Schrade's first deeply hollow ground knives?

[pinnah]

Was the LB7 (introduced in 78, if I understand correctly) the first "deeply" hollow grind production knife?

I've become interested in the history of the hollow grind and how and when it became popular and why.

My hunch is that aesthetics are (were) driven by flukes of manufacturing and that something changed in blade grinding machinery that allowed for cheaper mass production of hollow grind blades like that on the LB7.

Can anybody speak about the grinding machinery that was used on knives like the LB7 and contrast that to the kinds of machinery that was used by Schrade to produce the flat and sabre ground blades in the pre 78 years?

 

[thawk]

I'm not sure about machinery, but Schrade had hollow ground pocket knives back in the early 1960's with knives etched as "KON-KAV". The 880, 863, and 805 all bore this etch and were a 3 7/8" stockman, a 3 5/8" whittler, and a 2 3/4" stockman pattern respectively. I suspect there were hollow ground examples before this. Whether these qualify as what you describe as "deeply" I'm not sure, but they seemed as concave as an LB7.

 

[pinnah]

This is really excellent to learn!!

The 60s seems right to me.

Would love to hear about any changes in machinery that made Kon Kav possible.

 

[thawk]

I added a picture of an 880, which may have been a hand finished blade.

 

[pinnah]

thawk,

Is the shoulder at the transition into the concavity rounded?

I believe I've heard of that called a "soft transition hollow grind" and it's similar to Buck lockbacks from the 70s.

That's different from the LB7s and 6OTs I've seen that have a very sharp, distinct transition to the grind. Later and current Bucks (and pretty much every other makers) hollow grind have this sharp distinct transition too.

I wonder if the soft transition is more common with hand ground hollow grinds and the sharp transition more common with fully automated hollow grinds? Speculating.

 

[NG VI]

I don't like hollow grinds unless they're shallow to the point they look flat, I'm hoping to learn more about them too!

 

[tongueriver]

This is really excellent to learn!! The 60s seems right to me. Would love to hear about any changes in machinery that made Kon Kav possible.

The 880 four inch pattern stockman knife was clearly advertised in the 1953 Schrade Walden catalog as KON-KAV ground. I have an example from that time period in jigged bone. It was not in the 1947 catalog. I do not have access to 1948 through 1952 catalogs.

 

[delmas2nd]

including a photo of a 4 pin 7 OT. is this the hollow grind you are speaking of? it does has a very sharp edged to the grind.

 

[pinnah]

delmas, yes that is the kind of hollow grind I'm talking about.

Does anybody know if the early Kon Kav knives of the 40s, 50s and 60s were hand ground?

Or did Schrade have automated machinery in that time frame that could produce the Kon Kav hollow grind with "hands off" from a human?

My expectation is that Schrade did have more fully automated grinding equipment by time the 6OT and LB7 came out. Can anybody confirm this?

 

[Frotier76]

Pardon my response to the age this thread but I want to say mid 1970's Schrade went automated.The 8OT and 885UH used to have the spine shoulders ground/swedged on the clip-point just like the 880 model you see.The same for the slightly longer notched long-pull nail nick on the clip-point.I believe the 880 Kon-Kav was last featured/last year of manufacture in Schrade's catalog year of 1975.Being that the blade and the concave grind was done by hand along with the shoulder grinding and pull notchwork...1976 is a good bet for the year of automated machinery.I own of these 880 models and it is by far Schrade's finest stockman.Strangely though I wish when they switched to delrin that they put hacksaw grooves on it...just like that texture more than jigged.

Also on a side note the year 1976 is pertinent because in Schrade's history,several events happen in a specific year.For example in 1976 the Baer family had Imperial start the Frontier line and did a big turnaround in the craftsmanship of their knives.

 

[tongueriver]

Also on a side note the year 1976 is pertinent because in Schrade's history,several events happen in a specific year.For example in 1976 the Baer family had Imperial start the Frontier line and did a big turnaround in the craftsmanship of their knives.

Oh, and 1976 also marked the 200th anniversary of the first year of the first inkling of the first possibility that we here might avoid military occupation by other nations, hopefully for quite some time.