Bad 787 Wonda

[jxr1197]

Jason, i am not upset in any way and said nothing that could be interpreted as 'upset'.
This is not name calling: your behaviour is purposely manipulative. You twist what others have said in an effort to support yourself or your opinion. No need to be defensive. Just state things in an honest straight forward way.
kj

I honesty don't know how to reply. I'm manipulative, defensive and don't say things in a honest straight forward way? Got it. Thanks for the perspective and I'm glad you started by telling me that you weren't name calling because I might have confused your intention there.

[KnifeSlinger#81]

I'm posting some better pictures of the knife. I totally disagree with Jason, here are the pics, let me know what you think. I would also like to hear others besides Jason. I see no evidence of welding!!! It has a single backspring, I posted a picture of another 787 that was stamped on the serrated blade. I think you are looking for something that doesn't exist in this knife. It is right as rain bro!

Looks good to me.

[KnifeSlinger#81]

I know who Eric is and I know his qualifications (and apparently I know his resume better than you do) and if he stops by and schools me, then so be it. His is probably the only opinion I would take above my own in this thread.

Jason, if you are trying to look at this knife with as much open mindedness to learning about it as possible but you're only willing to take one persons opinion above your own as being correct that is perhaps not the best approach.

and for that matter do you realize that I'm the only one who has actually offered an opinion so far? The members who believe the knife is legit have not said why. Not one of them.

Opinions have been given. You said that you respected mine, and I appreciate that, but if this is what you think then you must not have read my opinion or were just saying that to be friendly.

You are over reading the knife Jason. There was nothing wrong with it to begin with, and now with the clearer pictures it's hard to argue against it.

[ea42]

OK everybody, how about we all just take a step back, have a swig of our favorite beverage and take a deep breath. It's just a knife after all, not worth having it be the cause of any unnecessary wounds so to speak. I'm not too overly familiar with the 787WE, or the 787 for that matter, so I really can't form an opinion based on experience with that model. Just looking at the knife itself though I'll just tell you what I see. I would think that this would have Swinden (or new) construction, and in looking at the photos I don't see any evidence of a bolster pin. A weld would be pretty difficult to accomplish that close to the shoulder without having to re-shape it to clean things up, and it appears that everything is original there. Judging by the tarnish and shape of the center pin I would say that it too is original. That pin would have to be removed and replaced if you were to install a blade. The blade seems to sit correctly in the open position, and spring looks good too from what I can see. The square tang versus the round tang of the old 787 is a bit of as puzzle as the blade backs would have to be a different height, but knowing Schrade they'd make it work if they were trying to use up an excess inventory of blades. To me, and this is just my opinion thrown in; it would seem like waaay too much work to have to take a new construction muskrat apart, weld a tang to a wonda edge blade (why not just use the entire wonda edge blade, the tangs should be darned close to identical), then have to drill new holes in the bolsters with the accompanying hammering, glazing and buffing. All for a forty dollar sale to George. Just doesn't seem to make sense. That's a whole day's work even without the welding. Now if I saw a picture of this same knife with obvious pin heads (as you often see in attempted reworks) showing through overly buffed and shiny bolsters, I'd definitely be suspicious. This is all just conjecture though, and I was really hesitant about saying anything at all as pictures rarely show the entire story. There are just too many variables. I may just bid on that guy as I'm actually really curious about its makeup now that it's been brought up. Nice job sucking me into another potential knife buy guys

Eric

PS- It's 1:30 in the morning so please forgive me if I forgot something, I'll double check in the AM.

[orvet]

Thank you Eric.
Eric posted while I was putting my post together but I still want to post my original points.

Schrade made three multi-blade folders (225, 293 & 787) with wonda edge blades as secondaries and they never tang stamped the wonda blade on any of those knives. The reason this 787 has a tang stamped wonda blade is because the blade was welded onto that tang, but I’ll circle back to that in a moment. Also notable is that the wonda blade is on the right when looking at the mark side of this knife. The wonda edge blade on a correct knife is on the left side.

First regarding the 787 having a tang stamp on the Wonda blade- If you look at the 1957 Schrade catalog sheets on the collectors-of-Schrade website you will see a line drawing of a 787 that has the one-day edge blade as the master blade with the tang stamp on.

Since the welding seems to be the sore point I'd like to hear your theory. If you look at the pic you can't miss the circles at the base of the blade. Given all the other factors I came to the conclusion that I was probably looking at leftover marks from the electrode. Since you see no signs of welding, what do you suppose caused those scars?

When blades are welded properly I am told it is done with laser welding machines. I have seen pictures of a blade welded with the laser welder, there was no seam, no weld marks of any kind. I know a collector who has used that technology and said it’s very expensive and there is quite a waiting list with the few people who will do knives. This knife probably won’t sell for enough money to cover the cost of laser welding a new blade on there, from what my friend has told me. I have never used the technology personally. I am quite certain that the seller did not spend $150 to weld the blade on a $50 knife.

It’s not like you can fire up your cracker box stick welder in the garage and start welding tangs to blades, you can’t even do it properly with a TIG welder and a MIG welder is way too hot.
Several years ago I priced a used laser welder that was about $10,000. New they’re about $20,000 to $25,000 currently. They have a new laser welder technology out that produces a Pico weld that might be adaptable to blade welding. The Pico weld is used to achieve microscopic joints and can make intricate welds with as little as .01 joules of energy. This new technology is less expensive than the old laser welder’s there were only about $8000 for a new machine.

I am sharing this information not because I know so much, I just looked it up on the website where I had looked up the information several years ago. I just put the information in my own words and posted it here to make a point; the point is that welding blades is a very inexpensive proposition. It’s expensive for the person who invests in the machinery so consequently it’s going to be expensive who has worked on with that machinery. You not going to do a convincing job of welding a blade to a tang with anything less than laser welder. I have repaired a lot of pocketknives over the years and let me tell you, if I took all the money I have made repairing pocketknives in the last 15+ years, I would still be way, way short of buying even a used laser welder!

Another thing that I would like to say while I am on the subject, (this is not directed to anyone specifically in this thread), counterfeiting a knife is also an expensive proposition. I am always amazed when someone posts a knife that they think has been counterfeited that is selling for less than $50. When some people see a knife they don’t understand, or they think is wrong they immediately think it is counterfeited, without stopping to think about the amount of effort and expense that would go into making a counterfeit knife.

I recall seeing one somewhere not long ago that the opinion rendered was someone had used a Camillus frame and put Case XX blades into the knife so that it was worth more money.
Don’t remember what it sold for but for the sake of discussion let’s call it $200.
Now let’s do the math. You buy a Case knife with XX blades, that’s probably going to cost you $75+ if they’re in decent shape. You buy a nice new Camillus frame to put them in, depending on the frame that’s going to run you somewhere around $40 and then you have the time and materials to take both knives apart and to combine them to make your counterfeit. If you don’t work on knives you have no idea of the time it takes to assemble, disassemble and adjust, reassemble and test, disassemble and adjust it until you get everything to walk and talk perfectly and you have probably spent the whole day doing this. You probably had to put new bone handles on and then to get those to look right by wearing them down by hand sanding them. You have $75 in the set of blades, $40 in a frame, $20 for a set of bone handles and your total cost of major parts now sits at $135. If you sell that knife for $200 you have $65 for your day’s work. If you spend one 8-hour day doing all that work that $65 gave you a wage of $8.12 per hour (without paying taxes). And you likely have thousands of dollars invested in tools and parts.
You ain’t gonna get rich that way!
Greeters at Walmart make more than that and all they have to do is show up at work and go home at the end of the shift.

It is my opinion that counterfeit knives are far less common than most people believe especially if your talking about knives that are selling under $100. That’s like spending $20 to counterfeit $5 bill, you are going to be in the counterfeiting business very long!

Now, y’all please play nice so I don’t have to lock this thread.
I am here because I got complaints, I decided to post because the topic interested me.

[jxr1197]

Opinions have been given. You said that you respected mine, and I appreciate that, but if this is what you think then you must not have read my opinion or were just saying that to be friendly.

I was hoping to hear alternate theories about the causes of the marks, etc. I did read everyone's replies and was not saying that to be friendly - I'm really not that friendly - sorry that you took it as such -
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Anyway, I'm good with Eric's and Dale's opinions on the knife and appreciate the detailed replies. I'm still curious about the marks on the blades but if you guys don't think it rises to the level of indicating work was done to it, good enough for me.

Dale, I understand what you're saying about the cost of fraud but most of the 'wrong' knives out there weren't made with nefarious purposes in mind. Knives with wrong blades because they were repaired at some point eventually trickle into the marketplace and they're just as 'wrong' as knives altered for intentional fraud. In a case like this where if a change that was made would happen to add value then it gets suspicious of course. The guys that are out there welding blades (and some good enough to fool just about anyone) aren't charging anywhere near what it would take to cover $20K laser welders. I don't know what kind of equipment they're using but it's got to be much cheaper than that and it's becoming more common.

The focus here came back numerous times to 'he would never do that' but I've said repeatedly that I wasn't accusing the seller of fraud - starting in my first post. The forum doesn't have a written rule saying post suspicious knives here unless it's being sold by a member. Maybe more of an unwritten rule then? Seems limiting.

[kootenay joe]

When a knife gets posted in this forum it does not really matter whether the opinions favor 'fake' or 'fine'. What matters is the ensuing discussion about the knife because most of us will learn something that will help when looking at other knives in the future.
kj

[ITSAKILLER]

Jason, maybe next time you take your red pencil out to critique a knife, post that it is your personal opinion. You can cause damage to a seller's name & cause a seller to lose money because of your bad information. You had people convinced it was a total fake. You went as far as saying "Maybe the seller is out in his garage right now practicing his technique to hide the circles better". The Itsafaker reference is what really bothered me the most.
It's fine to post your opinion, but no need to be arrogant about it.

[KnifeSlinger#81]

Jason, I think the marks on the tang are from rubbing liners, inconsistencies in the factory finish, or from the blades banging and rubbing around before assembly. It's pretty common and I see it all the time. Looking at things like this in pictures can make it stand out more that it would looking in person.

[orvet]

Jason, I think the marks on the tang are from rubbing liners, inconsistencies in the factory finish, or from the blades banging and rubbing around before assembly. It's pretty common and I see it all the time. Looking at things like this in pictures can make it stand out more that it would looking in person.

Good point Paul!
Pictures tend to show things the eye may miss especially when we enlarge them. I often take pictures of a knife when working on it so I can enlarge it to see problems my eyes have missed. Sometimes the "flaw" I see is a trick of the camera and lighting that isn't there except in the picture.

[jxr1197]

Jason, I think the marks on the tang are from rubbing liners, inconsistencies in the factory finish, or from the blades banging and rubbing around before assembly. It's pretty common and I see it all the time. Looking at things like this in pictures can make it stand out more that it would looking in person.

Good points - particularly about photos but I'm not sure that where the circles are on the blade would be caused by rubbing after assembly. Maybe before? Food for thought anyway..

Jason, maybe next time you take your red pencil out to critique a knife, post that it is your personal opinion. You can cause damage to a seller's name & cause a seller to lose money because of your bad information. You had people convinced it was a total fake. You went as far as saying "Maybe the seller is out in his garage right now practicing his technique to hide the circles better". The Itsafaker reference is what really bothered me the most.
It's fine to post your opinion, but no need to be arrogant about it.

I don't think your name's been damaged and quite a few times now I've said (and thought it would have been clear in the first post) that the itsafaker reference was directed at the knife - not you. You're taking it personally anyway which wasn't the intent. I removed it halfway through and posted that I removed it because it had become the focus instead of the knife. If I could rewrite it over again I'd leave it out and avoid the diversion. It was a one liner - it wasn't supposed to be the subject. Since it offended you, I apologize. Not for the post, just the line.

And because context is important let's look at the garage quote -

Maybe the seller unknowingly bought a group of knives from a bad guy. Maybe it’s from the estate of a collector who made frankeknives for fun. Maybe the seller is out in his garage right now practicing his technique to hide the circles better.

What I'm saying here is that there's no way of knowing the knife's origin and I don't think there's any ambiguity in the words I chose. I didn't exclude you from the list of possibilities - how could I?

Another thought on the knife. That's the first single spring 787 I've seen with square bolsters. That was unexpected and could even open the door to other possibilities; sample room, lunchbox, etc.

[ITSAKILLER]

It's all good Jason, Happy Knife hunting

[XX Case XX]

I have a question about the knife itself. Why do they call that blade a "Wonda"? It looks like a serrated edge to me. Is there a difference?

___________
Mike

[New_Windsor_NY]

I have a question about the knife itself. Why do they call that blade a "Wonda"? It looks like a serrated edge to me. Is there a difference?

___________
Mike

Copied from Blade Forums 2007. Information by Codger_64 (Michael)

"Schrade knives with the Wonda-Edge are not that common. The patented type serration was revolutionary in it's own way, but it just didn't catch on.The idea of adding scalloped serrations to one side of a knife blade was patented by Albert H. Baer, USPTO utility patent #2,825,968. The patent was filed in September of 1956, and issued in March of 1958, and assigned to Imperial Associated Companies, Inc. The name “Wonda-Edge” associated with Mr. Baer’s invention was trademarked as well, #72,023,627, in February 1958. This “Wonda-Edge” feature was used for the next few decades on a variety of hunting knives, pocket knives, and horticultural and sampler knives. As the assignment of the patent indicates, knives of all three of the associated companies, Schrade Walden, Ulster, and Imperial at one time or another made use of this patent.Serrated blades were not unheard of prior to the Wonda-Edge, but they more resembled saws in that they were toothed, with angular serrations, and usually symmetrically grooved evenly on both sides. Mr. Baer’s invention used rounded scallops to increase the length of the cutting surface, and placed the scallops all on one side of the blade to facilitate easy sharpening from the back, or plain side, rather than trying to sharpen the scallops themselves.The very earliest mention I have found of the use of the Wonda-Edge feature is on the Schrade Walden 1957 price list. I last see them mentioned in 1961. A look at the production reports from the period reveals that the WE blades did not sell well, and thus are uncommon today. But the idea is now quite common on steak knives around the world."

[orvet]

I have a question about the knife itself. Why do they call that blade a "Wonda"? It looks like a serrated edge to me. Is there a difference?

___________
Mike

I have pondered that myself Mike, and I believe is just marketing. This was something new in the 1950s and it was a "Wonder" for housewives who were used to using dull fine edge knives. Even when a serrated blade is dull it still tends to cut from the sawing action of the points. I remember as a kid seen serrated knives for the first time and seeing them being demonstrated/advertised as some great new marvelous invention. I think my memories are from the early 1960s, new things tended to catch on a bit slower in those days. Television was still relatively new and lots of people didn't have one. Cell phone, computers, social media and all those other things we take for granted as mediums for advertising were not even invented yet. So coming up with a nice catchy name like "Wonda Edge," helped people to remember it. Sometimes if it sounded a bit goofy or hokey it helped people remember the name better.

That's the best I've got it by way of explanation.

[orvet]

Oops, Skip beat me with his post.
Nice research Skip and good information!

[New_Windsor_NY]

I have a question about the knife itself. Why do they call that blade a "Wonda"? It looks like a serrated edge to me. Is there a difference?

___________
Mike

I have pondered that myself Mike, and I believe is just marketing. This was something new in the 1950s and it was a "Wonder" for housewives who were used to using dull fine edge knives. Even when a serrated blade is dull it still tends to cut from the sawing action of the points. I remember as a kid seen serrated knives for the first time and seeing them being demonstrated/advertised as some great new marvelous invention. I think my memories are from the early 1960s, new things tended to catch on a bit slower in those days. Television was still relatively new and lots of people didn't have one. Cell phone, computers, social media and all those other things we take for granted as mediums for advertising were not even invented yet. So coming up with a nice catchy name like "Wonda Edge," helped people to remember it. Sometimes if it sounded a bit goofy or hokey it helped people remember the name better.

That's the best I've got it by way of explanation.

Or maybe it's wonder pronounced with the east coast, New York accent.

[kootenay joe]

Skip, good find regarding the BF 2007 "Wonda edge". My only suggestion is to include the name of the original poster. Quite a bit of time and effort went into gathering all the information contained in the post so good to give credit to that person.
Was it a "codger64" post ? He did a great deal of research into documents from Schrade, Camillus, and Craftsman.
kj

[jxr1197]

I have a question about the knife itself. Why do they call that blade a "Wonda"? It looks like a serrated edge to me. Is there a difference?

___________
Mike

The dates and info above are on the money. First intention was use in kitchen cutlery. Baer's improvement focused on the shape of the serrations (he called them scallops) and refers to it having a shearing action as opposed to a sawing action. The patent calls for scallops on one side of a hollow ground blade - but it was used on flat grinds too. I happen to own the patent. Not the legal rights, the paperwork.

[KnifeSlinger#81]

I have a question about the knife itself. Why do they call that blade a "Wonda"? It looks like a serrated edge to me. Is there a difference?

___________
Mike

It was their name for serrations, marketing. I believe it's pronounced like ''wonder''.

[Stanwade]

“I happen to own the patent. Not the legal rights, the paperwork.”



That’s a really cool piece of cutlery history.

[XX Case XX]

Thanks for the information fellas. And Jason, that is indeed a very nice historic document you have there.

___________
Mike

[rea1eye]

Don't know much about the original post knife. This original post sure
has generated a lot of discussion in a few 6 hours.

Bob

[ea42]

Jason I heard through the grapevine that you were going to wind up with that patent, congrats!!!

I forgot to mention in my post that the odd shiny area near the edge isn't from someone attempting to sharpen it, rather it's from the time of the "razor blade stainless" knives. They used to "strop" the sharpened blades on a high speed hard vented buffing wheel to produce a super sharp scalpel like edge. That line you see is actually a product of that buffing process. It's most prevalent on the satin finished blades. That method didn't last too long due to the dangers involved with running a sharpened blade against a buffing wheel that's spinning about a million miles per hour. A number of folks nearly lost digits and worse.

Eric

[1967redrider]

Very interesting and informative thread.