Real knives in the old west.

Toddy

Mod
Mod
Jan 21, 2005
39,133
4,810
S. Lanarkshire
A link that might be of interest :)

I have old cutlery, and I found this fascinating to read about the men who made the pieces I have.

The quality of those older pieces far surpassess most of the modern.

Type in the name engraved, stamped or etched on a piece of cutlery. It might surprise you to find it listed :)

 
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Moondog55

Forager
Sep 17, 2023
154
60
72
Geelong Australia
A lot of new Old Stock Old Hickory still available here in Oz, maybe I should get a bank loan; buy it all and then release in a few years as antiques on the Evil Auction Site
 

Navaja

Tenderfoot
Apr 1, 2016
55
28
Spain/UK
@Navaja Unfortunately Ontario Knives that made the Old Hickory line was bought and the US factory was closed.

Oh dear, that's sad. August just gone apparently.
I see there is still some stock about for sale but they used to be better value, I remember them being maybe £10~20 range for the everyday sizes & biggish butchers knives which was quite something for a made in the USA product.... Having said that they benefitted from a bit of time spent finishing the handles.
 
Jan 17, 2005
6
6
USA
When the American frontier extended only to the western border of Kentucky and Tennessee, the cost of finished goods meant that people living on the frontier used almost any knife they could get their hands on. Patch knives and butcher knives aka 'scalping' knives were common. Scots came to America in large numbers just after 1700 and settled mostly in the Carolinas, bringing their personal weapon, the dirk. The dirk and dagger were widely carried by militia in the Revolutionary war in place of the bayonet or sword, along with the hatchet and tomahawk.

After seeing many original frontier and Native American knives in museums, one fact stands out to me. Until the Civil War, both frontiersmen and Native Americans residing west of the Mississippi River preferred to carry a large fighting knife in preference to any other hunting or utility knife - usually, a dagger or bowie pattern.

Until the appearance of mass-produced repeating handguns during and after the Civil War, the fighting knife was the preferred secondary weapon to the rifle, musket and shotgun. The impact of the Bowie knife can be seen at this time. After its appearance in the Old Southwest (Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Missisippi) , the large Bowie caused so much carnage that some jurisdictions banned its possession (Texas), use for self-defense (Tennessee) or prohibited the carrying of such knives as a concealed weapon (Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi).

After the Civil War, the fighting knife gradually fell out of use, with the notable exception of the Bowie. Because the Bowie could serve fairly well as a butchering and even a skinning knife, it remained fairly popular in the American West until the 1880s.

Indigenous Native American knives made prior to 1870 are almost exclusively dagger patterns. Despite being less well suited for tasks such as dressing game, it was apparently more important to the owner to prioritize his knife's usefulness in close combat.
 

Paul_B

Bushcrafter through and through
Jul 14, 2008
6,404
1,695
Cumbria
At my old workplace they use knives a lot all around the factory. They often get machetes cheaply from hardware stores. By the time they get skipped they look like some of the trade knives in the video. About 6 or 7mm spine to cutting edge and about 4 inches long at most. That's from a full length machete.

Other knives are old bits of bandsaw blades sharpened into a straight blade and wrapped up to create a handle. They also made knives out of bits of industrial band saw blades, not very long obviously but they cut what they needed. Occasionally someone brings in a cheap kitchen knife. These end up about an inch long and 6 or 7mm spine to cutting edge. I was really impressed by their inventiveness with homemade knives!

I guess in that company they had the same ethics as frontier in that they used what they had for any cutting job they had and used it until it couldn't reasonably be used anymore. Just like frontier I reckon.
 

matarius777

Nomad
Aug 29, 2019
355
133
59
Lancaster
At my old workplace they use knives a lot all around the factory. They often get machetes cheaply from hardware stores. By the time they get skipped they look like some of the trade knives in the video. About 6 or 7mm spine to cutting edge and about 4 inches long at most. That's from a full length machete.

Other knives are old bits of bandsaw blades sharpened into a straight blade and wrapped up to create a handle. They also made knives out of bits of industrial band saw blades, not very long obviously but they cut what they needed. Occasionally someone brings in a cheap kitchen knife. These end up about an inch long and 6 or 7mm spine to cutting edge. I was really impressed by their inventiveness with homemade knives!

I guess in that company they had the same ethics as frontier in that they used what they had for any cutting job they had and used it until it couldn't reasonably be used anymore. Just like frontier I reckon.
Out of interest, what did the factory make? I worked for a while in a glass fibre factory that made silencers, baffles, all sorts of things, there was a fine assortment of well used knives there, some people used something like a cobblers knife that had been ground into a shape resembling a Javanese Kris knife to cut through bales of fibre. It shut down a long while ago now, I can just imagine the implications of a “stop and search” of someone nowadays, with one of those in his pack, tucked alongside his flask of tea! :oops:
 

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