All About Pocket Knives

I just finished up a rebuild of this old 3 1/2" Valley Forge jack that I picked up at the fleamarket for $1. The master blade was broken off, but otherwise it was in good shape. I especially liked the green swirl celluloid handle material on this one, so I made a new blade from 1095 high carbon and repinned it back together for an EDC. Tangstamp reads Valley Forge Cutlery Co. Newark N. J. Made in USA.

Funny, I'm not big on green or spear blades, but ya know, I could see myself carrying that one. Nice job!

Very nice, great job!!!

Steve Warden wrote:Funny, I'm not big on green or spear blades, but ya know, I could see myself carrying that one. Nice job!

That's why I buy this kind of knife cheap and resurrect them, because the celluloid is so nice and is not outgassing (yet).

WOW... GREAT SAVE.
You did a great job of building that new blade!

Those scales do kinda grow on ya! Nice job!!

Great job! Love the handles.

Brought back from the scrap heap, nice job!

Nice OC!!! Your ability to fabricate a new blade is awesome!!!

Good save and great job. I'm impressed with making a new blade. Having the tang must have been a real plus.

FRJ wrote:Good save and great job. I'm impressed with making a new blade. Having the tang must have been a real plus.

Yes, it really is. One can just lay the old tang on the new metal and scribe it. The guesswork is what the original blade may have looked like. Sometimes you can find a picture to tell if it had a clip or spear or whatever. On this one I speculated a spear? I am also looking at another way to cut the pull on these blades I make. I can only cut the long pull now, I would like to be able to cut the smaller "nail nick" type pulls. However, I think it may take expensive machinery such as a milling machine to do that. Any of you knife mechanics ever cut the small nail nick type with a Dremel tool?

I saw in a video, to my amazement, where the cutler set the blade on a "positive" shaped nail nick and struck the soft blade with a hammer and turned it over to show a perfect nail nick in the blade. I suppose one could make and harden a tool like that.

I have cut 4 small nail nicks using a dremel. 3 of them were acceptable, and two looked great.
I marked the blade with a fine-tipped Sharpie, clamped a piece of steel against the mark as a straight-edge, then cut down into the blade with a thin cutting wheel. When the depth and width look right, I "feather" the cutting wheel up and away from the spine, creating that graduated half-moon cut.
Just practice on some scrap steel, and see how you like the results.

Reverand wrote:I have cut 4 small nail nicks using a dremel. 3 of them were acceptable, and two looked great.
I marked the blade with a fine-tipped Sharpie, clamped a piece of steel against the mark as a straight-edge, then cut down into the blade with a thin cutting wheel. When the depth and width look right, I "feather" the cutting wheel up and away from the spine, creating that graduated half-moon cut.
Just practice on some scrap steel, and see how you like the results.

So I could do this with the same setup I now use,pictured below, but instead of running it along the guide and making a long pull, I could just plunge and then feather. Thanks, I am going to try it.