George Butler & Co Sheffield Bowie style

[Rannard]

GEORGE BUTLER AND CO, TRINITY WORKS, TRINITY STREET, SHEFFIELD, ENGLAND - BOWIE STYLE SHEATH KNIFE

Here is a knife in rough condition bought as a project. The aluminium pommel was loose, caused by being used as a hammer. Usually I can tighten up knife handles and sword hilts with Loctite without dismantling them. It has amazing creep properties. In this case after two treatments the pommel still worked loose so needed more thorough remedial work, a Sheffield blade being worth it.

I unscrewed the brass pommel nut using a well fitting hollow ground screwdriver. I have a Brownells Magna-Tip Super-Set, Brownells Inc., Montezuma, Iowa, 50171. It has 54 bits in a range of widths and thicknesses. They were an expensive import in the UK but have been well worth the money. They were bought from Normans of Framlingham Ltd., an old established gunsmith and antique gun specialist, much missed, the business ended by the UK ban on black powder handguns. I still have The Restorer's Handbook produced by them. With tools like Magna-Tips one is on the road to becoming a restorer.

The photographs of the dismantled knife show the whittle tang, rectangular in section, its end rounded to take a thread. The threads were damaged so I reassembled the knife with epoxy on the tang and in the pommel. The pommel was a loose fit on the rectangular section of the tang. The epoxy will take up the clearance, locking them together, more secure than when new. Wood blocks were clamped on the blade so the axis of the knife could be kept under pressure in a long opening padded woodwork vice while the epoxy cured. When Forged in Fire competitors use epoxy I have no qualms using it. Well mixed, applied to clean metal and given time to cure in warm conditions it locks securely solid.

The blade was polished with oil on wet and dry, avoiding the etching of the maker's name. To keep it in the boat's bosun's bag, a sail maker's palm, needle and awl made a Scandinavian style sheath, much more satisfying than buying one. Dismantling an old hold all (grip) yielded leather. It was treated with pure neats foot oil (no added mineral oil), which in time softens and preserves leather and finally shined up with the excellent Kiwi Parade Gloss shoe polish.

George Butler and Co. began in 1768 and was liquidated in 1952. Many Sheffield cutlers went to the wall in the austerity years after WWII. Their knives are a joy to own, a link with bygone days when skilled craftsmen produced top quality articles by hand; so called 'Little Meisters' doing piecework in small backyard workshops for bigger firms. One loves and respects their craftsmanship.

As a boy scout I had a similar knife with a stag horn handle rather than stacked leather. I couldn't get a really good edge on it due to the thickness of the blade, not having a grinder to thin down the bevel. However it is unrealistic to expect a blade so thick to ever be really sharp, why cobblers' and sailors blades are much thinner and for my purposes more useful. This knife is a nostalgic link with my younger days. Today it is not legal to carry in the UK, freedom I once had sadly not enjoyed by my grandsons. The legislation has failed to stop knife incidents.
5 April 2022