30 year old design still works
Posted: Sat Nov 17, 2007 4:28 pm
This year, like every year, the knife industry presents us with the latest in hunting knives. Guthooks are big past couple of years, still going strong.
Third day of the firearm deer season here in Michigan and even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then. Eight this morning I killed one. The knives I have carried for deer gutting purposes for quite a few years now are shown below. For a long, long time I have collected the Frontier series by Imperial. Actually made in the Camillus factory. Abnout 1975 to 1984, I think. Lineup of many different models was ended because Imperial Schrade decided they were eating into the old Timer and Uncle Henry series.
Note the drop point on the 432 pale yellow handled ('Old Ivory' Imperial called these handles). IN advertising of the era, they made slight reference to the dropped hunters of Bob Loveless... indeed, Loveless was possibly the first to join a collaboration with a factory when he soon after designed the PH1 for Schrade. A high polish on the carbon steel made these frontiers easy to keep clean and resisted getting a patina. There was a wood handled lineup also, called the Double Eagles, that featured stainless blades. Same designs.
Note too the Old Timer buzz saw trapper. Makes cutting the pelvic bone a piece of cake. Sawblade locks with the old fashioned 'press here' brass extension on the liner for safety. I've trimmed many a tree limbs in my shooting lanes with this thing.
New, cutting edge designs are nice. But here in Michigan, you can still find old, very old, Marbles hunting knives working in the woods. 'Old Timers' of all kinds still gutting deer.
Deer is handing in the garage, tenderloins marinating in Italian dressing and I just washed the blood off my truck. Gotta have lunch now, take a break from the woods, clean my shotgun and launder my hunting togs. Only about another month and a half of deer season left and I need two nice ones to get me and the wife to June.
But I don't have to sharpen the knife. Plenty of edge left on it, and I have about fifty of these things anyway. Just thought I'd share with you guys.
Phil
Third day of the firearm deer season here in Michigan and even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then. Eight this morning I killed one. The knives I have carried for deer gutting purposes for quite a few years now are shown below. For a long, long time I have collected the Frontier series by Imperial. Actually made in the Camillus factory. Abnout 1975 to 1984, I think. Lineup of many different models was ended because Imperial Schrade decided they were eating into the old Timer and Uncle Henry series.
Note the drop point on the 432 pale yellow handled ('Old Ivory' Imperial called these handles). IN advertising of the era, they made slight reference to the dropped hunters of Bob Loveless... indeed, Loveless was possibly the first to join a collaboration with a factory when he soon after designed the PH1 for Schrade. A high polish on the carbon steel made these frontiers easy to keep clean and resisted getting a patina. There was a wood handled lineup also, called the Double Eagles, that featured stainless blades. Same designs.
Note too the Old Timer buzz saw trapper. Makes cutting the pelvic bone a piece of cake. Sawblade locks with the old fashioned 'press here' brass extension on the liner for safety. I've trimmed many a tree limbs in my shooting lanes with this thing.
New, cutting edge designs are nice. But here in Michigan, you can still find old, very old, Marbles hunting knives working in the woods. 'Old Timers' of all kinds still gutting deer.
Deer is handing in the garage, tenderloins marinating in Italian dressing and I just washed the blood off my truck. Gotta have lunch now, take a break from the woods, clean my shotgun and launder my hunting togs. Only about another month and a half of deer season left and I need two nice ones to get me and the wife to June.
But I don't have to sharpen the knife. Plenty of edge left on it, and I have about fifty of these things anyway. Just thought I'd share with you guys.
Phil
That was always a big job for me. It is a grate day for use to see the knives we love being used.
Backstrap Chili... 
Ooops...I just noticed you're already marinating the tenderloins. No chili this time, but I'm sure it will be super good!
Phil; Very Nice! 
