All About Pocket Knives

We've discussed just about every type of knife under the sun, but I don't remember any threads about tobacco knives. Here in the heart of tobacco country they're a dime a dozen. Each is different because for the most part they were homemade, or there was. Local guy who'd make them in the community to your specifications.

Everybody had his or her own preferences. Some, like me, liked heavy knives and others lighter ones. Some, again like me, prefered a long handled knife while others liked shorter knives. The handles are usually straight and the blade most often is made from circle saw blades and sharpened with a file. Tobacco knives were a very personal thing. Once you got hold of one you liked you held on to it for dear life.

This one that I have belonged to the father of a dear friend of mine. The blade has been sharpened way down from years of use, and the handle is of medum length. You can see from the pictures that he liked a heavy knife too as a metal bracket was added to the back of the blade end to add weight. You didn't have to swing a heavy knife near as hard as a light knife!

Each area did it differently. Here we cut in teams, a cutter and a spiker. The cutter would cut the stalk of tobacco and hand it to the spiker. The spiker had a metal cone shaped spike that he put over a tobacco stick and would spear the tobacco stalk onto the stick. Also, some tobacco knives had a "hook"" on the back side of the blade. The hook made it easier to pick up the tobacco sticks as this was the cutter's job. Usually we put about six stalks to a stick. Much more than that and it got hard to handle when putting it in the barn to cure, and you had to leave plenty of room for air as well.

Any of y'all have tobacco knives? Show Em!

Never had a tobacco knife but enjoyed reading your post. Very informative.

Wayne

Thank you Wayne.

I've had tobacco......

Lol. Well Scott, I'm sure you could use one of these to cut the ends off your cigars. Although you might get some strange looks toting one around with you.

Do you have any pictures of the process of cutting and hanging. I don't have any tobacco knives but have a stick or two.

I don't have any pics. There wasn't time for picture taking and such when in the field. I'm sure you could google it and cone up with many pictures. The problem is that the process varies with the type of tobacco and the part of the country you're in.

If I run up on any of our process I'll post them up.

Dont have one, but used on more than once. My uncle used to raise it. I had rather haul hay then work with tobacco. Hated putting it in the barn, cause I was always on the wagon handing nthe sticky stalks up to my uncle, who handled it and placed it between the po;es to cure.

keithlong wrote:Dont have one, but used on more than once. My uncle used to raise it. I had rather haul hay then work with tobacco. Hated putting it in the barn, cause I was always on the wagon handing nthe sticky stalks up to my uncle, who handled it and placed it between the po;es to cure.

Keith, are you from Kentucky? I know it's done differently in different places. Here we took tobacco sticks to the field, placed a metal spike on the end, and as the cutter cut a stalk the spiker spiked it onto the stick. Usually we put six stalks to the stick.

Then we hauled them in on wagons. Guys stood in the tiers and the sticks were handed up and placed on the tier poles. I always handed up from the wagon. No one else wanted that job, but I did. I was big and strong, and scared of heights, lol. My record is handing up 3 acres worth one day.

That's probably why in the past year I've had double carpal tunnel surgery and an a tendon and ligament in my elbow rebuilt.

Here are some images I found online. This is how we did it.

Yeap, sane process.

Just found this topic, heres a couple of dark fired tobacco knives, and a burley/ corn knife hand made from an old crosscut saw by my grandpa. Also I throwed in a tobacco peg to show how we set tobacco in my youth.

The only time I pegged tobacco was to fill in where the setter missed. It was enough to know that I'm awful thankful for the mechanical setter!

Here in southern Ohio I raised tobacco from a kid to my late 30 ' s when it got to hard to find field help and I didn't want to deal with the Mexicans.
In my opinion peggin was way hard harder than cuttin.We would reset after a rain and you would carry a 5 gallon bucket filled with plants thru the field,thru the mud,and bend over and take your peg and make a hole where ever a plant was missing and put in it and move to the next one.It was always hot,your shoes would get 10 pounds of mud stuck to them,your back would hurt.It just sucked.Don't miss it at all.

We never had a setter we pegged it out, Dad quit raising tobacco when I was about 15 yrs old and I'll tell you I was glad. I helped the neighbors get their crops in but I never pegged any out after we quit raising it, about that time my neighbor bought a setter and I rode it some it wasn't the easiest job but it beat the heck out of pegging it out. Working tobacco the way we did it was a job where yore ass was higher than your head 90% of the time. I've got kinfolk and friends that still raise it but they have Mexicans living on their farms to do the labor. They raise some big acreage now and it's still a labor intensive crop.