Camp Knife

[Zonie]

With all of the things that must be considered, a written list of guidelines could end up looking like a giant book so that isn't practical.

The forum's moderators and Claude are the ones who figure out what is OK and what is not.

We don't need a bunch of members appointing themselves as the HC or PC Forum Police and as should be apparent from the 3 pages this topic has become, their comments usually turn into arguments which resolve little or nothing.

If someone wants one thing that would not be HC or PC it would be using stainless steel for anything.

Stainless steel was not used for anything until after 1913.

 

[Black Hand]

We don't need a bunch of members appointing themselves as the HC or PC Forum Police and as should be apparent from the 3 pages this topic has become, their comments usually turn into arguments which resolve little or nothing.

And yet, there is the category for:
Historically Accurate Equipment
Is it Historically Accurate? Discuss the Historical Accuracy of Firearms, Clothing, Tents, etc.

 

For those who forgot, Bagman's first post that started this topic said,

"Finished a new Camp Knife. It's hand forged 1095 3/16 high carbon steel. The scales are walnut with two brass pins. 10 inches overall with a up swept 5.25" blade. Measures 1.75 inches at the belly. Convex grind.".

No mention of being HC or PC was made.

Just to play devil's advocate, if someone posted the knife below and said:

"Finished a new Knife. It's hand forged carbon steel with a wood handle, brass bolster and butt. Please disregard the sheath."

This would be acceptable, because all the materials were available in the time period of this forum?

 

[coloradoclyde]

I have a question:

Would the convex grind be appropriate to era of the forums topics?...Simply meaning would a mountain man's, pioneer's, revolutionary or civil war soldiers knife have that particular grind?

I'm not joining the argument, just curious....I have never seen an old knife with a convex grind.

 

[LRB]

A blade convex ground from spine to edge and well finished is often hard to determine by eye, so to know for sure, you would have to lay a straight edge on the bevel. A narrow width convex ground bevel on an otherwise flat bar is usually only good for chopping, depending on the thickness of the blade. I was told by a few knife historians, and have read, that most common early knives were at the least slightly convex finished, but I have nothing on hand to back that up, except that to make truly dead flat bevels is time consuming with very little practical return for your efforts, except in the making of higher grade knives, where it may be expected.

 

[pondoro]

A blade convex ground from spine to edge and well finished is often hard to determine by eye, so to know for sure, you would have to lay a straight edge on the bevel. A narrow width convex ground bevel on an otherwise flat bar is usually only good for chopping, depending on the thickness of the blade. I was told by a few knife historians, and have read, that most common early knives were at the least slightly convex finished, but I have nothing on hand to back that up, except that to make truly dead flat bevels is time consuming with very little practical return for your efforts, except in the making of higher grade knives, where it may be expected.

A dead flat (zero convex) bevel is hard to make by eye. I'll bet that most knives used by common folk would be found with convex bevels. If you find an old knife with a perfectly flat bevel it was probably unused, or owned by a perfectionist. I say this not out of any study of history, but as an experienced knife sharpener. The modern jigs and other systems make flat bevels easy.

 

Someone PT'ed me about the grind on this knife not being used until much later.

The first narrow-bladed folding straight razors were listed by a Sheffield, England manufacturer in 1680. By 1740, Benjamin Huntsman was making straight razors complete with decorated handles and hollow-ground blades made from cast steel, using a process he invented.

 

[Bo T]

I would think they would have a concave (hollow) primary grind from the old world due to the grinders using the large round grinding wheels in the factories. The final edge (secondary bevel) would probably be convex simply due to the inaccuracies of hand sharpening.

 

[pondoro]

This has been a very informative thread, despite getting abrasive. But the technical and historical information has been great.

 

[Black Hand]

This has been a very informative thread, despite getting abrasive. But the technical and historical information has been great.

Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

 

[tenngun]

The thing is we like pretty. And the cheap scalpers and butcher knifes just look plane and not to sexy. I don't know if any one back then thought of a knife, any knife as any different then a hammer or turn screw.

 

[Artificer]

I would think they would have a concave (hollow) primary grind from the old world due to the grinders using the large round grinding wheels in the factories. The final edge (secondary bevel) would probably be convex simply due to the inaccuracies of hand sharpening.

One big mistake I often find myself making is I think more like a machinist than a period Blacksmith, even though I am not a fully trained machinist. So I often think more of "stock removal" or machining for making blades than forging them basically to shape. Same way I think of drilling/boring holes in the tangs, rather than hot punching the holes as they did.

To make a LOT of inexpensive knives in the 18th and early 19th centuries, like the Trade Knives, they had to use water driven Trip Hammers to forge the blades. This is part of reason that the Industrial Center of England during that time was in what is called "The Midlands" today, or Northern England back then, because there were enough streams/rivers to run the trip hammers and huge grinding wheels, besides other things they needed for period manufacturing.

There is an old blacksmith adage that "10 minutes of work on the forge will save you an hour of filing." I imagine that between the trip hammers to basically forge the metal and using flattening hammers to smooth the blades and tangs, they did not need a lot of grinding to make the blades? I could be wrong, though, as again I am not a Blacksmith.

There are period engravings showing the HUGE grinding wheels they used to finish grind blades and gun barrels. There were actually angled boards that the men lay upon to do the grinding next to the large grinding wheels. ( I have also read it was extremely dangerous work, even for the period.) But sure enough, when I wanted to find some of the engravings, I could not easily find them.

However, the following is a link to a much SMALLER grinding wheel they used in cutlery shops in 18th century France, but shows the grinder laying on the angled board. I am not sure, but I think the person doing the grinding is only sharpening the blades and not shaping them by grinding? http://l7.alamy.com/zooms/787e2fdb...op-from-diderot-encyclopedie-c1751-d9dp29.jpg

Gus

 

[LRB]

I would think they would have a concave (hollow) primary grind from the old world due to the grinders using the large round grinding wheels in the factories. The final edge (secondary bevel) would probably be convex simply due to the inaccuracies of hand sharpening.

I cannot recall seeing an 18th c. knife that was hollow ground. Not to say they do not exist. Very few 19th c. Razors maybe so. It would seem that hollow grinding, although maybe done in these periods, was kind of rare, or uncommon in knives until the 1960's. The Musso Bowie knife, reported to date to the early 1830's, has a grind that starts hollow, then blends into convex. I do a very slight convex grind using round 8", and 10" contact wheels on my grinder. Grinds can be done pretty flat on a round wheel. The original trade knife blades I've seen appear either flat or a tad bit convex. One was an English in fair condition as far as weather exposed relics go, and still had some of the wood attached.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Thanks for the education guys....A knife expert I am not.... :thumbsup:

 

[Bo T]

Our preconceptions can be well out of line with what took place a couple of centuries ago. For example, I did not consider the idea that the grinders may have been working the blade lengthwise (parallel) to the rotation of the stone and primarily removing the last of the forge scale. In that case the bevel would have been flat or concave from the slight grove that would gradually wear in the wheel.

 

[Claude Mathis]

To make a LOT of inexpensive knives in the 18th and early 19th centuries, like the Trade Knives, they had to use water driven Trip Hammers to forge the blades. This is part of reason that the Industrial Center of England during that time was in what is called "The Midlands" today, or Northern England back then, because there were enough streams/rivers to run the trip hammers and huge grinding wheels, besides other things they needed for period manufacturing.

The first post in this thread on the Blade Forum has some great photos (toward the bottom)...
http://www.bladeforums.com/threads/the-dairy-maids-of-porter-brook-part-1.1229530/

 

[Black Hand]

Our preconceptions can be well out of line with what took place a couple of centuries ago.

This is a point I've tried to make several times. We are contaminated by modern thinking, where we have all the information we want at our fingertips (literally, with the internet) while people of the period only had a very small amount of information available to them locally. Very few people were widely educated. This is why I stress thinking with a 18th/19th century mindset and only using information that might have been available at the time in a particular place and to also avoid the modern mind-set when thinking of period topics.

 

[Black Hand]

Germane to the topic: https://www.scribd.com/document/274582394/Food-Food-Preparation-Utility-Clasp-Knives

 

[Artificer]

Our preconceptions can be well out of line with what took place a couple of centuries ago. For example, I did not consider the idea that the grinders may have been working the blade lengthwise (parallel) to the rotation of the stone and primarily removing the last of the forge scale. In that case the bevel would have been flat or concave from the slight grove that would gradually wear in the wheel.

BINGO! :thumbsup: I should have mentioned that in my earlier post.

As Wick pointed out, most 18th century knives and I will add that MANY 18th century sword blades were made with flat tapering sides of the blades in that manner, as well.

Gus

 

[Artificer]

GREAT Link, Claude,

Thank you.

Gus