WWII Theater knife

[CheckSix]

This is a fairly nice quality Theater knife, with a cast and contoured aluminum handle. These were made in theater, hence the name... many are very crude looking... this one is better than usual.

[royal0014]

How did you determine that this is a theater knife? And which theater?

Seems to me the ability to machine aluminum in-theater would be quite the accomplishment.
Looks much more refined than any I've ever seen.

I ask questions in order to learn from those that know . .

[CheckSix]

Howdy Royal,
From what I understand, most likely on a Navy ship, in it's machine shop. Battleships and Carriers had substantial machine shops. Another possibility is well established airbases in theater. Aluminum was a fairly new from around the turn of the century and aviation had a big hand in driving it's use in aircraft. They would have had access to a lot of scrap aluminum and re-purposed it into knife handles.

[royal0014]

Now that you mention it, I seem to recall reading about the Navy ship/machine shop angle.

[knife7knut]

I have a reasonably good collection of so-called,"theater knives" and the quality on some of them is outstanding. Like the OP's knife the handles are cast aluminum and fitted very precisely. I also have them with cast aluminum guards and pommels. Melting aluminum is relatively easy to do as long as you have a good fire and a container to melt it in. A glass or ceramic bowl would likely do in a pinch although it probably would have been made of steel or cast iron. The spacers I have on some of the knives are made from Bakelite(black and reddish brown)that could be culled from old electronic circuit boards and I have one that has spacers made from laminated sign material(black & white that is used to engrave signs)that could be taken from broken instrument panels. A lot of the blades are very thin suggesting a large saw blade as the source of material;others are very thick and cut from thick stock. Heat treating isn't rocket science;knowing what color the steel should be while cooling and before quenching(usually in oil) is easily learned.
As for equipment;a bench grinder would be nice but I bet a lot of them were profiled by hand with files.A good vise would also have been an asset but a blade clamped in a pair of pliers would also work.
I have one with a cast aluminum handle that I got from a flea market from the original maker's son.His dad made it in 1956 just before the invasion of Hungary by the Russians.He fled to America carrying it with him in his suitcase.He was about my age and was just downsizing and nobody in the family had any interest in the knife so he was selling it.How sad.

[tallguy606]

When I was a kid in the 60s a friend of my dad's showed me his homemade knife. He used different colored rings of plexiglass for the handle, and you could see the tang through the clear rings. Blade was cut from a circular saw. All polished real nice with tooth powder (before toothpaste was popular).

[schmoozer]

This is my current addiction. the work is infinite and new pieces show up every week. Cole has a great book out on these. A large number of these types of knives were made stateside and shipped to the field troops by family. Murphy Combat was one from Oregon.
Here is one of my newest. The sheath engraving is very nice. The blade is a dagger. I was thinking it had M3 origins but the spines look just too good to be a field mod?

[schmoozer]

Here is another, a 1907 Sanderson bayonet that someone welded a steel ruler to as a guard.

[Berryb]

Went to the St. Regis flea market this weekend. I got this in a trade. He said it was a Murphy. Made during ww 2 and supplied to the military. What I found on the internet didn't look much like this, although the O P knife in this thread does look a lot like it. The guy said he got it from a Marine. I took it to mean the guy who carried it. I'm pretty sure the guy I got it from was sincere, but what's left of the stamp on the handle doesn't look like it ever said Murphy, Murray or anything like it. Anybody have any thoughts? Thanks
Bruce

[knife7knut]

Looks like the stamp might have said,"Moore " and the abbreviation for Minneapolis.Did a quick check in Goins but came up empty.

[Berryb]

K7K, You are right , it does say " MOORE MPLS" . The confusion came because the guy kept saying "Murphy" and there was a Murphy k fighting knife with a cast aluminum handle. I found this interesting excerpt on another site. Thanks
Bruce