Swedges are both cosmetic and, in cases where there is very little clearance for the blades, functional as well. Cutting a swedge thins a blade so that a second blade can better squeeze in along side it. This is most prevalent in whittler pattern, stockman, and congress pattern knives. In the case of the old two blade jacks, you may have noticed that the pile side swedge on the pen blades is always much longer and deeper than the swedge on the mark side. This was done to provide more room for a thumbnail to get at the long pull on the large blade. Over time speed became more important than doing the job right. This included dressing blade backs. You'll note on later Schrades (and other companies as well), that the nice sharp transition from blade back to clip became rounded off. Note the difference between Hal's UH and the SCC UH. These are REAL thorns in my side and I fight with the guys to this day to correct it. I guess some thirty year habits are hard to break. That nice long drawn swedge on Hal's clip blade gave the sheepfoot more room. A REAL sign of quality grinding on the old stockmans was also to cut an offset shoulder in the tang of the sheepfoot in order to make a pocket for the spey blade to drop into. Hope all this makes sense!
Eric
