The Knives of Victoria's Shipwreck Coast

Jack Black said:
Great to see so much interest in this thread :)

Chin, I'm sure we can find you some 'sharp and pointy treasure' when you visit Sheffield ;) :thumbup:
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Excellent, looking forward to it! Those links on Sheffield history you posted over in the Lambsfoot thread are great, too. :thumbup:
 
I love these old wreck recoveries, the open a window on the past.

Cambertree said:
The knives are barely identifiable, encased as they are in chunks of marine concretion, but the Loch Ard is interesting due to the cargo manifest, which offers a snapshot of what kind of goods were being imported into the burgeoning colony.

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What are those handle scales? They show none of the grain that I would expect to see with horn after such a long submersion, so they must be wood. Ebony? Rosewood? Cocobolo? Whatever they are, they held up really well.
 
Thanks very much, Mike and Fanglekai. :thumbup:

Lambertiana - That's a very good question, my friend. When I first uncovered these fragments of cutlery history, that was one of the first things I pondered over too.

Firstly, I think it's safe to say that sambar stag is an extremely tough, durable material - Herder touched on this point too. Some of the heavily deteriorated scales, I would guess were actually bone.

As far as the timber covers: I would hazard a guess - and it's only a guess, mind you - that they're Ebony. Given that in old catalogues of the past, African Blackwood was never mentioned as a specific hafting material although it was undoubtedly traded and used, I would further conjecture that 'Ebony' may well have been a catchall term for both Dalbergia Melanoxylon ('African Blackwood') and the Diospyros ('Ebony') genus of timbers. Apparently African Blackwood is actually more likely to have been the Ebony of biblical times than the Diospyros woods we now know by that name.

Some of the archeological and government material regarding these wrecks refers to the wreck sites as having undergone the equivalent of decades of a tumbling washing machine cycle, with sand and flint core reef fragments thrown into the abrasive mix.

Whatever the case, Herder and Lambertiana: one piece of certain knowledge I have taken from this jaunt, is that Sambar Stag antler, Ebony, Blackwood, and possibly Cocobolo (although I think that may have been more common on US made cutlery, I could be wrong though) are mighty durable hafting materials which I now have absolutely no doubts about whatsoever.

This website has a lot of great reference material on exotic timbers, for those interested.

http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/top-ten-hardest-woods/
 
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gevonovich said:
scholarly and anything but amateurish pictures! I venture to say your a geologist, at least you took me back to school :d what a pleasure to consume and i will savor it again and again. Outstanding and inspiring! Thank you and i look forward to more of your work....wow!
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ditto here - oustanding - great read. Avast there matee.
 
Cambertree said:
As far as the timber covers: I would hazard a guess - and it's only a guess, mind you - that they're Ebony. Given that in old catalogues of the past, African Blackwood was never mentioned as a specific hafting material although it was undoubtedly traded and used, I would further conjecture that 'Ebony' may well have been a catchall term for both Dalbergia Melanoxylon ('African Blackwood') and the Diospyros ('Ebony') genus of timbers. Apparently African Blackwood is actually more likely to have been the Ebony of biblical times than the Diospyros woods we now know by that name.
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I am confident that a lot of wood that was sold as ebony at that time was actually african blackwood. Historically, african blackwood has been called ebony, and in some places it still is. Additionally, in a knife catalog from 1912 it defines ebony as a hard fine grained wood from east africa and madagascar. Since the only truly black wood that comes from east africa is african blackwood I think, at least for that brand, it was actually african blackwood. Although there are a number of ebony species found in east africa, I can't find any that have been commercially harvested with solid black wood. Gabon ebony is like that, but comes from west africa.
 
lambertiana said:
I am confident that a lot of wood that was sold as ebony at that time was actually african blackwood. Historically, african blackwood has been called ebony, and in some places it still is. Additionally, in a knife catalog from 1912 it defines ebony as a hard fine grained wood from east africa and madagascar. Since the only truly black wood that comes from east africa is african blackwood I think, at least for that brand, it was actually african blackwood. Although there are a number of ebony species found in east africa, I can't find any that have been commercially harvested with solid black wood. Gabon ebony is like that, but comes from west africa.
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Good information there, Lambertiana.

Yes, partly due to having seen those hafts and the condition the timber has remained in after nearly a century in very turbulent waters, both Ebony and African Blackwood are favoured cover materials for me on knives that will see a lot of use.

Those salvaged covers above, look like they could just be cleaned up a bit, and fitted straight back onto another knife, and they'd be absolutely fine.

Once you start getting above that 2500 pounds-force level on the Janka scale, you start getting into some seriously hard, durable timbers. Blackwood's (3670 lbf) not that far off Lignum Vitae (4380 lbf), which has been used for self-lubricating bearings in hydroelectric dams and nuclear submarines. It was also, I understand, the favoured timber for the various government issue British nightsticks, at least the ones which were intended for use in Ireland.

http://www.bellforestproducts.com/info/janka-hardness/

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lignum_vitae

Thanks for your kind comment too, by the way, Old Bowie, me old salt!
 
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