Camillus TL-29 is it Military Issue?

[tjmurphy]

Here's an M. Klein & Sons that you don't find too often. Klein calls it a "Radio Electrician" made by Cattaraugus, probably WWI era.

Here's another, a "XELA" which was a Klein brand, again, probably WWI era

[orvet]

Definitely one of those two. You got me interested in poking around for a Klein-branded wood-handled TL-29 and as of yet I'm 0-fer on it. Found plenty of Case, Schrade, Ulster and even an old NYK but no Kleins in wood.

Tony, if you find the TL-29 made by New York Knife Company please let me know! That is one I am missing from my collection.

Here is a Camillus S-card for an order of electrician knives for M Klein & Sons dated April 18, 1952. As you can see these knives were made with rosewood handles.
Camillus made a lot of the electrician’s knives for M Klein postwar up to the 60s or 70s as I recall from my conversations with Tom Williams. Then apparently someone else began to make the knives for M Klein & sons.

Here is another TL-29 S-card from January 2, 1952, this one is a government contract. You can see the handle material is something called “Rogers Board.” I did discuss this with Tom Williams he said Rogers Board was not made by the Rogers Bone Company, but he didn’t know much more than that about it.

Here is another S-card from 1984, it says TL-29 for Imperial Knife Company but the master blade was etched True Value so we know it was not a military contract. The TL-29 is merely a reference to the style of knife. On this S-card we see the handles are wood grain Delrin.

I believe there were some black Delrin handles made for military contract TL-29s but I’m going to have to search some more as I can’t find an S-card for that one yet.


In these S-cards we see Camillus made rosewood handled electricians knives, TL-29s with Rogers Board handles and later on in the 1980s with wood grain Delrin. The S-cards of the TL-29 and civilian versions thereof are sort of a microcosm of the evolution taking place in the cutlery industry at that time. We can see the progression from natural handle materials to man-made materials too extremely durable and virtually indestructible man-made materials, i.e.; Delrin.

[Captain O]

The Camillus TL-29 with a 0170-6C steel blade that I have on order has Delrin covers. This is a pre-2007 Camillus closure knife. (New Old Stock). This probably would have been military issue had it been stateside. I think that this will be an excellent working knife that I have snagged.

This post was approved by Arf, The Wonder Chicken.

[orvet]

The Camillus TL-29 with a 0170-6C steel blade that I have on order has Delrin covers. This is a pre-2007 Camillus closure knife.

What is 0170-6C steel?

[Tsar Bomba]

I wondered the same, Dale, so I checked around and it appears to be a reduced-vanadium carbon steel Camillus used for a number of applications. You may be familiar with the name Cold Steel used, "Carbon V". We've seen a few of their slipjoints built by Camillus in AAPK and I think there are a few regulars who focus on these knives.

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showt ... rbon-Steel

I also found this technical data for those who really get into it...

http://www.zknives.com/knives/steels/0170-6c.shtml
http://www.cliffstamp.com/knives/review ... l#C_50100B

N.B. The latter site draws an equivalence between 0170-6C and Case's CV based on this old Usenet post, while the comically user-unfriendly "steelgraph" on zknives shows some not-insignificant differences in composition.

P.S. Many thanks for posting those old S-cards from Camillus, Dale. Stuff like that is one of my favorite parts of the hobby. I had to snag copies of each of them for inclusion in my Knives Knotebook.

[FatCity67]

Nice links wth a choke of info. For quick reference on knife steels I use the Charts from AG Russell's site.

https://agrussell.com/chart/non-stainless

Phil.

I wondered the same, Dale, so I checked around and it appears to be a reduced-vanadium carbon steel Camillus used for a number of applications. You may be familiar with the name Cold Steel used, "Carbon V". We've seen a few of their slipjoints built by Camillus in AAPK and I think there are a few regulars who focus on these knives.

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showt ... rbon-Steel

I also found this technical data for those who really get into it...

http://www.zknives.com/knives/steels/0170-6c.shtml
http://www.cliffstamp.com/knives/review ... l#C_50100B

N.B. The latter site draws an equivalence between 0170-6C and Case's CV based on this old Usenet post, while the comically user-unfriendly "steelgraph" on zknives shows some not-insignificant differences in composition.

P.S. Many thanks for posting those old S-cards from Camillus, Dale. Stuff like that is one of my favorite parts of the hobby. I had to snag copies of each of them for inclusion in my Knives Knotebook.

[Captain O]

I have checked with the Vendor (ePrague) and they informed me that these knives were unissued military contract knives. (These are the real McCoy).

Life can be good.

[garddogg56]

Here's an M. Klein & Sons that you don't find too often. Klein calls it a "Radio Electrician" made by Cattaraugus, probably WWI era.

1.jpg

Here's another, a "XELA" which was a Klein brand, again, probably WWI era

1.jpg

What era is the radio knife Murph??good looking ,Here's a four line TL-29,XELA and my Klein that lives on my tool pouch.

[tjmurphy]

Hey Dogg, the Catt radio electrician is probably WWI era. I think that your XELA was the first one that I saw, and then I found one, not as nice of a stamp as yours though

[gsmith7158]

TJ what are your thoughts on the Empire radio knives? Since they went out of business in 1930 do you think they are Camillus made or WWI?

[tjmurphy]

I'm certainly no expert, but I think that they are EMPIRE made and are WWI era (give or take), that's assuming that EMPIRE made their own knives. From my searchings, EMPIRE seems to be the most common "radio knife".

[gsmith7158]

I'm certainly no expert, but I think that they are EMPIRE made and are WWI era (give or take), that's assuming that EMPIRE made their own knives. From my searchings, EMPIRE seems to be the most common "radio knife".

Yeah that's what I thought as well since they're all lock backs instead of liner locks. And there are a bunch of them out there.

[garddogg56]

Hey Dogg, the Catt radio electrician is probably WWI era. I think that your XELA was the first one that I saw, and then I found one, not as nice of a stamp as yours though

Thanx TJ I thought the Catt was WWII The XELA has an interesting lock-back and great wood.

[tjmurphy]

HEY Dogg, I think that by WWII the screw-driver blade had already morphed into a single notch. This Catt. has double notched SD blade.

[DaleBowers]

I have a Camillus TL-29, Wooden handles, Stamped "TL-29" on the handle, and is stamped on the blade "Camillus Cutlery Camillus NY USA" Any information on this knife would be appreciated.

[orvet]

TL-29 is the military nomenclature for that knife. It stands for Tool, Linesman, #29.
If it's stamped TL-29 it is military issue .
I can tell you more about it if you could show me the knife, preferably with the blades open. A nice close-up picture of the tang stamp would be helpful also. They used wooden handles on the TL-29s from World War I, actually it may even have been pre-World War I, but that's a whole different discussion for another time. Wooden handles were used up to and during World War II and beyond. I do have documents showing Camillus used wooden handles into the 1950s and possibly later, but that would take a little bit of research to establish.

I was issued a TL-29 about 1971, before I went to Vietnam. The one I was issued had black composite handles and was made by Camillus. There were others issued at that time made by companies other than Camillus. I saw Kutmaster versions when I was in, and I imagine there were others also but I don't know of them first-hand.

By the way, Welcome to AAPK!

[New_Windsor_NY]

I received my first Camillus TL-29 today. A 4-line beauty.