- Joined
- Jan 21, 2001
- Messages
- 1,634
Recently there has been quite a bit of discussion regarding handling material that has and is being used by Schrade. The original materials used by cutlers were natural. Wood, ivory, bone (stag) ect. Next came celluloid ( which was a brand name ) for a very unstable volatile forerunner of plastic which was made from camphor and nitrates. It was a close cousin of gunpowder and would indeed on a hot day if being cut to fast exhibited the same propensity to explode and burn as gunpowder. Years ago the celluloid building in Walden burnt to the ground for that very reason. It also had the destinct characteristic of starting to deteriorate for no apparent reason. However it was pretty and because of that it sold. Then came the miracle of the 20th century plastic. It was less expensive could be jigged, sawcut, imitate stag and be in any color. Truthfully it was idealy suited for utilitarian knives. I have never seen a delrin or staglon handled knife break when dropped I cannot say that for bone or pearl. On the other hand I do agree that the older natural materials are truly beautiful. I am attaching several pictures which I hope you will enjoy. The first is of two large folding hunters. As you may or may not know Schrade for just a few years owned IXL an English cutlery company ( I will not go into this history). One of these knifes is an IXL model made by Schrade The scales are bone ( stag ) this one has patent applied for on the blade. However this particular knife while beautiful ( and notice no pins ) was as I was told to expensive to produce in fact the Schrade only owned IXL for a few years and soon cut this line of knives. The other knife is an LB8 UH which has been a standard for years in the Schrade line. It has staglon handles. Truthfully it is impossible to show the subtle differences in these knifes but if you did it becomes apparent that the production cost factor would have made it impossible for Schrade to compete against Buck and some of the other companies( selling large folders)if they tried to market the more expensive IXL. The second picture is of a group of small pocket knives produced by Schrade ( Walden} in real pearl. The congress models are especially hard to find. The third picture is of an original six Pack of #804 knives in the original blue box in the plastic containers with guarantee and sharpening instructions. These boxes were used when the company first moved to Ellenville in (58). These are still under the Schrade Walden tang (46-73). These are in jigged plastic (delrin) and believe me it is quite hard to tell the difference in them from real bone. The forth picture is an assortment. in various materials. the bottom left picture is a #804 in real bone. Schrade also had a K horn series these were celluloid ( or pyralin) in the beginning and then a delrin version still calling it K horn. The cell version is in the back left and the delrin the right side. ( look close ). The knife up front is a bartenders knife in cell very rare since in making them the cell often broke when cutting out the bottle notch. Or else it broke opening bottles. Most of these found today are the solid metal sided versions. There is an ebony ( wood scaled) Schrade cut (04-46)which was the forerunner of the 2-OT which first Old Timer and was in bone. The rest are all in bone scales in various patterns and jiggings. Now for my story. There once was a young pretty women who like to date men. She liked to dance have dinner and enjoy life. However whenever she went out she asked her date not to send flowers but, to give her a new pocket knife. One night after giving her the knife he asked her why she wanted all the knives. She explained that she never planned to get married and while right now she had no problems finding escorts someday her looks would start to fail. He said "so what has that got to do with knives?". She said one thing she had found out in life was that there was nothing a 16 year old boy would not do for a new knife. I hope you like the pictures Rich.
). And delrin isn't bad looking if it's good quality. I think the darker shades of it look better, the dark brown of Old timers, Buck black, ect. (the Uncle Henrys do look nice, though). However, I like the looks of natural materials better. Using the materials that God gave us to work with makes a knife feel "natural", and more primal. There is room for both, though, and I would really like to see Shrade offer some Old Timers in bone, wood or stag. Even if it was an option on just a few models, like the Senior or Middleman stockmen. Or a wood-handled Sharpfinger... 