“Aging” an Old Hickory knife

I would like to make this knife a little prettier and more PC/HC. I’m thinking sanding and staining the stocks but I don’t know what to do about the blade. Just use it and abuse it until it gains some honest patina?

I would just use it, but not abuse it, and let the patina come honestly. It just sort of sneaks up on you.

DOUBLEDEUCE 1 said:

I would just use it, but not abuse it, and let the patina come honestly. It just sort of sneaks up on you.

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Agreed. There is no faux patina process that can look as good as honest use. Use it, clean it, oil it and the look will come with time. I tend to leave new gear “bright” and let it age naturally. There’s no shame in a piece of new looking gear. Even the mountain men of long ago needed to buy new things once in a while.

Edit to add: The steel in Old Hickory knives seems to darken pretty quickly, so you won’t have to use it for long to see the patina you want.

I let my knife blades patina with use as well, but if you gotta have it “right now” there are ways to get a patina in a hurry. A coat of yellow mustard smeared on and left for a couple of days will do it. The more you do it, the heavier the patina. Cutting lemons, oranges, or onions without washing it off right away will speed it up too.

Everything was new once, clean the old hickory off the handle with a bit of sanding, use the knife it will age on its own, much better than a fake age.

Cut a tomato with it, don’t wipe the blade off afterwards.

If you cut up a kiwi fruit and don't clean off the blade immediately, it will darken. Potatoes will also do this, but you have to cut up a bunch of them and it takes more time. I've also heard of using yellow mustard.

I don't think sanding and staining the handle will make much difference. It will still be, and will still look like, an Old Hickory. Brass compression rivets as on that knife handle were patented by an American inventor named Mellen Brey in about 1878, and they were not commonly used on knives until at least the 1890's. Prior to that, most wood-handled knives were pinned. The "tire track" pattern of depressions on the blade are intentional, and were put there to give the blade stiffness. They increase the ratio of surface area to mass, sort of like an I-beam is stiffer than a solid beam of equal mass. I don't know of any 19th century originals which had this feature.

However, if you want to age your knife, I have found the best way to do it is let your wife have it in the kitchen for a month. No offense to the ladies present... I'm talking about the wives who have no interest in blackpowder shooting or frontier history. Just sharpen it up and leave the knife in your kitchen. Don't utter a word of criticism, and don't attempt to "rescue" it. When you find it soaking in dishwater or run through the dishwasher, just leave it. Don't say a word when it's left on the counter for two hours coated with mayonnaise. When you see fat drops of water on the blade after it was pulled from the dishwater and not dried, and red rust forming before your eyes, just tell yourself "Patina. It's developing patina." Hold your tongue when you see a cast-iron skillet used as a cutting board. Just smile, resharpen the knife, and give it back. After 4-6 weeks of this, your knife will resemble a fur trade relic, and it will be ready for you to retrieve.

I speak from experience. I've been hitched to the same gal for 43 years, and we have a few miles yet to go.

For a somewhat more historically correct looking knife from the get-go, I would recommend that you buy one of the Dexter-Russell Green River butcher knife blade "blanks." Protect the blade with an improvised "heat sink" and anneal the tang with a propane torch. Just heat it until it begins to show dull red and let it cool slowly. You can then drill the tang with a regular HSS bit. I would suggest using a 1/8" bit and drill a series of holes for pins. Google "fur trade butcher knife" and look at the photos to get an idea regarding the layout for the pins.

You can leave the blade as it is, treat it with fruit juice or mustard as above, or use a browning or bluing solution to give it some color. Buff it back with steel wool or Scotchbrite to the finish you want.

Cut some slabs of wood, preferably beech if you can get it, 5/16" thick and a little wider and longer than the tang. Commercial knife handle slabs are usually 3/8", which is too thick. I use 16d bright finish nails for pin stock. The ones I have measure around 0.098", if I remember correctly. I'll double check tomorrow. Bore holes in your wood slabs around .002"-.003" smaller than your pins. Here is where a set of wire gauge bits will come in handy. Smaller holes may result in split wood. Larger holes won't have an optimal grip on the pins.

Make sure the metal and wood are clean. Get some epoxy with the longest drying time you can get. If you use five minute epoxy you will regret it. Put a film of epoxy on the tang, the inside of the slabs, and the individual pins as you drive them in with a light hammer. Once you have assembled the knife, give the handle a good squeeze with clamps, then remove the clamps. Clean up excess epoxy with acetone. Then, let it dry for 24 hours.

Next, cut off the pins and file them flush. They don't need to be peened if you bored the holes correctly, especially if you epoxied everything together. Then use files, sandpaper, or whatever tools you have handy to work the wood slabs down to size. Refer back to your photos of original knives and shape the handle like an original.

The result will not be a perfect replica of a trade knife, but it will be closer than almost anything you can buy. John Nowill knives, made in Sheffield, are pretty good replicas. I bought a new 6" John Nowill butcher off eBay a year or so ago for $25. It is an imperfect but pretty good replica of a fur-trade butcher, with a correctly stamped (not etched) mark on the blade and pin-fastened slab handle. It is a good quality, very usable knife for real cutting chores, too. Crazy Crow sells a butcher knife with a pin-fastened handle and the blade stamped with a snake motif, as was used by an old Sheffield cutler named Kitchin. I think it costs around $30. I've never handled one of these, though, and can't vouch for the quality.

Frankly, if I just wanted a decent trade knife and was not interested in building one, I would look for one of the Nowill butchers and keep the Old Hickory as a back-up, or just leave it in my kitchen. Old Hickory knives get the job done, and they are a very good value. They just aren't historically correct, and nothing short of heroic efforts will correct that.

Good luck with your project!

Best regards,

Notchy Bob

Cover the blade in spicy mustard.
works great!!!!!! gives it a gray, blue and black finish depending on how long you leave it on.

I had found an Old Hickory Pig Sticker (Double Sided Blade) with a bad chip for 1.00 traced and shaped it into a boning knife with a new handle fit to my hand great for boning out a whole deer and it stays sharp.

Here’s a knife that was given the yellow mustard treatment. Just spread it on, left over night, wiped off next day. The knife was originally very bright and shiny.

It is my understanding the newer OH knives do not patina. Possibly they are now made from stainless steel. But, the older ones will. As said, the mustard treatment works fine, or just let it patina naturally.

Timber Wolf said:

I would like to make this knife a little prettier and more PC/HC. I’m thinking sanding and staining the stocks but I don’t know what to do about the blade. Just use it and abuse it until it gains some honest patina?
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Slice a tomato with it and rub the face of the cut tomato all over the blade. Let it sit out overnight and you will see the blade has already darkened. I have an Old Hickory paring knife that I like to use because, being carbon steel, I can get it really sharp. Being carbon steel, I have to be sure to rinse it immediately whenever I cut acidic vegetables of fruits, and I do so. My wife can't seem to understand that one knife needs to be cleaned and occasionally oiled to keep it looking good and I often find it discolored from being left overnight after being used for cutting tomatoes, lemons, or even oranges. Tomatoes will darken pretty quickly. If it get put in the block without being rinsed and wiped first, I might not notice it for a couple of days and then I have to take it out to my belt sander to clean it back up.

I have a "rifleman's knife" that I bought back in about 2004 from Townsends for reenacting and didn't use it because it was so shiny. They suggested rubbing the blade with a tomato, a lemon, or vinegar. Didn't work well at all because come to find out that after the manufacturer polished the carbon steel to a shine he put some kind of sealant over it. It looked like it was stainless steel but it's not. The also suggested just burying the blade in your lawn (LONG blade so just stick it in at a shallow angle and leave if for a week or 2...or 3) and that would accelerate the natural weathering and darkening. So I finally did that and just left it for almost a month. That did a number on the 1/4" thick blade alright, but also put some weathering cracks in the horn handle and dulled the look of it.. So if you use that method, cover the handle first. I took some sandpaper to it after that to clean it up without making it shiny and it worked fin..

You won't have to worry about that with an Old Hickory knife though. They'll blacken up just fine in a very short amount of time being rubbed with a tomato.

Cold blue and rub back with steel wool. Then use it as a kitchen knife.

medicine_duck said:

Cold blue and rub back with steel wool. Then use it as a kitchen knife.
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That's an interesting knife, @medicine_duck . Enlarging the photo, I see EKCO FORGE stamped on the blade. I understand you did the coloration on the blade, and it looks really good, but is that the original blade shape, or did you modify it? I don't think I've seen one quite like it before. Looks like about a nine-inch blade, maybe?

Best regards,

Notchy Bob

I have friends who use old Dexter, Old Hickory, Wards, carbon steel knives and re configure to make copies of I. Wilson which were around during the 1825-1840 Rocky Mountain Rendezvous. Grind off the stamping on the Old Hickory blade, any lettering, lose the handles by drilling out cutler's rivets. Taper the tang by sanding. A sign of a hand forged Sheffield blade is a tapered tang. Some butcher and scalping English made (Sheffield) knives had half tangs, the end was cut at a diagonal. Study I. Wilson knives for 5 and 6 pin, not rivet, patterns for holding two slabs of wood. Research the types of wood used. Some blades sold for trade came without handles and more could be packaged and packed that way. Fur Trade Cutlery by James Hanson good introductory book on rendezvous knives. James Gordon book with many nice color photos a recommended reference, too. Museum of the Fur Trade in Chadron, Nebraska and the Gordon Museum in Glorieta, New Mexico will display actual knives and better than just looking at a book or photo on the internet. With permission you can trace, weigh, caliper thicknesses and photograph these artifacts. Why do it half way when trying to make a replica?

Some old Wilson butcher knives:



Tapered half tangs, except for the second from the right, which is a later vintage:



This shows some pins and rivets. The top knife is a 6" Dexter/Russell butcher, which is in current production. The second is a 6" John Nowill butcher, referenced in my previous post. Third is marked as WINCHESTER, but I've been unable to find anything about it. I think it likely dates from the 1970's or eighties. Last is an original John Wilson skinner, probably pre-1890:



These are antique Russell Green River knives, probably dating to the late 19th or early 20th century, but all pin fastened, and all with tapered full tangs:


A couple of old Shapleigh butcher knives, probably early to mid 20th century. They were twins when I got them. I removed the original handle, annealed the tang, and drilled for pins on the bottom one:



Rehafting in progress:



Here is an original six-pin Shapleigh butcher on the top, compared to the completed rehafted blade below it:



Best regards,

Notchy Bob

Notchy Bob said:

That's an interesting knife, @medicine_duck . Enlarging the photo, I see EKCO FORGE stamped on the blade. I understand you did the coloration on the blade, and it looks really good, but is that the original blade shape, or did you modify it? I don't think I've seen one quite like it before. Looks like about a nine-inch blade, maybe?

Best regards,

Notchy Bob

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As far as I know it is original. I got it at a gun show and cleaned it up, stained the handle and blued the blade. The blade is 7.75

There have been a lot of PC and terrific ways of giving your knife a patina. If you have any Jax black that will give you a deep black patina then using 0000 steel wool or scotch write you can brush it back to the color you want. Someone mentioned yellow mustard, I have had success with that too.

Respectfully

Here's a Green River butcher that I aged using John Cohea's method with ferric chloride and bleach. I used deer bone for the handle and added a little rawhide wrap.




This one I found at the local flea market already "aged". I stained and refinished the handle and added a rawhide wrap.

GYJ said:

Here's a Green River butcher that I aged using John Cohea's method with ferric chloride and bleach. I used deer bone for the handle and added a little rawhide wrap.

This one I found at the local flea market already "aged". I stained and refinished the handle and added a rawhide wrap.

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Both very nice.