A salvaged blade

[Arrowhead]

This blade was found in a wall in a house that was built on the south plains of Texas in 1920. My dad bought the house in 1960 and tore it down to get the lumber in it. Just the blade with a thin brass guard was all that was found and it was completely coated with rust. There are no markings on the blade and I guess that if any were ever there they were etched and the rust took care of those. A spark test on the tang showed that it is made of fairly high carbon steel but that test can't show a whole lot. I removed all the rust and polished it up leaving the rust etched pits to show it was old and made a wooden handle for it.

My wife kept telling me I needed to do something to it because the wooden handle didn't look right. Last summer I removed the handle material (had to bust it off with a hammer) and started over. I had a stag crown that was really too large for most knives and also a little short for a handle. I made a new guard from 3/8" bronze and added a washer of fancy mesquite left from another knife project with a red spacer to make the antler piece long enough. This is the finished knife.

The last cold, snowy spell I sat down and made a sheath. The body is 4/5 OZ. veg. tan with the smooth side in and buckskin glued to that with Barge's cement. The trim is some oil tanned leather that I found in the scrap box with the buckskin. All the leather and related supplies came from S & D Trading Co. in Lubbock, TX. It's close enough to drive over there and pick out what I want.

I apologize for the quality of the pictures. First I needed a bigger rabbit for the background for a knife this size. :redface: Also, it is just too cold and nasty to go to the garage and get my light box so I turned on all the flouresent lights around the bar and took the pictures.

 

[nc_cooter]

Very nice save on that old blade. How about a pic of the sheath?
Mike Broach

 

[Arrowhead]

How's that? I don't know what is going on with photobucket. I posted the sheath but got two pictures of the knife. I have had this happen before in other posts. Sometimes it has taken three for four times to get the right picture to link. I previewed the post and got two pictures of the knife and edited it to be right. Two knife picture still showed up when I saved changes the first time.

 

[davy]

Nice work amigo .. its allus great to see an old knife like that take on a new life! :thumbsup:

Davy

 

[David G]

In a wall in a house? Cool,makes you wonder what might be the story behind it. :hmm: Oh, nice job finishing the rest of it out. :thumbsup:

 

[JamesG]

Nice work Arrow. :thumbsup:

 

[zampilot]

Nice work all the way around!

 

[ohio ramrod]

Nicw knife and nice sheath as well.

 

[LRB]

Looks like you did a nice clean job of it. Well done! :thumbsup:

 

[PaulN/KS]

Very nice work Sir...
:thumbsup:

 

[deanscamaro]

You know, there is nothing better in an old object like that knife, to wonder what the provenance (I dug up that word from my hobby of collector cars and the Barrett-Jackson Car Auction) is when you find it in the walls of the house. It is something you only give up with a great deal of pain; you keep it for the history. Maybe you can find out something about the house which might lead to the knife?!?! Great post!
:grin: :thumbsup: :grin: :thumbsup:

 

[Nifeman]

Arrow, it almost looks like an old Marbles Ideal. Good job nonetheless...Bud

 

[anvil1231]

Very nice work on the sheath and knife. Great that it was salvaged :hatsoff:

 

[50cal.cliff]

Now that turned real fine! The story to go with it just makes it that much more interesting! :thumbsup:

 

[paulvallandigham]

The width of the blade, the length of the false edge, the blood groove, and the shape of the arc to the point all look similar to the old WWII Navy /Marine fighting knife. Thousands were made.

These were available at Army/Navy surplus stores in the 1950s, and many of the veterans took their knives home with them. Many have been altered, either in the Pacific theater during the War, or after the return home , with the blades being reshaped, decorated, either with grinding wheels, or files, and, occasionally, reshaped all together.

If you watch the TV show about the Pawn Shop in Law Vegas, someone just took such a knife, with an antler handle on it, in to pawn, and was disappointed in how little money was offered. I believe he decided to keep the knife instead.

I would recommend that you keep the knife and use it, and enjoy it. Its not going to have a lot of resale value as an " antique " knife. At least not yet. The originals had a straight steel hilt, or guard, and a handle made of rubber or synthetic washers, with an oval endcap at the back of the handle, pinned to the tang.

My father had such a knife, and used it for pulling weeds in his lawn and flower beds. He did not have the patience needed to sharpen it properly, so my memory of it is as a pretty dull knife. I have seen better examples since, but never had any use for the shape of the blade.

 

[RickD]

Very nice save..Looks reslly good

 

[chance]

Really cool!!

 

[Dan_T]

I like it.

 

[the11]

Close, but no cigar.

 

[Arrowhead]

Thanks for the reply Paul but the house was built in 1920 and showed no indication of ever being remodeled in any part. My thought are the knife blade was just forgotten or missed when the walls were finished. The blade is also a little large for a military issue knife. Also it has fairly fancy filework on the spine of the blade and it was a true hidden tang. It couldn't have had a leather washer handle. I think it was probably made in the very first part of the 20th century and was probably pretty inexpensive. This region of Texas was a pretty tough place to make a living in that time frame and got a lot worse in just a few years. My mother and father lived in that area when the house was built but were teenagers. They knew the owners to some extent. Of course the area wasn't heavily populated (still isn't) and about everyone knew everyone else or knew who they were.

There is no way to find any history of it but it is interesting to me and I will keep it. One of my two kids can decide what to do with it on down the road.