All About Pocket Knives

Currently, these two smooth white bone modified single blade American Jacks #78 are my favorite GECs.
~Q~

85, 78, 78

Ivoryman, is the 85 EO smooth white bone ?
And QT, what happened to the blades on your 78's ? They lost their belly !
kj

kootenay joe wrote:Ivoryman, is the 85 EO smooth white bone ?
And QT, what happened to the blades on your 78's ? They lost their belly !
kj

Officially it's smooth ivory bone, but I don't know how that differs from smooth white bone as on the 78. They look about the same to me. And I normally don't comment on questions for other people, but I happen to have some inside skinny on what happened to those 78s Q posted. What happened is I RUINED them!!!!!! That's right I DESTROYED their edges and violently beat their bellies out with a bench grinder! Made them bow to my will!!!! Then I took away their identity and gave them a new one. Violence and identity theft and brainwashing: the hallmarks of any good propaganda, manipulation and modification. Ha ha ha!!!! (all in jest ya know)

kootenay joe wrote:QT, what happened to the blades on your 78's ? They lost their belly !kj

Whenever I see that fat spatula beaver-tail spear blade I can't help but think there's a wharncliffe trapped inside that's trying to get out. These two 78s were purchased with the express intent of finding their inner wharnies and setting them free. Since I am physically incapable of performing such a feat myself, I sent them to the Mad Genius Mod Man to be tortured in his dungeon laboratory of grinding horrors until the wharnies were freed from the evil spears holding them captive.

Sometimes the only way to create beauty is by destroying beauty.

~Q~

I'm sure "smooth white bone" and "smooth ivory bone" are marketing terms for the same material. I think "ivory" is now dropped in favor of "white" to avoid any misunderstanding by the online correctness police.
A Wharncliffe blade is very attractive but a blade needs a belly to cover all situations in my opinion. If you could only use one single blade knife for the next year would you pick a Wharncliffe blade ?
kj

kootenay joe wrote:A Wharncliffe blade is very attractive but a blade needs a belly to cover all situations in my opinion. If you could only use one single blade knife for the next year would you pick a Wharncliffe blade ?kj

No, although a Wharncliffe blade is perfectly adequate for pretty much all my routine cutting needs (which, admittedly, other than kitchen/cooking, are relatively minimal), if I could only use one single type of blade for the next year, I would probably not choose a Wharncliffe blade. I will readily admit that while the Wharncliffe profile is the most aesthetically pleasing to my eye, it is not the most versatile blade type for the widest range of multiple applications. Although, at the same time, I believe I could "make do" just fine with a wharncliffe blade for basic survival purposes if, for whatever hypothetical reason, that was my only option.

As a collector, I tend to favor knives with wharncliffe blades because in my knife collection I prioritize form over function. But, for a daily use (EDC) knife and especially in a survival situation, my priority would be function over form...and I would actually prefer a fixed blade knife over a folder, for that matter. But, in a survival situation I would prefer a knife (folder or fixed) with any style blade over a tin can lid, and I would prefer a tin can lid over a shard of broken glass, and a shard of glass over a piece of bone, and a piece of bone over a rock (unless the rock was obsidian or flint), etc., etc.

~Q~

kootenay joe wrote:I'm sure "smooth white bone" and "smooth ivory bone" are marketing terms for the same material. I think "ivory" is now dropped in favor of "white" to avoid any misunderstanding by the online correctness police.
A Wharncliffe blade is very attractive but a blade needs a belly to cover all situations in my opinion. If you could only use one single blade knife for the next year would you pick a Wharncliffe blade ?

kj

If I had to pick one blade it would be a Wharn. Carry wharns most of the time. But what kind of hypothetical is that when it's irrelevant because we never have to pick one blade for the next year. You can get belly and wharn on the same knife, and if not sometimes I carry both. When I need a belly for a rare event, I use a spear or drop, but spears and drops will never score like a wharn or core apples like a wharn, or get in a corner like a wharn or draw like a wharn or do what the wharn is designed for. I've carried both and every kind of blade I can find, but for what I do Wharns do it better and I've never had a wharn on me and thought, "gee, I need a spear or drop or clip to cut this." Never happens. Just a hypothetical. But what is not hypothetical is experience and my experience is a wharn will do everything a belly blade will if you know how to work it. And nobody has to choose one only, there are plenty of options to make that a mute point. But to say a blade needs a belly is a personal opinion, not a fact. The proof is that I have never had a wharn that wouldn't do my cutting jobs. Never. I have had several clips, spears, and drops that don't box cut very well, don't puncture as well, don't core as well, don't rip cut as well, don't rip through fabric as well................

You guys are not helping my wharn-on-the-brain syndrome. at all. No, I'm not taking a chance on a S&M #99 Executive Jack wharn. And no, I did not participate in the NW Fayette Jack fray yesterday. I was a spectator only, contributing to the server DOS by hitting F5 just to watch the numbers quickly dwindle until "Sold Out" occurred at about 7 minutes after the hour, by my clock. I'll reiterate my previous wish on another thread that I hope GEC gives us a wharnie in 2018, one that we can reasonably purchase, at a reasonable price.

So my latest idea is to try my hand at knife making. I have some Home Depot materials and I'm going to cobble something together, maybe this weekend. Guess what the blade is going to be? That's right, a Wharncliffe!! Yes, I know the mild steel won't harden properly, and yes, I'm just fooling around. But if the process goes well I already have some real materials in a shopping cart at an online knife materials supplier...

Lee

I echo that mOnk. Knew it wasn't just me. Here's a few of my other favorites. Here's Wharncliffe in your eyes.

Ivoryman, quite a display of straight edges !
And Q.S. WOW ! i think you dug deeply into your pockets. The Lumberjack is pretty unique. I would like to know if the saw blade saws.
kj

kj, Wish I could answer your question about the saw but for obvious reasons I will refrain from testing it. It appears and feels as though it could do some light sawing.

Ivoryman, that's a mighty fine looking collection you've got there. Thanks for sharing the pics. How long did it take to amass such a swarm of wharns?

Thanks mOnk, seems like about the last five years or so that the addiction to wharns has been strongest. Seems to me they are a little more rare and a little more sought after so it's a double whammy but I like the blades and they do whatever I need and then some. Thanks and keep your eyes out for them because people like me are always competing for them.
Thanks KJ, coming from you considering your pile, that means something. Appreciate it.

Very nice collection of wharns Ivoryman, thanks for giving us a look.

A lot of knife in those two QuickSteel, pretty unique pattern.

Couple more, thanks guys

Ivoryman do you also have vintage Sheffield folders with a Wharncliffe master ? It is a relatively short stout blade, i.e. what a purist would refer to as a "true Wharncliffe".
I hope your Wharncliffe ways have taken you to Sheffield, home of "The Wharnees".
kj

Sorry no English knives in my roll. Relatively new to the game.

"Sorry no English knives in my roll. Relatively new to the game"
The vintage Sheffield knives will impress and even amaze you especially when you realize all made with hand tools including a bow drill to make pivot holes etc., yet as precise as laser guided robots.
Knife collecting offers millions of knives and thousands of knife types. It is not possible to investigate them all but it is worthwhile to be 'open' to all knife styles.
kj

To tell you the truth I had friends/acquaintances growing up who had Triumphs, Nortons, MGs and Minis. That cured me. After being around them and seeing what they were like I have shied away from British manufacturing and production and never wanted a British product/machine/tool for myself. I know some like Sheffield knives, but I have Norton, MG and Minis ringing in my ears, kind of ruined it for me. Maybe their knives are better than some of their cars and bikes. I don't know and haven't bothered to investigate.

Knives made in Sheffield from about 1830 up to WW I are the best knives EVER made, including today's high end customs. And they were made with old hand tools, no power tools. For example the pivot holes in blade tangs, steel liners etc, were done with a 'bow drill', move the bow back and forth and the string rotates the drill bit and they got a hole as precise as a laser guided robotic drill.
This of course is not the case for every knife made in Sheffield, but it is for a great many of them.
WE tend to think that 'progress' means that articles made currently are better than they ever have been. But the opposite is true. Carpentry like furniture making 150 years ago had tradesman more highly skilled than they are today and in general the same is true for cutlers.
kj

kootenay joe wrote:Knives made in Sheffield from about 1830 up to WW I are the best knives EVER made, including today's high end customs. kj

Roland, I would really like to see a side-by-side comparison to prove your fantastic claim because I am highly skeptical of your incredibly broad generalization about the ultimate superiority of pre-WW I Sheffield knives over modern high-end customs. They may be the best knives made entirely by hand tools, but the best EVER, unconditionally...seriously?

~Q~

Quick Steel wrote:

P1020255.JPG

P1020254.JPG

Quick Steel, both of those are very nice! That Lumberjack is great.

Thank you David. They do have the too common GEC issue of being way too difficult to open. I consider this a defect, not a mark of quality.