Return of the pocket knife thread

[seanz]

Tanto point, I think. I'm yet to get my hands on one of those.......just out of curiosity, which model is that?

[John B]

I thought Tanto was raked the other way.
Its called a CRKT folding razel knife, dunno any model numbers. Looking at a youtube thing they had comments saying it was not a current model, but they're for sale here.
I still don't actually know what it is about it that appeals.. maybe the clipped blade means more weight in the blade for any given length of hilt/ clasp, a bit like a short overhang boat has more room inside relative to a long overhang boat of the same LOA.

[seanz]

Razel it is, and tanto it is not.

straight chisel tip edge

Has some interesting locking features.....

[John B]

Yeah , they have that double lock thing, just an extra lever which slips behind the standard line lock you get on most locking blades now.

[Canoeyawl]

I contacted a Swiss cutlery museum about the large folding knife shown above.
They responded that it was old, (19th century) and made in France for the stamped vendor. The manufacturer is unknown yet.
Perhaps Basque origins? Something similiar is produced today, notes with the reproduction indicate perhaps it was for trimming tobacco leaves???
I don't know anymore than I started with really...

[Nicholas Carey]

I contacted a Swiss cutlery museum about the large folding knife shown above.
They responded that it was old, (19th century) and made in France for the stamped vendor. The manufacturer is unknown yet.
Perhaps Basque origins? Something similiar is produced today, notes with the reproduction indicate perhaps it was for trimming tobacco leaves???
I don't know anymore than I started with really...

You might want to send some photos to the tool museum of the Compagnons du Devoir in Troyes, le Maison de l'outil et de la Pensée uvrière (aka The House of Tools or The Museum of Tools and Trades). If anybody would have a clue as to your knife, they would.

Maison de l'outil is an amazing museum, more than 10,000 different tools spanning something like 3 centuries across pretty much all the trades (plus a remarkable reference library). Well worth the visit if you're in the vicinity of Troyes, even if you have to detour. I stumbled across it by accident, walking down the street in Troyes one rainy day.

Maison de l'outil et de la Pensée ouvrière
7, rue de la Trinité
10000 Troyes
France

email : contact@maison-de-l-outil.com
tel : 03.25.73.28.26

http://www.maison-de-l-outil.com/

FWIW, here's a Green River Knife Works "Virginia Pattern" Tobacco Knife from 1933. 9 inches long, fixed blade, convex cutting edge:



With some notes on its use, from a 2003 issue of Knife World, courtesy of http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/sh...-Tobacco-Knife :

Mr. K. asked about two other knives. One is an unusual special-purpose knife. It is a fixed blade 9 inches long overall. The curved 3 inch blade is thin and flexible. The blade is unmarked, but the light-colored wooden dog-leg shaped handle is heat stamped RUSSELL-DEXTER.

I dug out my reprint of J. Russell & Company's Green River Works 1933 catalog. The original catalog was published three years before Russell merged with Dexter Harrington & Son to form Russell-Harrington Corporation, now called Dexter-Russell, Inc. But it does show a similar knife, on page 49, with a slightly different handle shape.

It is called a Virginia pattern tobacco knife. Mr. K's knife might be a different regional pattern, but it too is a tobacco knife. Unlike plug-tobacco pen knives, usually big fancy Congress pattern folders, this is a plain tobacco farmer's knife.

I have never observed traditional tobacco farming directly, but back in the late 1970s I had a friend named Pamela Barefoot, whose family had farmed for generations in the tobacco-growing Piedmont region of Virginia. She wrote and illustrated a handsome picture book documenting the hand cultivation, harvest, and curing of tobacco, and gave me an inscribed copy. It is called Mules and Memories, self-published by Barefoot Productions in 1978, distributed by John F. Blair of Winston-Salem, North.

I do not know how this tobacco knife was used. None of the photos in her book shows detail of knives. But our publisher, Mr. Houston Price, has had much experience in tobacco culture. He writes:

"Much of the tobacco (volume wise) that is grown in U.S. and other major tobacco producing countries is harvested by removing leaves from the stalk as it stands in the field. This is usually done in a sequential order beginning with bottom leaves (first ripening) and moving up the stalk to the tip leaves as they ripen. Breaking off or pulling these leaves from the stalk is done by hand or by machine that can selectively harvest the leaf from a field-standing stalk. So, knives are not needed in harvesting this type tobacco.

"There are other types/varities of tobacco that are harvested by cutting the entire plant, severing the stalk at a position near the soil. A rather unique labor process called "spearing" follows the cutting. A metal cone (sharp tip) is placed on top of a stick that has been inserted into the soil and, immediately after being cut, the stalk is impaled on the stick. The speared stalks are left in the field for a few days for the leaves to ripen.

"These sticks with several stalks are later transferred to a barn where it is hung in a manner that allows further air curing.

"The tobacco knife is used only in the harvesting process of those air-cured or fire-cured types. Although the tobacco stalk would be about two-inches in diameter, it is a succulent stem that is rather easily cut with one "swipe" of a knife such as you picture; not a woody stem that would require multiple cuts.

"Your question called the pictured knife 'Virginia pattern' and I can only guess about its name. Virginia grows (or has grown) several types of tobacco. Three of them - Burley, Dark Air Cured and Fire Cured - are cut in the field as described above. The other type, Flue Cured, is harvested by removing leaves from the standing stalk.

"Most tobacco knives that I have seen do not have nearly so much curvature as the Russell Virginia Pattern knife. Instead, they are more hatchet shaped and the cut is made in a one-handed chopping action. I suspect that the pictured knife would have been used for a slicing type cut; blade on the 'safer' outside of the slicing arc. Tobacco knives, whether in Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, etc. are intended for a rather simple and straight-forward use but may follow some local traditional style. Whether the name "Virginia pattern" has any significance other than as a marketing phrase is unknown to me.

"They - tobacco knives in general - are indeed still used, but growing tobacco for a living or as 'a way of life' is an ever-shrinking industry for the U.S."

The 1974 Russell-Harrington catalog does not show this knife, or any tobacco knife. Neither does Dexter-Russell's current on-line catalog.

I saw a knife just like Mr. K's on eBay back in September 2001. I saved the pictures, but not the description. I didn't save the price either, but I must have been outbid on it, since I don't have it now (or if I do have it, I forget where I put it). I think it sold over $50. The seller knew it was a tobacco knife.

It would seem that French/Swiss tobacco farmers would likely have the same sorts of requirements.

[Canoeyawl]

I found this today...
Note the same large size, they are calling it a French Navaja.
It looks very much like the same manufacturer. A bit more fanciness and finish work on the metal than mine. But perhaps mine is just a lowly tobacco knife
I'm going to send some pics to the place that Nicholas Carey suggested - Thanks
I have another similar but smaller French folding knife at least as old and unusual but I'll start a new thread
Maybe I'm closing in on it...
http://www.sailorinsaddle.com/product.aspx?id=935

[John B]

Great find!. Navaja reveals a lot of info on google.

one here for example...

http://www.allaboutpocketknives.com/...hp?f=4&t=14253

as to the Razel...

well, ya'll made me do it. I like it, I like it a loh.

[Canoeyawl]

This is another old French knife that I have, I think it is a Navaja...
(It is worse shape than the other)

[John B]

Wow.

My stuff including the new knife and the life jacket blade. I'll take two pocket knives plus the cheap get it done sheath knife for the reefs on this trip.



of which the only really significant to me knife( apart from the new one) is the Wolstenholme I*XL pruning knife 3 up from the bottom. My Grandfathers knife, its just a beautiful thing and like the other carbon steel and cheaper pruner below it, takes a lovely edge.

[LeeG]

this is a great little knife. Very easy to sharpen.

[ChrisBen]

So you do have the Razel. Do you put it in your pocket, or use the pocket clip? I looked on their website and it's not shown here. I used to have a bunch of knives from this place.. Now they're only showing their belt knives Bowen Knife Company

[John B]

I usually take the clips off because I don't see any value in them, so yes Chris, pocket or that belt sheath thing on my wet weather bib. I'll just have a short lanyard like the cheapy folder in the photo.

I looked at that one for the jacket Lee.... toss of the coin in the end and went the crkt one. It might have been less bulky and better for the job in retrospect.

[BrianW]

Crap. Lost this one today. Somewhere in the gravel I'm guessing. Not on top of the helicopters, thank goodness. Replacement inbound from Amazon...

Benchmade Griptilian 556...

[McMike]

Crap. Lost this one today. Somewhere in the gravel I'm guessing. Not on top of the helicopters, thank goodness. Replacement inbound from Amazon...

Bummer . . .

I love mine; I left it at work one day last week and went through separation anxiety.

[BrianW]

Found it!

It was right where a least three of us looked, in a troop seat. It blends in with the seat belts (4 point) so well, we all missed it. Then today, I sat in the seat again, and my replacement knife (also a Benchmade, but bigger, and not as handy, despite a spring-loaded assisted blade) got stuck on the same seat belt. I'm not sure of the physics involved, but a knife clipped into my back pocket will transfer to a seat belt with remarkable regularity.

Thanks for the sympathy Mike. We've got to stick together.

[McMike]

Found it!

It was right where a least three of us looked, in a troop seat. It blends in with the seat belts (4 point) so well, we all missed it. Then today, I sat in the seat again, and my replacement knife (also a Benchmade, but bigger, and not as handy, despite a spring-loaded assisted blade) got stuck on the same seat belt. I'm not sure of the physics involved, but a knife clipped into my back pocket will transfer to a seat belt with remarkable regularity.

Thanks for the sympathy Mike. We've got to stick together.

Good news!!! That would have been a mighty nice find for someone.

Hey B-Dub, how do you sharpen the serrated part, mine's getting a bit dull, I might just make a small wood block that fits and put fine grained stick-ums sandpaper on it . . .

[BrianW]

Honestly, I find a person who can't stand a dull blade, them let them see it, or try to use it. That usually ends up with them taking the knife home (or back to their room) and I get it back all nice and sharp.

But they do make round stick things for sharpening the serrated portion.

[Jim Mahan]

For sharpening the serrated portion of the blade, a slip stone:


available from these people (for instance, not where I got mine) http://www.sharpeningsupplies.com/Ar...-P378C105.aspx

[McMike]

Cool, Thanks!

[John B]

Do you actually find the serrations of value Brian? In any of the sort of general boat work I expect of a knife I've only ever found them to be a nuisance , hanging up rather than clean cutting. People say that they're good for rope but I haven't really ever had an issue with a plain blade.

[ChrisBen]

Do you actually find the serrations of value Brian? In any of the sort of general boat work I expect of a knife I've only ever found them to be a nuisance , hanging up rather than clean cutting. People say that they're good for rope but I haven't really ever had an issue with a plain blade.

Serrated edge is for cutting quick and dirty. It'll never leave the clean cut a finely sharpened straight blade gives you. Kind of like the difference between a chainsaw and fine tooth pull saw.

[Donn]

I've been using these in a couple of my utility knives for several months now:



They are far superior to regular razor blades at cutting tough stuff, because you can saw with them. They keep cutting longer, as well.

[John B]

I think I gave up on them because most of my boat work seems to be based around relatively small diameter ropes and unless its under tension, cutting rope with serrations is more trouble than its worth. I can see that in a rescue situation you might get through it quicker.

I've never seen those before Donn.

[Donn]

I've never seen those before Donn.

They're from Lee Valley. They're a bit spendy, but they work so well, and so much longer, they're worth every penny. Great for cutting carpet, rubber, etc..

[ChrisBen]

I think I gave up on them because most of my boat work seems to be based around relatively small diameter ropes and unless its under tension, cutting rope with serrations is more trouble than its worth. I can see that in a rescue situation you might get through it quicker.

I've never seen those before Donn.

I can cut through 1" like it's not there and haven't sharpened it in years. It ain't pretty though.

[Donn]

My Leatherman Wave has a blade like that. Very useful, but I sharpen it regularly.

[ChrisBen]

I don't have a belt sander.

[Donn]

Pity.

[Captain Intrepid]

Do you actually find the serrations of value Brian? In any of the sort of general boat work I expect of a knife I've only ever found them to be a nuisance , hanging up rather than clean cutting. People say that they're good for rope but I haven't really ever had an issue with a plain blade.

Cheap serrations are worse than useless, they catch on rope fibers. Good serrations are useless for fine work, but are great when you need to cut through something as quickly as possible.

[David G]

None of my active knives have serrated blades... but that's just an accident. I like a blade that has a serrated section. When I used such regularly, I kept it honed with two different diameter dowels charged with some abrasive paste. That worked very well for keeping an edge tuned up. When I bunged it up bad, I'd take it to a pro for re-shaping.

[BrianW]

Do you actually find the serrations of value Brian?

I'm a bit late in responding, and others have beat me to all the good answers.

I like a section of serrated edge, for cutting through stuff that would make me cringe a little, if using the fine edge.

[John B]

Waaal, I'm not convinced I'm afraid. Maybe it was the time the cheddar just hung up on the serrations that time , and don't even talk to me about the brie....

[Don S]

"greatest trash bins" (Camillus Knife works) I'll bet.

Too bad they're defunct. I have a yellow jacket that sharpens real well. And a one hand opener that was made in Taiwan even though USA is the claim. Lost that one in the field;fortunately bought a last replacement the hardware store had. Bought a Kershaw one hander to carry because I didn't want to lose the Camillus ;-). It opens about as easy as a power assisted, without the spring stuff. Accidentally left it at home when we came up north for the summer. So I'm carrying an open frame Buck partially serrated one hander which is not nearly as satisfactory. Except in the morning, when I make the garden rounds to kill slugs: Swedish Mora fixed blade does the job.

[OconeePirate]

I'm still carrying the same knife as last time around, lol. After I'm done with the boat I want to get myself a nicer sailing knife just because. I also plan on getting myself another puuko while in Finland this summer, one that doesn't have sentimental value. Maybe a mora type knife too for banging around.

Gerber and Fiskars tools are heavily dependent on where they're made it seems. Some are made in China, some are U.S., some are Finnish. The Finnish and American made stuff seems to be consistently decent quality. I have a U.S. made Gerber sheath knife, the skeleton style "skinning" knife, that I bought just to have a lower profile sheath knife and it takes and holds a nice edge, and I haven't broke it yet. The sheath is badly designed. It carries the knife high enough to poke into back or side and the retaining strap is positioned such I've almost cut it off already from putting the knife back.

And I want to get myself a big stupid machete too, again just because. Cold Steel sends their catalogs to work and its almost as bad as getting the Sears wish book when I was 10. You can get a machete from them modelled after a Chinese war sword. That'd be just the thing for trimming the hedges and keeping the neighbors at bay.

[Ian McColgin]

If you're tempted by a machete and are really doing brush work, consider the "woodsman's pal" which has a draw hook opposite the blade at the end. That little doodaah will let you remove branchlets up to an inch or so that are too springy to chop and too green to saw easily.

[seanz]

I'm still carrying the same knife as last time around, lol. After I'm done with the boat I want to get myself a nicer sailing knife just because. I also plan on getting myself another puuko while in Finland this summer, one that doesn't have sentimental value. Maybe a mora type knife too for banging around.

Gerber and Fiskars tools are heavily dependent on where they're made it seems. Some are made in China, some are U.S., some are Finnish. The Finnish and American made stuff seems to be consistently decent quality. I have a U.S. made Gerber sheath knife, the skeleton style "skinning" knife, that I bought just to have a lower profile sheath knife and it takes and holds a nice edge, and I haven't broke it yet. The sheath is badly designed. It carries the knife high enough to poke into back or side and the retaining strap is positioned such I've almost cut it off already from putting the knife back.

And I want to get myself a big stupid machete too, again just because. Cold Steel sends their catalogs to work and its almost as bad as getting the Sears wish book when I was 10. You can get a machete from them modelled after a Chinese war sword. That'd be just the thing for trimming the hedges and keeping the neighbors at bay.

Oh, you trim your hedges like that too?


But, not a pocket-knife, not even slightly.......
http://www.coldsteel.com/chinesewarsword.html

I do like the Cold Steel guys though, they're just having a lot of fun.

[John B]

After a few weeks at sea and crawling around a couple of the less visited islands of Fiji I've decided I like the knife . The utility nature of the unusual tip has been pretty useful and the blade is fairly robust section. It chisel/scraped a fair bit of sealant off some wood when we were repairing , cut up a coconut ok and did a bit of whittling. and the salami. Everyone who saw it wanted one.

[seanz]

Everyone who saw it wanted one.

I want one too. But what I really want is to be sitting under a palm tree in Fiji.......Chch is frozen.



B'stard.




Though I do admire the lengths you go to when you test a product.

[SamSam]

After a few weeks at sea and crawling around a couple of the less visited islands of Fiji I've decided I like the knife . The utility nature of the unusual tip has been pretty useful and the blade is fairly robust section. It chisel/scraped a fair bit of sealant off some wood when we were repairing , cut up a coconut ok and did a bit of whittling. and the salami. Everyone who saw it wanted one.

I would be leery of using the tip, putting pressure on the blade that way and accidentally unlocking the blade lock. I had one of the other type blade lock that let loose while using pressure trying to poke a hole in something, the blade folded back and seems like it would have cut off my fingers except for something that stopped my hand from moving forward and folding the blade up any more.

[John B]

I want one too. But what I really want is to be sitting under a palm tree in Fiji.......Chch is frozen.



B'stard.




Though I do admire the lengths you go to when you test a product.

Same here, I'm not adjusting well.

[John B]

Sam, it has a double lock arrangement on it, I like that too.