When were knives “built to last”?

[BTTLBRN]

Tools lasted as long as you took care of them. That has always been true.

This.

Used but not abused, and one's "lifetime" of service will vary from someone else's. A knife that is used merely to open Amazon boxes vs. someone who routinely cuts heavy wall cardboard, drywall, opens bags of cement/grout/etc, or God forbid prying - well that's an entirely different scenario.

 

[Kettleman]

Todays quality knives are vastly superior to knives from earlier period. Materials alone set them apart. Now apply modern tech for design and manufacture and it’s not even the same game.

However you also need to look from the past to understand that knives were only tools and tools are consumables. We break and wear them out with use. The mere sharpening of a knife is destroying it and shortening its useful life. Look at any flee market for proof. You will find butcher knives filied down and sharpened away from years and years of use. You will find stockman knives with the bone cracked and missing and blades like tooth picks. Todays knives are built much better than those and will survive better and longer with the same use, Most of use just don’t have the need any longer.

Those are my thoughts anyway…

 

[Deino]

The harder knives are to get. The longer they last. So whenever that happened.

This is a fact.
When swords were harder to produce, people cared for them more and made them seem to last longer. These same swords would be literal trash nowadays if it is not for historical value.

During the industrial era, so many things were expendable not because of the drop in quality, but the mass of production means more availability and cheaper to replace, and so people care less about breaking stuff.

 

[donnord]

I have knives in my collection that were made in the 1930s as well as the last few years, they should all outlast me if properly cared for. I would agree that some cheap knives you get these days wont last so long, but in general if you spend a little, expect a little. That said I have $15 rough ryders that are pretty well put together and should last a lifetime.

 

[Officer's Match]

I think Spyderco started the "tough-carry knife" business in the late '70's / early '80's with variety of knives, good designs, good steels, and good manufacturing.

And they are still doing it.

Maybe that is why my edc is a plain-jane Spyderco Gayle Bradley #1. Nutten fancy, just does the job around the shop, house, yard, etc. I also still have an old Endura Spyderco with a great serrated edge which comes in handy.

I would insta-buy a Gayle Bradley 1 in Magnacut with titanium liners for the use-it-forever qualities it would offer. Might become my all time favorite were it to exist. Ti-liners would address the butt-heavy nature of the design (not that it ever bothered me) while being non-corrosive, and Magnacut would add the same quality to the blade while keeping the other characteristics of M4 for all intents and purposes.

 

[King of the Cheese]

I’d argue that back in the day, pocket knives were meant more to use up and then toss away. Knives today have so many advancements in quality that the average pocket knife could last a lifetime. In short, the “good ol’ days” really weren’t all that “good”… we just remember them that way. There was a lot of cheap crap back then.

 

[The Mastiff]

In the 40's and 50's Imperial was producing up to 60 thousand knives per day. Knives like "The Ideal" were 2 or 3 for a dollar. At the same time there were better built and more expensive knives around. There was a good custom market too though probably not as big as today.

If you ask me there are probably more knives built "to last a lifetime" now than at any other time.

 

[Slice-and-dice]

In the 40's and 50's Imperial was producing up to 60 thousand knives per day. Knives like "The Ideal" were 2 or 3 for a dollar. At the same time there were better built and more expensive knives around. There was a good custom market too though probably not as big as today.

If you ask me there are probably more knives built "to last a lifetime" now than at any other time.

Wow had no idea Imperial had that production post WWII. True, we did buy them for $1.79 in the 1970s at the local department store.

I thought for sure some would talk about the sample variation that resulted from mechanical/automated processes, poor QA in the 1980s, the shift to work overseas resulting in 1000s of garbage products commonly available. Recognizing of course that in any era, money could buy a superior product. More so thinking of the tools readily available to your average Joe.

 

[NG VI]

Nostalgia aside, If it is in regard to how well something is made, and Assuming we're not including gas station kiosk throw away garbage, Seems to me modern name brand knives are generally objectively better in every regard to old ones. Better tolerances, better designs, better steels, more scrutiny of a maker's product, better materials and better understanding of heat treatment. Like comparing top MMA fighters of the 90's to the top fighters of 2023. There is no comparison IME.

Bingo, the typical production knife of today blows its counterparts of even twenty years ago out of the water, and there is a strong case to be made that the baseline for a decent production knife today is significantly better than what we would have accepted as 'good' ten years ago. Grinds have thinned out and companies are avoiding low-rise ax-like grinds except when they're intentionally designing them to offer a heavier bladed option, fit and finish in general is really good, even the standard for affordable knives is equal to knives that were a hundred dollars more expensive twenty years ago. Materials offered are great today, please fellas let's not forget the bad old days of FRN on everything under $100 and maybe some flat slab peel ply G10 if you were willing to pay $50 more.

There's been a lot of pressure on the knife world to make use of the wonderful materials available today, and to do it without taking our firstborn for the privilege. And to hit all the details that a good knife should have.

 

[tltt]

Didn’t PAL buy out Remington’s knife tooling when war was declared?

Parker

Yes. Remington got rid of the cutlery division to concentrate on war contracts.

As to the original question?

Post WWII - the 1970's was generally considered the worst time for production knives, that lead to a boom in the handmade knives. Lines were shortened considerably, less finish work was done, etc.... But on the flipside, there was a lot of advancement in heat treatment.

Traditional knives best years in terms of fit and finish was probably the late 1800's - 1930's. But a lot of knives had pretty bad heat treatment, and very average steels.

Modern knives? The best years are certainly now. Generally great heat treat across the board, tons of steel choices, good to great fit and finish across the board.

 

[Hammer67]

The harder knives are to get. The longer they last. So whenever that happened.

This is a fact.

Is it? I can't say that I see any relation between scarcity and long-term durability. We live in a time of knife abundance beyond anything the world has ever seen before. And yet I'd say that modern steels, handle materials like G10, titanium, etc. are going to last a very, very long time. Probably longer than the owner and certainly longer than the vast majority of knives built in historical times of scarcity from carbon steels and organic handle materials. Have a few examples survived? Sure, but most rusted away and disintegrated.

 

[The Mastiff]

Slice and dice, I went back and looked at the interview I had read that listed the amount and I couldn't find that one but found one interviewing Lou Fazzano who stated :


“We were like so many companies [...] We probably had more mechanized polishing [...] We had built these big machines. [...] We used to say we were the largest [...] in the world. We used to make about 10,000 dozen knives a day – 120,000 knives/day. And they all went. We needed a bigger and bigger stock room. In the postwar period [...] we started to make kitchen knives and kitchen cutlery, spatulas, with fine wooden handles; and then in the 1950s we started to make stainless steel flatware, we were probably the first manufacturer of fine stainless flatware probably in the country. We got into it because the fellow who bought pocket knives wanted to get into stainless [...] At one point we came very close to creating a joint venture with the Gorham Company, they would design the flatware and market it, and we would manufacture it. They were great at manufacturing silver and we were ahead of them in manufacturing stainless [...] That would have been a great idea."

https://artinruins.com/arch/stillinuse/imperialplace/interview-w-lou-fazzano.html

120,000 knives per day is a lot !

 

[NG VI]

Is it? I can't say that I see any relation between scarcity and long-term durability. We live in a time of knife abundance beyond anything the world has ever seen before. And yet I'd say that modern steels, handle materials like G10, titanium, etc. are going to last a very, very long time. Probably longer than the owner and certainly longer than the vast majority of knives built in historical times of scarcity from carbon steels and organic handle materials. Have a few examples survived? Sure, but most rusted away and disintegrated.

They're tools, so if there is a scarcity of them, people will necessarily make do with them for longer, and go out of their way to avoid damaging or losing one if replacements are not an easy option.

 

[Hammer67]

They're tools, so if there is a scarcity of them, people will necessarily make do with them for longer, and go out of their way to avoid damaging or losing one if replacements are not an easy option.

I understand that. I have tools that were my grandfather's, some of which he made himself.

I was speaking more to the long-term durability of materials themselves. Just because things were manufactured during a time of relative scarcity doesn't mean they actually lasted longer, no matter how well people took care of them. And especially if they were seeing hard use every day.

 

[Lesknife]

A lifetime is dependent upon who the person is and how they use tools. I have tools that my grandfather used in the 1920s and knives that were passed down are still useable.
Then I’ve known some people who could tear up an anvil with a rubber mallet. They might get a few weeks out of a well made knife and toss it in the trash.

I would say that there are knives made today that are far better made than in the good ole days and will last a lifetime!

 

[Alberta Ed]

Most of my knives will last longer than me, although I plan to take them with me.

 

[Fred1950]

Knives were never any better than they are today.

 

[eisman]

Please show a knife you have worn out in your lifetime. Any of you.

I routinely carry knives pushing 100 years old that still work as intended. I have knives in my kitchen that are not much younger that also do the job.

I can guarantee you that smiths forging knives 1000 years ago were building them "to last". Your ancestors bought tools to last, the best they could afford, and they specifically demanded that quality. The throw away consumer is a much newer phenomenon.

 

[Deino]

Is it? I can't say that I see any relation between scarcity and long-term durability. We live in a time of knife abundance beyond anything the world has ever seen before. And yet I'd say that modern steels, handle materials like G10, titanium, etc. are going to last a very, very long time. Probably longer than the owner and certainly longer than the vast majority of knives built in historical times of scarcity from carbon steels and organic handle materials. Have a few examples survived? Sure, but most rusted away and disintegrated.

Say, if you are in a survival situation with a pocket knife, will you pry with it or will try to preserve it as cutting tool as long as possible? Prying can be done with so many objects. Cutting? Not so much.

It is exaggerated, but it is kind of life back then and with their quality, you can't neglect it.

 

[Kettleman]

Please show a knife you have worn out in your lifetime. Any of you.

I routinely carry knives pushing 100 years old that still work as intended. I have knives in my kitchen that are not much younger that also do the job.

I can guarantee you that smiths forging knives 1000 years ago were building them "to last". Your ancestors bought tools to last, the best they could afford, and they specifically demanded that quality. The throw away consumer is a much newer phenomenon.

As a young farm boy I remember my grandfather buying a new knife at the hardware store and having the guy behind the counter toss the one from his pocket. Blades were nubs from years of use.
I vividly remember doing the same in my 20s ( same hardware store). I had sharpened away the clip blade on a 301 and the Spey was a pen. I carried the new 301 on the job ( electrician)everyday for more than decade before it became unserviceable. Bought a new one and sent that one to Buck. Came back re-pinned with a new set of blades.