What "Traditional Knife" are ya totin' today?

[Macchina]

My favorite 85 today. I work with a guy who splits his time between being an organic farmer (runs a pretty large 20 acre farm with fruit and vegetables) and contact engineering. He brings in some great fruit when they pick too much! I cut up more than 10 ripe peaches with the 85 today. He gave me about 200 so we've been using them as fast as we can.



My wife made Peach Scones:

 

[Tilley Knife]

^^^Very nice sir

 

[Aias]

I love dragon fruit (red and white) it gives a fantastic sweet flavor to rum!

Beautiful... I have the plants in my garden, but they have not flowered. Any secrets you can share to make it happen? Thanks!

 

[Gevonovich]

My favorite 85 today. I work with a guy who splits his time between being an organic farmer (runs a pretty large 20 acre farm with fruit and vegetables) and contact engineering. He brings in some great fruit when they pick too much! I cut up more than 10 ripe peaches with the 85 today. He gave me about 200 so we've been using them as fast as we can.



My wife made Peach Scones:
[/QUOTE

My compliment to the Chef and the photographer

 

[flatblackcapo]

 

[Hickory n steel]

Today I decided to edc the rough rider yellow bone trapper that I won in neko's giveaway a few months ago and while it's a little too shiny ( I'm a little ocd about fingerprints which is why I prefer ptaina'd carbon steel ) I like it, yellow isn't my favorite color ( not usually even a big fan of it ) but I love bananas and Spongebob so I actually kinda like it on this knife

 

[Paul Davidson]

Good to see all the 2 blade 14's in the wild. Mine should be arriving in a day or two. New arrival jitters...

Norfolk riding in the pocket today.

The Liliput and Norfolk make a handsome pair. I'm envious.

Paul

 

[Old Engineer]

My favorite 85 today. I work with a guy who splits his time between being an organic farmer (runs a pretty large 20 acre farm with fruit and vegetables) and contact engineering. He brings in some great fruit when they pick too much! I cut up more than 10 ripe peaches with the 85 today. He gave me about 200 so we've been using them as fast as we can.

Absolutely beautiful picture and knife Sir !!!!!

Harry

 

[mitch4ging]

Beautiful knives today. As always. Had this in my watch pocket.

Wilson, I really like this little guy! Nice choice!

 

[GuestWho101]

We (my family and my vacation knives) went to Tahquamenon Falls State Park yesterday. Here are some photos of some of the knives enjoying the scenery.
The Lower Falls, and a big Buck clip/spey toothpick at the Lower Falls:

The Upper Falls (at the end of a 4-mile hike with my daughter from Lower to Upper Falls), and a Rough Rider small stockman scrimshawed by r8shell:

I took a Colt canoe over the Upper Falls and survived:

- GT

GT, I would like to join you next time if you don't mind . That scenery , plus those knives , what more could you ask for ?!

That Rough Rider - Small Stockman..... Scrimshawed by r8shell is becoming one of my all-time favorites! Each time I see it my desire grows. Question - When can I place my order for its re-release ?

Yes it is! :thumbup::thumbup:

:thumbup:

I like that. Did I miss one of the #14 releases? I don't remember any being made with green bone. Is that a custom dye-job?

Here is my knife companion of the day.

Smooth Ivory Bone.
SHO - Special Homemade Order

And a great companion it is..... :thumbup:

 

[Cannonball970]

GEC 83 for me today.

 

[JSCHENK]

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

 

[Jack Black]

Jack,
Those are some fantastic old knives! Despite all the age and wear they appear to be in excellent shape. That IXL is spectacular, I love the sawcut on the bevels of the scales, that is something you no longer see.
If I may ask, how does the edge hold up on knives like these? I would imagine they would be hardened softer than we have now-a-days as I know they didn't have the precision control HT processes back in the day we take for granted now.

Thank you my friend Sorry for the slow reply, I’m having problems with my internet connection again That old steel really is something else in my experience, fantastic stuff, but I don’t think it was hardened to the extent of today’s steels. I don’t have a hardness tester, but it would be very interesting to do some tests. I’ve heard old cutlers talk about 55 or 56 RC, but most would have used the Vickers system, if they used any system at all. Some Sheffield cutlers of my acquaintance knew/know very little about the process, but that was partly because of the specialist nature of the cutlery industry. Despite not having the specialist equipment we have today, nor many of the options available to them, I imagine that hardening thousands of knife blades, of all sorts, each week, with a proper apprenticeship and years of training, they got to be pretty good at their job. Of course, in a very competitive market place, such as once existed in Sheffield, they needed to be good if they wanted to keep on working.

Here’s a few words from Ken Croft (in the 1980’s), who worked for himself as a specialist hardener and temperer in post-war Sheffield:

I started out as a grinder – I’m a universal precision grinder as well as a hardener and temperer...I did my apprenticeship, seven years, and then war broke out. After coming out of the forces...I came in with my father, in March 1947. He was a good hardener. He was a craftsman. A craftsman. He came in as a lad, worked for firms all over Sheffield...I worked with him for 16 years, until he retired...When father first started, he had a blow-driven shaft...It’s all been opened up since...and rebuilt to my own design. It’s all been modernised...There’s not another one like it. It’s a hand-cast annealing furnace, gas-fired, and with two ovens. It’s a modern method and it’s accurate. It takes ten minutes to heat from cold to 1,000 degrees. I can do the temping in the top two ovens from the waste heat rising from the furnace. I can work two different temperatures. That’s why I’ve two clocks and two pyrometers. When you’ve hardened your work, you’ve got to temper it. Tempering steel’s at top, and carbon steel at bottom. Take these Army blades, I’ve got 400 of them in there now, sometimes I’ll have 650. I can do that many in an hour. That’s a week’s work in an hour. And they’ll all be really even, really perfect. I guarantee everything I’ve hardened to within ten degrees of temperature. I work at 820, 1040, sometimes at 1200. And when they’re hardened, I test them on this diamond hardness tester. 55 Rockwell, that’s what I want. Just a shade harder. A shade harder....I’ve got books of specifications, tell me what I need to know, it’s my judgement. What good is a knife if it’s too hard and breaks off at the neck? It’s to do with knowing your steels. Knowing your mixtures. People bring me knives and I say, “What is it?” And they don’t know what it is. Father did stainless and I did a lot of carbon steel work. Any tool man will use a carbon steel. It holds its edge better. After the war, everyone used old tram steel. That’s when the trouble started. There wasn’t even carbon in it – there should be a minimum of 50 per cent carbon, and they were turning it out at 46 per cent. I might be a bit of a stickler, but I’ve seen that much bad workmanship turned out...Now, I work high quality spring steel – you’ve got to buy British for the blades. Korean, Brazilian, they’re no good. I don’t know if it’s Sheffield or German, what I use, but it’s good quality steel. Usually. Not always. Then I have to put it right. It was top quality when there were hand forgers. But there aren’t many hand forgers left...You can feel steel go in your hand – and you can hear it. It’s like a tingling sensation in your hand.

Certainly not all Sheffield hardeners and temperers were as diligent as Ken Croft though, nor cutlers for that matter, particularly in the post-WW2 era, when the cut-throat nature of the world cutlery industry and the outworker system in Sheffield, encouraged corner-cutting. During my own brief foray into the Sheffield cutlery industry in the 1990’s, I was astonished at just how much ignorance there was about heat-treatment. At the time in Sheffield, there were some even using cyanide hardening, others blow-torches. I settled on vacuum hardening, and a two stage cryogenic process for my fixed blades, but nobody else in Sheffield was using that kind of heat-treatment at the time. The biggest firm of kitchen knives in the town at the time had recently started using vacuum hardening, but only ran the steel to 53, as they had been advised by British Steel that it would be too brittle any harder. I showed that it could go to 57, and I don’t know why they hadn’t tried it before.

 

[Jack Black]

Sorry, double post :grumpy:

 

[Jack Black]

Jack, that pair certainly deserves all the pocket time they get! :thumbup:

...

Couple of venerable lovelies, Jack; that IXL Barlow is superb! :thumbup:

...

I took a Colt canoe over the Upper Falls and survived:

Thank you my friend, I am really enjoying hearing about your vacation and seeing your fantastic pics :thumbup:

LOL! :thumbup:

In pocket today is what I consider just about the perfect jack:

Hey Blaine! Good to see you here! :thumbup: That is pretty darn pefect my friend :thumbup:

I really like your I*XL Barlow, Jack. :thumbup::thumbup: I got one from Bob on the exchange a while ago. Really well made knife.

...

Thanks a lot Dean, it was a gift from Charlie Cool TC :thumbup:

That is a great photo of an exceptional knife my friend, but that peach scone...

I'm carrying my Arthur Wright Lambsfoot in buffalo (photographed outside the old George Barnsley works in Sheffield), and my 14 Barlow (of which I need more pics) :thumbup:

 

[Gevonovich]

Great post, Jack. Thank you!^^^^^^Interesting insight

 

[Jack Black]

Great post, Jack. Thank you!^^^^^^Interesting insight

Thanks Gev, since it took me an hour to make the following post, I might not be posting much more today, if my internet connection doesn't improve

 

[Travman]

Smooth Ivory Bone.
SHO - Special Homemade Order

And a great companion it is..... :thumbup:

Looking forward to seeing more pictures of your green bone SHO 14.


Today I'm carrying Mike Latham's SFO Beagle.

 

[Travman]

Your 85 is flat out gorgeous. I'm curious about the silver dollars though. They have such a nice patina in the background that contrasts with the bright silver of the raised parts. Do you give them a patina to make them look that nice or do you simply find nice looking silver dollars that have aged gracefully?

 

[Driften]

Today I am going to carry my DogPaw. Just got it yesterday and it needs some time out and about.