PC Knives vs. Modern Designs & Materials

[pichou]

If you've seen one scalper, you've seen them all? :grin:

Actually, there is huge variation in blade shape and handle shape. Some are maker differences, some are temporal. Still trying to sort it out, but a 1760's scalper does not look the same as a 1812 scalper.

 

[crockett]

Pichou- post your website address again- I'll have to bookmark it and if possible have all the various scalper blades you've found on the site- I'm sure there are lots of folks interested in such things. I know that some of the +/F Hiram Cutler blades are long and skinny- almost like a fillet knife and some P.C. Jr. 1839 "ish" blades much more stout. In any event- a site with the changes would be great and if folks found anything and had it documented- they could add it to your site. I have a few I could post- plus their sources.

Now back to our discussion, I've been thinking about all this and how to keep everyone happy. First, off, what follows is mostly for that rare bird that can't sleep at night wondering about PC "stuff".
1. Let's take a fully documented scalper. The Smithsonian has a +/L stamped scalper taken from a Crow Indian in Montana. This would be pre-1859 and appropriate for the area. If someone photocopied this knife and cut out the photocopy and glued it to a piece of steel and ground out an identical profile and fitted it with a handle similar to the original, then we could call that PC-Fully Documented.
2. Now, the fur inventory lists include stag handled scalpers. Let's say you looked at John Baldwin's book and saw long hunter type blades with half tangs fitted into stag crown handles so you took a piece of stag crown and sawed a slot and fitted in a scalper blade. In all likelihood you have a "stag handled scalper" like those listed on the fur company inventory lists but unless such a knife has been found, it's not documented. It is equally possible that in Sheffield the stag was sawn into rectangular shaped scales and the two scales were pinned together to make a "stag handled scalper" so to argue either style is what the fur companies sold isn't correct. You could certainly argue that scalper blades were available in St. Louis and that a local blacksmith/cutler made either style- that would be okay. We could then call that a PC- supported knife- a knife who's materials are PC and who's methods of construction are PC.
Now let's get ridiculous. Let's take the same scalper blade and file some saw teeth on the top/spine. Let's fit a brass hilt to the tang and on this brass hilt file a bird's head on top and hammer out flat the bottom and file in tail feathers. All PC materials but no such period knife with such features is known. That type of knife could be classified PC Materials/Fantasy Design.

 

[jmforge]

Now that raises the question of what KIND of stag? Were the British makers using sambar at the time in question? Red Deer is an inferior material for knife handles just like whitetail antler when compared to sambar. So if we are talking "trade
knives, chances are that elk, muley and whitetail would not be PC in many cases. As for steel, one could argue that the type made today by smiths that would probably be MOST PC (in that it would most closely resemble "blister" steel if that is what you were going for) would be unetched damascus made from either one type of steel or 2 steels that don't show a whole lot of contrast. If you were going for Huntsman type crucible steel, then good old plain carbon steel like the 10xx series is good enough I would think.

 

[crockett]

Good Questions to which I have no answer. I think- because of the information posted by Pichou- that the steel was probably cast steel. On the other hand there were common scalpers and warranted scalpers and I don't know what was the difference between the two. On page 182 of the Carl P. Russell book Ramsey Crooks of the American Fur Company speaks of scalper sample#1 at a higher price than scalper sample#2. It is my impression there was a physical difference in the appearance of the two samples. This is just a guess on my part but I have seen some scalpers where the tang was as wide as the blade (common?) and the handle or scales were narrower; such that the half tang extended beyond the top and bottom of the handle. Other scalpers had a tang that was more narrow than the blade such that the width of the tang and the width of the handle were the same(Warranted?). Some scalpers have a one piece slotted handle while others appear (Carl P. Russell) to have two scales pinned together.
In 1820 invoices of the NW Co. there is references to some scalpers being made of the best steel- which may imply scalpers were made with different grades of steel. We probably shouldn't read too much into this. One reads a lot about an order of rifles or an order of traps being of "your best work". In any event if scalpers were made in different grades of steel maybe common scalpers were blister and warranted were cast. It has always seemed odd to me that mountain men almost always referred to their knives as "butcher knives". If the Wilson knives had better steel than the Indian scalping knives then perhaps the mountain men wanted to use Wilson butcher knives whenever they could.
On the stag- I don't know if the knives were hafted in Sheffield or North America. If hafted in Sheffield- what was the stag? Again- I don't know.
And I've done a fair amount of poking around and haven't got an answer. Often times it seems whenever I do get an answer it only leads to ever more questions. But isn't that the fun? and that's the value of this forum- maybe someone does have an answer.

 

[crockett]

Here's another thought on the PC issue. This would pertain to how far we want to take matters. For example knives made from original grades of steel with handles of English beech versus modern steels and American Beech handles.
It seems we have to draw a line at some level or few of us are going to have the right gear. Perhaps one good standard would be to ask if a person of the time, an actual long hunter, or mountain man, or voyageur would be able to distinguish a difference in our gear based on a general presentation.
I've never been to a jury type event. For those who have, what are the standards?

 

[pichou]

Juried events are vastly over-rated. :wink:

Terms like "Warranted" and "Hand Forged" are sort of like "Light" and "Fat Free." Marketing.

Crown stag really only shows up with a. the Celtic Revival, and b. with the mid-century German influence. Sambar? Don't know, but they were using rosewoods, and red sandalwood/padauk.

I really don't think variation in form is related to the type of steel.
http://sites.google.com/site/historicalfurtradewi/

Check out the Grand Portage archy papers and the 1812 blacksmith shop paper for some knife variants.

 

[Coot]

I've never been to a jury type event. For those who have, what are the standards?

Each event sets it's own standards. Many of the standards are mostly related to getting all the participants on the same page re time & area - for example "frontier Virginia circa 1780 - 90". This would likely be taken to mean no gear that is clearly post 1790 in origin, no teepees, no mountain man outfits, no silk gowns, etc. Most events give guidelines that are a page or less. Most are not "thread counter" or "hand sewn only". Think 'looks right from 10 foot test' not '10 inch test'. Tolerance may be low for the "looks old-timey" or "could have been" mindset but don't be shocked by the presence of some "reenactorisms". Check out a couple as a tourist & you will likely be back as a participant - perhaps with a little tweaking or leaving a few items at home.

 

[crockett]

Pichou: regarding the crown stag handles. I got that from looking at John Baldwin's book: "Early Knives and Beaded Sheaths of the American Frontier". The book is supposed to be highly researched- according to the Oregon Knife Collector's outfit. I saw the book via inter library so I don't have the book in front of me. I may be wrong about the crown stag, maybe it was just a stick of stag with the butt end rounded off. On some of the knives about 1" of the brow tine of the antler was left on and positioned on the front under side of the handle- acting sort of like a guard or hilt. The knives had a half tang that was fitted into a slot in the front of the antler.
One problem with the book IMHO is that I don't think it was that well documented. Dates were given on some knives but that is about it. I would have felt better if there had been a better history on each knife. Most of the knives and sheaths were also post 1840. There is a Lakota sheath for a curved skinning blade circa 1870 that is pretty neat- it has a small inside pocket for a whetstone that fits in front of the knife's handle. In any event I copied that sheath.
Any how- as I said, on the fur records (xmission site 1836- "Buck handled Knives") that list stag handled knives I have no idea whether scales or a stick piece of stag was used. Any information appreciated. I hope I am reading "Buck Handled" as meaning stag or antler.
The blacksmith shop- really interesting analysis on the metallurgy of the axe heads.

 

[jmforge]

I've seen pictures of a warehouse of one of the big Sheffield cutlers from the post Civil War period an it was full to the roof with sambar antlers. Pressed horn (bovine) was a widely produced product from the 1700's on and by the 1870's, tjhere was a large demand for sambar antler. It sounds like they were bringing over as much as they could from India from at least the 1820's. Ironically, they seemed to initially think that it was a good substitute for the scarcer red deer antler, which, by today's standards, is considered to be an inferior material along with the antlers of its cousins, the elk/wapiti. With that said, sambar antler was still a fairly exclusive material. I saw some annual shipping figures from 1870 where they had 120 tons of sambar, but it was being sold along size of a couple of hundred thousand tons of various and sundry types bovine horn from all over the empire ranging from domestic cow horn from Australia to cape buffalo horn. During the 1700's thin sliced pressed horn was apparently sued for "glass" in lanterns because it was cheaper than the real thing. On the cutlery side, it was used for handle slabs on razors and pocketknives. A lot of bone was also used. Sambar stag sounds more like it was a "luxury" material a step or two below ivory and was used not only for cutlery, but also for things like umbrella handles. It sounds like that it was valued back then by cutlery buyers the same as it is today.

 

[LaBonte]

Dave - Baldwins book as you said is lacking in dates, but antler handled knives are pretty well documented for most periods post mid-1700's (most often as rehandles), but as you noted exactly what the imports looked like is another question - Sambar from India or red deer from Europe (a cousin to the American wapiti)- stick/rattail tang or slab tang???
On the other hand "local" made and/or re-handled knives also seem to be quite common (mostly post 1800?) and dependent on period most were whitetail or mule deer - often crown, but also just stick.

I really don't think variation in form is related to the type of steel. http://sites.google.com/site/historicalfurtradewi/
Check out the Grand Portage archy papers and the 1812 blacksmith shop paper for some knife variants.

Biziw - can you give the exact links??? My mind is a bit warped......... :surrender:

Also there were three types of steel used for cutlery pre-1860's: blister, shear, and cast aka crucible steel. Blister steel - carbonized wrought iron bars - was the base for shear (first used in England circa 1690) and cast steel (the Huntsman process, developed circa 1745)

Terms like "Warranted" and "Hand Forged" are sort of like "Light" and "Fat Free." Marketing.

Warranted generally denotes an (English) export item. Handforged - dependent on period that can mean anything from a single maker doing his "thing" with hammer and anvil to the maker using a tilt hammer and a mold........

 

[jmforge]

Good info, sir. From what I read yesterday, the Huntsman process is what made Sheffield the center of the world cutlery industry. But, IIRC, I have previously seen samples of English knives, among others, that still used the old blister method well into the 1800's. i guess you had to be able to afford the gear for the Huntsman process. What I found interesting was where the old and new processed started. As you previously stated, the blister and huntsman processes basically carburize wrought iron, whereas the Bessemer process decarburizes cast/pig iron. I was not aware until I went to Batson's hammer-in last year and saw the park employees running the old smelter that high carbon cast iron was the primary end product of a lot of the old timey smelting methods that produce decent amounts of usable iron. My reading had been mostly limited to stuff about bloomery smelting which seems to produce a bit of both types of iron all stuck together. I guess that finding a heat source hot enough to melt iron in large quantities just naturally left a bunch of carbon in the final mix.

 

[crockett]

Sort of interesting that as we delve into these topics we end up with a lot more unanswered questions than we started as far as what type of stag from the exported Sheffield knives, the steel, whether there was an outward physical difference between sample #1 scalpers and sample #2 scalpers.
There is supposed to be a mint condition scalper at Lower Fort Garry- according to the 5th Edition of Levine's Antique Knives. I've had no luck in getting any information about this knife. The reason I am interested is because I want to know what was the finish on the blade- polished bright or just quickly finished with some of the forging/heat treat pitting, etc left on the blade.

 

[Twice boom]

Very interesting indeed. But if we were to stay on the tack we are on I do not believe a man alive will be making anything that could be considered Period correct,from the purest sense. So where do we draw the line.....That is the question.
Twice.

 

[LRB]

Crockett, I can't give you more than a SWAG answer, but leaving pits, forge scale, or hammer marks were simply not done in the blacksmith trade. These were regarded as the sign of an amatuer, or just poor workmanship. I would have to think that a company producing knives would be even more strict in the quality of finish. Their reputation was on the line, and even the NDNS had standards. These blades were forged, then ground to final condition, which pretty much assuredly would have removed all these cosmetic flaws. The real question might be, how far did they take the final finish? I would think Pichou might have the answer, or Chuck.

 

[dyemaker]

I thought of a coffin handled Bowie knife even though I don't particularly like Bowie knives. I don't think you could go wrong with a dagger.

 

[jmforge]

Good points all. I think that we metal pounders today could have quite an argument over whether much of the stuff coming out of places like Sheffield in the 1800's would be considered "stock removal" or "forged" products. :grin: If you have ever seen pictures or drawings of the grinding gear used by some of the big guys for razors, knives, etc, you would probably be inclined to think that they didn't waste a whole lot of time forging things to within 95% of final shape. :shocked2: Now they may have done a bit more forging before Mr. Bessemer "invented" cheap steel.

 

[Twice boom]

Its hard to say what exact methods they used unless we know which of the many makers we are talking about.
One thing we know is they did not use electric grinders and belt sanders . Those makers that used water power to trip their hammers it is not out of the question then to think they could have utilize the drop forging methods much like knife makers today do.

From there the blade could have gone to the many stations, for trimming, drilling, polishing, tempering and hardware fitting, all those tasks performed by hand..

Stock removing? Of course. What am I doing but removing unwanted stock from the blade at hand when I draw file after the forging. The words Stock removing are faux coined by the modern maker to separate himself from those that use belt grinders in their knife making prosses,from the guy that pounds the metal in to shape,even though both methods remove unwanted stock by different means..

This period correct business gets more complecated by the day.


Twice..

 

[jmforge]

The pictures and drawings that I have seen showed HUGE water or steam powered grinders for grinding razors. Cutlery may have been like the second product that was "mass produced" in enormous quantities in the British Industrial Revolution after textiles. As for "stock removal", today, that generally means knifemaking where there is no forging involved. The old "take a bar of steel and grind away everything that doesn't look like a knife" method. Most guys who forge, myself included, use belt grinders and other power equipment.

 

[crockett]

I think (and I'm no expert) that stock removal means you would start with cold rolled steel or bar stock and grind out the entire blade. As I understand it, steel has a grain structure to it- sort of like wood. When the blade is forged the grain flows in line with the blade and makes for a stronger blade- sort of like splitting wood along the grain to make a bow or to make a ramrod. In any event just because a forged blade is then ground to the final lines doesn't mean its partially a stock removal blade - not because of the removal of material but rather because the grain structure- if that makes sense. Grinding is also needed because during the heat treatment, according to Ed Fowler, carbon can get burned out of the steel's surface so the idea is to forge a little large and then grind some of the steel away. Whether this was done years ago I don't know. There's another point as well, the forged blades usually have a continual taper towards the tip; and, the tangs almost always thin or taper towards the rear. On a blade made from bar stock at least a portion of the length has parallel sides of even thickness with just the last inch or so at the point tapering. I have seen one 18th Century Barlow and the forged blade on this folding knife also had the continual taper towards the point. I think James Hanson said that blades made from barstock is post 1840.
Back when the Novellefrance trade goods site was up and running it seemed to me a lot of the French knives were thicker than the English knives but I read somewhere that the Sheffield cutler's argued their blades were stronger even if they were thinner. Wick could add a lot about all this but I think there was a process called packing where the steel was hammered to strengthen it or make it more dense. Did any of you read that Blacksmith shop link Pichou posted? It dealt with the steel structure of axes being made at the shop and to be honest- way above my head on the metallurgy aspect.
In any event earlier Pichou posted other information on the cutler's art of knife making and Bernard Levine- on his website has a similar type of literature from the period- in both cases it was my impression that blades were polished- just like today.
Why is any of this important????
Well, I've made knives that I soaked in bleach or vinegar to obtain a pitting so that they looked old or PC. Is this actually correct? The high carbon blades obviously become pitted with use, especially after using on an animal but if the blades were polished at the time then a polished blade would also be PC and the pitting step is unnecessary- maybe we ought to just use a high carbon steel and let nature pit the blade as happened on the originals.
What I don't know is the finish on the trade knives. If these were "cheap" Indian knives then maybe the polishing step was eliminated or reduced. My hunch is that knives were often given as presents to Indians so they were probably polished. If the knife was the product of a backwoods blacksmith then perhaps the grinding and polishing was not done.

 

[Twice boom]

Yes I know what the moder day knife maker means when he says he uses the stock removal method. At least with the method of knife making we know the forge does not come in to play. The guy that that puts few hammer marks on an intended blade than uses his power belt grinder to shape and put the style of grind ,whether it be flat or hollow is also using the stock removal method.IMO.. Actually, I do not consider either or of the two styles as a hand made knife.

To me a hand made knife is one the knife maker shaped it in his forge. Did all the final flat grinding /Shaping by file then used the file again to shape the handle,then does the polishing with stones to desired finish, by hand. He even makes his guards,pins,pommels.

Twice.