sheffield trade knife

[LaBonte]

On the blade grinding- how fine a finish is possible? Would there be grinding marks? A silversmith at Colonial Williamsburg told me he hammered out teapots absolutely smooth, is it possible to forge a blade that smooth?

Very fine depending on the grit and they also used leather covered wheels/belts with added grit for fine polishing - higher end knives and swords of the period were finished to a mirror finish.
A good forger using flatters can do quite a fine finish, but in most cases it will need at least a bit of filing or grinding. Silver work is worked cold so there is little scale even after annealing

regarding Bernard Levine - IMO be VERY careful using him as a source, he's not as well learned as he likes to portray - the man has 1) claimed NO knives were made from files during the 18-19th century's despite existing examples and written documentation 2) he has stated that ALL files made post 1900 are of air hardening steel - fact is most (excepting the cheap case hardened files) are made of 1095 or W1/W2 both water hardening steels....

As far as Sheffield marketing, I will additionally point out how quickly they exploited the "Bowie" market. Despite current popular modern terminology, many of these "Bowies" were marked "ARKANSAS TOOTHPICK."

Exactly - nomenclature was played fast and loose during the period and often does not match or modern conceptions. The Ak Toothpick is a good example, most collectors today use the name to describe daggers of a sort, yet there are plenty of original single edge clip point Bowies etched with the name Arkansas Bowie (I've got pics :hatsoff: if interested)
Also prior to the Bowie era butcher was often applied to any large knife by the admen/journalists of the day in order to make it sound fearsome - Rezin (pronounced reason BTW) Bowie described the "original" as such, yet it bears no real relationship to what style we ascribe to that name used by fur trade.....
If any one is looking for an excellent well documented book on the Bowie, with some good references to it's predecessors, I recommend the Bowie Knife Book by Norm Flayderman. It costs $75.00 new but is chock full of color pictures so is in fact a "cheap" book considering - and then there's library loan......

 

[crockett]

Yeah, BL is very good but I've had a running disagreement with him on the Furnis knives being butcher knives. The fur trade journals always inventory them as scalpers. Denig called them scalers. Nit picking I suppose.
Which also brings up a point I just thought of, on the half tang scalpers, I've said that a one piece handle was used that contained a sawn kerf. Generally that's true but there also appears to be some scalpers with three pins running the length of the handle and from the butt end it appears in a DRAWING (Carl P. Russell) that the handle is two piece or of scales. The original knife from which CPR made the drawing was in the museum at Moose WY/Jackson Hole. I called the museum and they said a few years previously the roof had caved in and they shipped all the artifacts some place else but they didn't remember where. I called every possible NP and SP and no one knows what happened to the knife, someone said they probably sold it to a private collector.

 

[pichou]

I have seen extra pins on a few knives. Most of these were repairs on kerf handles. One (French tr. kn. IIRC) had a matching (i.e. OEM) pin past the kerf, but was still half tang.

The WI Hist. Soc. has a +F scalper on display. That is the mark of Furniss. No way is it a butcher, in the "Green River" sense.

In a general sense, yes the scalper is a style of butcher knife known in Europe and the UK. You can still buy that shape, but they are usually called boning knives.

 

[LaBonte]

Give Jim Gordon a call 505-982-9667, He's bought up a lot of fur trade stuff over the years and may just have that one or a similar one - nice guy BTW. Wish I had the $300.00 bucks to buy his fur trade gun book set...

On the slot - I agree that grips may have been built in different ways. On some English half tangs I've examined I could swear the slot was started with a thin saw, but was then driven in. The reason I say this is the tapered back of the blade looks driven in (no saw kerf - blade matches to the wood exactly) and the front of the grip where the tang is measured slightly wider than the rest of the grip - if that makes sense???
In the case of being "split" that extra pin could be to prevent further splitting......

Would sure like to be the "fly on the wall" back a couple of hundred years.....

 

[pichou]

Makes perfect sense I have seen the same thing. It is a SOB to duplucate. :surrender: :surrender:

 

[crockett]

That may be the same one I've seen, the blade is about 6" and it is "long and skinny" more like a fillet knife whereas some of the other Furness knives, the G-CROWN-R/FURNESS have a much deeper belly to the front edge of the blade. I think the handle on that WIsconsin scalper is a lighter wood, not rosewood or reddish.
And...the Carl P. Russell book has a quote on AF Co. orders listing common and warranted scalpers- any one know what the difference was?
AND... it seems the back of the half tang scalpers was rounded, not square. Was this driven into the handle? I've never been able to figure out why the rounded shape.

 

[pichou]

The round ends are always thinner towards the end. Some also have irregular profiles. I have always assumed this was from being forged thinner, while the late (die cut?) knives have square ends and to not taper.

The cross F blade in the WHS Coll.s is curved, has a fairly full belly (rounded tip) does not have a crown GR and does not have a handle.

 

[crockett]

I saw a different scalper, I'm sure it was at the WHS. I'll see if I can find the image.