All About Pocket Knives

Finally I was able to find a local source for good yellow composition. I bought a sheet and had to try some of it out so I knocked out this 3 bladed fish knife that was gassed out real quick to see how it worked. On a fragile scale it's about like bone maybe a tad tougher, it's semi translucent so it has a little depth like old yellow cell without the hazards of real celluloid (not to mention it's about unobtainum in solid colors). The company rated it as a moderate to high shock resistance which sounds good, I peened the pins pretty good into the countersinks and didn't have any problem with cracking or chipping like with yellow corelon. It takes a good shine too, this is just finished down with steel wool, not buffed because the rest of the knife retains it's age.
They sell it in a variety of other colors too black, red, blue, green, white clear ect They also sell black delrin sheets which will come in handy for restoring old slick black case knives.

That came out real good. At the pivot/rocker (I can never remember which), was that washer on each side that you had to peen the pin over to hold it?

That yellow looks nice.

That looks great, sounds like it works fairly easy. Are you going to be
selling this or is it available to buy somewhere

thnaks
Don

Looks very good.

I'll sell some if there is any interest. The washer acts as a tiny bolsters just like a sodbuster or a birdseye rivet

Nice job Kaleb, (naturally)!

That really looks nice. I think you have found THE substitute for yellow celluloid!

I've had this old fish knife in the project box for a while and saw this post and bought some material from MM. This was great to work with and no problem in drilling or sawing. Didn't shatter when peening it like some of this stuff does. The faults in the knife are mine. I got in a hurry and should have painted the liners yellow before putting the new handles on. The old handles out gassed and the liners were a mess. Cleaned them up on the wire brush, but didn't get it all off. May do a little more finishing on this when it warms up. I also bought other colors from MM that I'm anxious to give a try at.

looks good Bob! Paint the back side of the handles white for best results it brightens up the handles and hides any liner faults. AS is it looks old and correct though!

muskrat man wrote:looks good Bob! Paint the back side of the handles white for best results it brightens up the handles and hides any liner faults. AS is it looks old and correct though!

What kind of paint would you use on that? (or does it matter?)

I just use white spray paint, the cheap stuff for like .99 a can works fine

muskrat man wrote:I just use white spray paint, the cheap stuff for like .99 a can works fine

Thanks, I got some light colored horn that I think I will need to prep that way to use.

yup, do it on light horn, candy stripe, tortoise or any semi translucent handle material, it really brightens it up and blocks any ugliness from the liners

Here is a picture of some of the waterfall pattern material MM has up for sale. This was easy to work with and didn't shatter apart. A lot of that pen blank material is so brittle to work with you really have to be careful with it. So far what I have bought from MM is far superior. I'll spend more time buffing this out later. This is an old Parker Frost gun boat knife that has seen better days.

That came out super nice, Bob!

the waterfall, candy stripe, abalone and opal I have in my store is all genuine celluloid, not a modern acrylic substitute like the solid colors i'm offering. not all of th epen blank materials are brittle either, just depends who you buy from. Here is a german eye trapper I did yesterday in an acrylic blank material

So, is there concern over this celluloid deteriorating like the older stuff, or is this stuff better?

Very nice MM.

Hope I didn't get something unintended here. My experience with pen blanks comes from buying them from the same place here in Indiana. They have many different patterns, but basically 2 type; Inlace Acrylester and Acrylic Acetate. I have tried some of both and have found that the Acrylic type is great to work with. The inlace type seems to be far more brittle and chips out when you drill it and will also crack on the buffer. I don't know anything about the older materials.I also don't know how the newer type materials will hold up.

My comment was that the material I got from MM was great and I didn't experience any problems at all using it.

glennbad wrote:So, is there concern over this celluloid deteriorating like the older stuff, or is this stuff better?

celluloid always has the potential to outgass but this nos stuff I got should be good for our lifetime at least.

Very well done Kaleb! You never cease to amaze me with your work arounds and restorations.

found a good clear for redoing the old picture knives too works great and is indestructible.

Boy that'll rescue some of the older picture knives for sure!