All About Pocket Knives

Hello All.....
I bought this old Utica knife and figured would clean it up and see what I had. This is before.... Not too bad....

Well, when I got it in my hands I see that the end opposite the blade hinge has a funky spacer of some kind in it...... weird....
SO, I figured this end of the spring was maybe broken or something and somebody tried to tighten the knife a little..... WRONG.... Well, the deeper I got into the disassembly, I find more and more things that disturbed me. Check out how bad the blade to spring fit was....
CRAP..... ONWARD.......So the more I took apart and cleaned the deeper into depression I sank. Here is a shot to the tang stamp. Not in the best of condition.... I started thinking I needed to try to do the best by this old knife that I could but I wasn't even sure the blade actually went with the handles....
MORE confusion...
SO I went on with the clean-up. I cleaned up the spring and the end opposite the existing blade was not broken, I think someone just took the second blade out. CRAP..... this can of worms is getting out of hand. Anyway.... What y'all think?
Would you just put all the original parts back in after a clean up with some better fit?
OR.... would you try to put another blade back in where the second blade was and kinda get it back like it was originally?
Here is all the parts that came as I got it..... I'm just bewildered with it and I guess I need to decide on a direction....

Y'all's input would be appreciated ...

Mike

With a double end spring as shown in your picture, it should have a second blade, but does not. Someone fixed the broken blade by taking it out. I saw something similar to this last week in a local antique mall. I saw a whittler in a locked case and asked the proprietor if I could check it out. Instead of having 3 blades, where the main falls between two smaller blades on the opposite end when closed, this one only had one blade. The two smaller blades had been snapped off and they had fixed it by grinding the broken blades down to the tang and reassembling them as spacers. Since the main blade is stamped, you might remedy this by finding a suitable donor and replacing the broken-missing blade with a pen blade. One possibility anyway.

Personally, I think a knife that originally had two blades should have two blades. Knives where one blade has been removed just don't seem to look balanced to me - the proportion always seems off. I know nothing about Utica knives, so I have no idea what was supposed to go in that knife. Whatever you do, I'm sure it will look better than when you started!

Mike, I think what you've got there is part of a Utica knife kit. The spear is fixed in place but that pin on the opposite end was there to hold an assortment of blades that could be switched out. You'd put that hooked end over the pin and then pivot the blade until it locked in place. Make sure that you get the spring back the same way when you re-assemble it. Here's one example of several that they sold, the older ones had ebony or cocobolo handles:
Eric

Thanks for the replies....
Yep, those are good ideas. I do want to go back with the blade I took out I guess. That is about all I have to go by for the originality of the knife.

Mike

ea42 wrote:Mike, I think what you've got there is part of a Utica knife kit. The spear is fixed in place but that pin on the opposite end was there to hold an assortment of blades that could be switched out. You'd put that hooked end over the pin and then pivot the blade until it locked in place. Make sure that you get the spring back the same way when you re-assemble it. Here's one example of several that they sold, the older ones had ebony or cocobolo handles:

Utica kit.jpg

Eric

Very good Eric. Love your knife!
Sure looks a lot like my knife.... Mine is such a convoluted mess that it is had to tell what was once there.

Mike

One thing that made me think this was just a total fabrication was the way the spring fit to the blade..... what a mess.
You can see where somebody hit the tang of the blade hard enough to spread the metal. SO.... I was wondering if this was so someone could fit this blade to the handle part of a different knife.... CRAP...
This is how it came apart.......
See what I mean?

Mike


I wonder if the small end of the spring would fit the blade better..... ???

Yuck....
What a mess.

Mike,

That's not mine, I stole the pics off the web. I had the Napanoch version for a while though, pretty much exactly the same setup. You've got everything there, all you need is the extra blades. That spacer was there both to hold the scales apart and to keep the spring in place. Is that the correct side of the spring in you photo? How does the other side fit? You might be right about the blade, it's definitely short. Oftentimes the knives are sold just like yours, with the other parts missing.

Eric

ea42 wrote:Mike,

That's not mine, I stole the pics off the web. I had the Napanoch version for a while though, pretty much exactly the same setup. You've got everything there, all you need is the extra blades. That spacer was there both to hold the scales apart and to keep the spring in place. Is that the correct side of the spring in you photo? How does the other side fit? Oftentimes the knives are sold just like yours, with the other parts missing.

Eric

(See above)
Good point.... I thought of that just about the time you posted a reply.
The other end of the spring is so small, I wonder if the small end was for a small blade and the large end of the spring was for a large blade..(????).

It's a tool kit knife, nothing really wrong other than it's missing a kit of 4-8 tools that snapped into the butt end of the knife.

muskrat man wrote:It's a tool kit knife, nothing really wrong other than it's missing a kit of 4-8 tools that snapped into the butt end of the knife.

Eric... you hit it..... good eye.
Yep... I guess I am beginning to see that for sure now. The end opposite the main blade was giving me some fits but I think I see now what happened.
Somebody decided to "tighten" this knife a bit, they were going to use a piece of scrap blade in by the pin opposite the blade. When they did that, the top closed in and the spine area opened up......
Well, I see where I am headed now.
Thanks everyone!!

Mike

Well, I looked around a bit and I found a reasonably priced Utica knife kit with 2 accessory blades. I plan to use it for a pattern to see how my knife should go back together.
Maybe I can exchange the blades between the 2 knives (??) well, maybe.
Thanks for the help everyone.
Now is see pretty clearly where my direction lies.

Mike

The older ones like the one you took apart, take a thicker blade than the later ones.

I would toss that one in the parts bin, these can be bought on eBay for cheap money especially when it is just the knife without the rest of the kit. Unless of course you want the experience of rebuilding one

Miller Bro's wrote:The older ones like the one you took apart, take a thicker blade than the later ones.

I would toss that one in the parts bin, these can be bought on eBay for cheap money especially when it is just the knife without the rest of the kit. Unless of course you want the experience of rebuilding one

Yep, I suppose that is a good description of my case. I want the experience. I can see I am getting a little better every time I dig into an ailing knife. I like to take the "sick" ones with rust on the blades and get them up and snapping again.
It's the real lost causes that get my blood flowing.

Mike