?

Just checked that one too. No maker markings other then "Official Boy Scouts of America, New York" That one was my dads and I've had my eye on it ever since I was a young boy (was always into knives, guns, dirt bikes) so I'm glad to have it now. Since I started making knives recently, I'm going to try make an updated version with either G10, micarta or wood handles.. and thicker stock, but still carbon 1095

 

[Old & In The Way]

Similar here, I was very young when both my mothers parents passed. He (grandpa) was an electrician and had a ton of tools.. the good old big heavy stuff. I used a bunch of his files on 1084 carbon steel to make some of my first knives I made a year ago. Though you may only have memories, those are the most important things.

Thanks, and I agree that the memories are precious to me. That's really neat that you got to use your grandpa's files. I'm sure that added a lot to the experience with those first knives.