All About Pocket Knives

Been wanting to check out a Corelon sided knife for some time - finally found one cheap enough for me to add the full Ratcliffe treatment to it ... actually like the texture of the plastic - has a nice tactile feel to it & it's slim with great snap:

John, that is a real nifty mod. I like it a lot.

jerryd6818 wrote:John, that is a real nifty mod. I like it a lot.

Thx Jerry - it just seems to work for me.

The Wharncliffe blade is stamped "Muskrat" and that confuses me. What's the story on this knife? Which parts are original and which ones are part of the "Mod"?

Picked up this 6347 at the Easton, PA show yesterday.
I have my thoughts. What are yours?

jerryd6818 wrote:The Wharncliffe blade is stamped "Muskrat" and that confuses me. What's the story on this knife? Which parts are original and which ones are part of the "Mod"?

Jerryd, I remember when John first started doing these mods. He grinds the original clip blade down to a wharncliffe.

Steve Warden wrote:Picked up this 6347 at the Easton, PA show yesterday.
I have my thoughts. What are yours?

9 or 10 dot (9, if I had to pick one), good size, points not tumbled off the blades, clean, lovely bone (if a bit mismatched in dye absorption), well-fit... What's not to like?

Tsar Bomba wrote:

Steve Warden wrote:Picked up this 6347 at the Easton, PA show yesterday.
I have my thoughts. What are yours?

9 or 10 dot (9, if I had to pick one), good size, points not tumbled off the blades, clean, lovely bone (if a bit mismatched in dye absorption), well-fit... What's not to like?

10 dot. Great walk and talk. No wobble. Took a nice edge.
Love the bone!
The wear on the mark side seems just a tad more than on the pile side. Could be I'm just seeing things.

Anyway, I'm quite happy with it.

I've always wondered if significant color mismatches from one side to the other are just factory variances, or if it is sun bleaching from being in a display or some other post-factory thing. How much variance would the factory allow? Did they even try to keep them consistent?

gsmith7158 wrote:

jerryd6818 wrote:The Wharncliffe blade is stamped "Muskrat" and that confuses me. What's the story on this knife? Which parts are original and which ones are part of the "Mod"?

Jerryd, I remember when John first started doing these mods. He grinds the original clip blade down to a wharncliffe.

Received a couple today - a Case M279 SS pen knife from 1983 and a CV Muskrat from 1974. It's hard to tell, but I think the Muskrat is 2-tone red/brown Delrin (I couldn't see any artifacts with my 10x loupe, and there seems to be some evidence of melting around the center pins). The Muskrat is pretty rough - it has a weird patina pattern on the blades and the blade well is filthy.

1940 - 1964 6308.....wicked snap, bout to break my nails opening!!!!

I'm not the brightest bulb in the chandelier.....it just dawned on me that this 6308 was produced during WWII because there is NO BRASS to be found.

Is that a correct assumption?

TripleF wrote:I'm not the brightest bulb in the chandelier.....it just dawned on me that this 6308 was produced during WWII because there is NO BRASS to be found.

Is that a correct assumption?

Very nice whittler.
I don't know, but that's a good question for the experts here to answer. I have a my grandpa's 1940-64 6318 which has the nickle silver liners, but I also have a couple of 087's from 1965-69 that nickle silver liners.

TwoFlowersLuggage wrote:Received a couple today - a Case M279 SS pen knife from 1983 and a CV Muskrat from 1994. It's hard to tell, but I think the Muskrat is 2-tone red/brown Delrin (I couldn't see any artifacts with my 10x loupe, and there seems to be some evidence of melting around the center pins). The Muskrat is pretty rough - it has a weird patina pattern on the blades and the blade well is filthy.

If I'm viewing the pictures in the correct order, I believe that Muskrat is from 1974, not 1994. I haven't heard of two-tone Delrin, but I'm far from being a synthetic handles expert by any means. I usually go for the organic stuff.

TripleF wrote:1940 - 1964 6308.....wicked snap, bout to break my nails opening!!!!

A classic whittler, nothing to dislike about that one. If I were you I'd keep that one and give it regular pocket time.

Tsar Bomba wrote: If I'm viewing the pictures in the correct order, I believe that Muskrat is from 1974, not 1994. I haven't heard of two-tone Delrin, but I'm far from being a synthetic handles expert by any means. I usually go for the organic stuff.

Doh! You are correct (of course), bit of brain-finger disconnect there - I corrected the date in my post. And yes, this is the handle material that has confused me ever since I started collecting. It is certainly possible to have multi-tone synthetics - Camillus, Schrade & Queen did it all the time. I used my 10x loupe over my cell phone to try to pretend I had a macro set-up - these are the best of a pile of useless pics. I would love to have someone tell me this is bone - but I don't think it is.

I would love to be able to tell you it's bone but it's not. This picture demonstrates the difference between the two materials.
Note the dots in the bone indicating the haversian canals.

Yup - Jerry, that picture has become my primary guide.

Tested single blade hunter.

Jdub, that one "causeth me to covet"!
I'd love to remove Bambi's hide with that one.
Treefarmer

Jdub, great looking old knife

Thanks guys. It took a fine edge!! Super sharp. Great old knife

Picked up a Tested 88lp. Can't figure out how to post photo.

Picked this up Friday at estate sale. What are thoughts on scale color and condition?

That's a pretty good pickup for an estate sale.