What makes a knife "traditional"?

knarfeng said:
As a knife knut, then.
There is an old aphorism, "If it looks like a duck and acts like a duck, call it a duck."
For me, if it "looks" traditional, it is.

That still leaves a lot of leeway, as pocket knives have been made for generations in all kinds of shapes and sizes. Build materials have included stainless (c1920), gutta percha (c 1860), hard synthetic rubber (c 1940's); Micarta (guess at 1930).

So to me, it's the overall appearance, as well as the absence of certain modern features.
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Sorta reminds me of US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart.

From Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it The phrase "I know it when I see it" is a colloquial expression by which a speaker attempts to categorize an observable fact or event, although the category is subjective or lacks clearly defined parameters. The phrase was used in 1964 by United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart to describe his threshold test for obscenity in Jacobellis v. Ohio. In explaining why the material at issue in the case was not obscene under the Roth test, and therefore was protected speech that could not be censored, Stewart wrote:

I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["hard-core pornography"], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.
 
traumkommode traumkommode Don Hanson III ABS MS uses .005" bronze washers in his slip joints, he grinds the blade .010" thinner than the spring. He does this instead of milling and relieving the liners. There are no gaps.

Tony Bose uses a bushing, does that make his knives non traditional?
 
JB in SC said:
traumkommode traumkommode Don Hanson III ABS MS uses .005" bronze washers in his slip joints, he grinds the blade .010" thinner than the spring. He does this instead of milling and relieving the liners. There are no gaps.

Tony Bose uses a bushing, does that make his knives non traditional?
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To take a non argumentative tone, perhaps we could say they make traditional knife patterns with some improvements to the mechanism. But, I don't know of any other slip joints with bushing pivots. And the only slip joints I've seen come with washers have either been custom, or from modern makers.

And I return to an idea from my previous post - the Canal Street Pinch Lock back is traditional. But they made a version with a pocket clip. Same knife, but the clip makes it not okay in this forum. We could use your statement to apply here, too.

I'm not at all insinuating that knives with washers or bushings or whatever to make the pivot smoother, especially from Tony Bose or the like, don't belong here. But this is the nature of evolution of a tradition of any kind. A tradition has to have boundaries to define it. As time passes, those boundaries will need to grow in concert was the rest of life. Deciding which boundaries to loosen and which to hold fast is the hard work people have to do together.

I have slip joints that couldn't operate any smoother with a bushing or washers. I also don't think it's really an apples to apples comparison to draw between custom makers who only make traditional slip joint patterns, and modern folder companies making traditionally inspired slip joints with palpable signatures of their modern folder company identity.
 
traumkommode said:
Introducing bronze washers to a pivot, though, is changing the mechanics and function, ostensibly to make the function of the tool "better, more advanced."
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I'm not sure how washers change the mechanics or function, the knife still opens and closes the same way.
 
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Traditional knives has always been designed with the idea of making an useful, estetically pleasing but effective tool among all the other things.
Over the course of 100+ years patterns have been developed, sharing the same features, due to the limitations/restraints of the folding knife, having in common the specialized blade shapes and the comfortable handles. The variety of traditionals were born not to impress, but to perform specific and mundane tasks. Questions traditional makers had likewise: how thin can i grind and still have enough support for the edge, or, how much belly should i give this edge that would work better. The answers drew the patterns we dig today as vintage beauties.
Modern knives differ, if you go to the roots, due to "new" implements steering from the "indispensable", both estetically and mechanically, just to offer something unseen, and to answer to customer feelings sometimes just related to fear.
That is the common trait i see in traditional folders vs. modern models, just one feeling i'm sharing.
 
Tradition. That's it. The word "traditional" is an adjective, nothing more. It does not denote a specific type of knife, despite the sloppy use of language.

This knife is traditional.

32881025324_1637616924_c.jpg


As is this.

33708495535_b1b0faf76f_c.jpg


These knives are traditional.

31631520356_faa90368db_c.jpg


This one is too.

14716572449_5a7d083451_c.jpg
 
traumkommode said:
....And I return to an idea from my previous post - the Canal Street Pinch Lock back is traditional. But they made a version with a pocket clip. Same knife, but the clip makes it not okay in this forum. We could use your statement to apply here, too.

I'm not at all insinuating that knives with washers or bushings or whatever to make the pivot smoother, especially from Tony Bose or the like, don't belong here. But this is the nature of evolution of a tradition of any kind. A tradition has to have boundaries to define it. As time passes, those boundaries will need to grow in concert was the rest of life. Deciding which boundaries to loosen and which to hold fast is the hard work people have to do together.

I have slip joints that couldn't operate any smoother with a bushing or washers. I also don't think it's really an apples to apples comparison to draw between custom makers who only make traditional slip joint patterns, and modern folder companies making traditionally inspired slip joints with palpable signatures of their modern folder company identity.
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This post points out what I intuitively apply to "traditional" knives in terms of judging/categorizing. If it looks traditional, it's a traditional. I don't see where improvements or modern tweaks make any difference at all as long as it generally "looks traditional" and operates traditionally. A liner lock in itself does not turn the table away from traditional unless it has other features to result in that.

It's kind of like the AR thing and state and federal government laws that have tried limit or define what these scary "assault weapons" are. (I use the term scary loosely because I believe it is the man behind the gun that makes it scary.) They went to features to define the difference and it took more than one feature to do that. Few would say that an AR-15 or similar is a traditional rifle, even though it functions for the most part like a traditional semi-automatic detachable magazine fed rifle which have been used by sporting people since the early 1900's. 100 years is a tradition....
 
I'm following up an example jc57 used...the Case trapperlock. I think this is definitely a traditional although the general rule says otherwise due to the thumbstud, linerlock and clip (on some). While they have some g10 versions, the majority of the handle material used is bone, which we can all agree is very traditional. That's the prime example for this conversation to me. I reckon if you take away the thumbstud, linerlock, and clip it would be textbook traditional. You couldn't really say the same if you did that with a lot of modern knives that have the same features IMHO....
 
IMHO 20 years from now the Lionsteel Roundhead will largely be identified as a traditional slipjoint, as the current materials being used on it will be way closer to carbon steels and bone handles than whatever modern marvel material at the time happens to be the flavor of the month. #unobtainium #laserswords
 
Lotta good observations in this discussion. I posted a Tom Krein knife in the current B&T thread, and I honestly don’t know if it fits here or not. The materials are traditional, at least in a sense: steel blade, composite handle; but is the shape traditional? Idk. It’s handmade, which ticks a box for me, but it’s a very modern steel(3V); Micarta scales, which I hadn’t realized were in use as long as they have been. But Gary and Frank left it up, sooo...I guess it counts?
Thanks, Neal
 
neal70 said:
Lotta good observations in this discussion. I posted a Tom Krein knife in the current B&T thread, and I honestly don’t know if it fits here or not. The materials are traditional, at least in a sense: steel blade, composite handle; but is the shape traditional? Idk. It’s handmade, which ticks a box for me, but it’s a very modern steel(3V); Micarta scales, which I hadn’t realized were in use as long as they have been. But Gary and Frank left it up, sooo...I guess it counts?
Thanks, Neal
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If I remember correctly it looked pretty much like the bone handled Krein in this pic. I've posted mine in this forum before and I didn't get any flack from Frank, so I guess it's OK. ;)
b7C5nox.jpg
 
I think one consistency across most "traditional" folding knives is they are not extremely overbuilt and the blades tend to be somewhat thin compared to modern folders. Obviously, there are thin modern folders but it seems to be fairly consistent within the traditional realm.
Another interesting part of traditional knives is the various amount of scale materials used on the same pattern and that there are recognizable patterns as opposed to new designs. It's as if all patterns were created long ago and everything after that seems to be an iteration of those patterns; maybe different scale materials, metals, or slightly different shapes, but overall they fit into a "traditional" category. Typically designed for a specific use. i.e. whittler...ect.
 
The only thing consistent about "traditional knives" is the BS. For every "rule" someone expresses most of us know an exception. Defining "traditional" is not possible because a tradition is by definition 100% subjective and changes with time. All patterns and construction methods were once new.
 
Five feet away maybe, one foot away no.

Further to set the record straight, cap lifters were on knives one hundred years ago! I have a VF Jack with "patent applied for" cap lifter built into the secondary pen blade. The folder dates to pre 1916.

I think supratentorial has a patent (drawing) from around 1910 showing a cap lifter built into a pen blade.
 
Luger1952 said:
Five feet away maybe, one foot away no.

Further to set the record straight, cap lifters were on knives one hundred years ago!
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Explain, the one foot away.

I think most of us have seen very old catalogs with caplifters, no doubt they have had them nearly as long as caps.
 
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