All About Pocket Knives

I thought I'd post some pictures of this knife just to give the rest of you knife mechanics a good laugh. A friend of mine called me the other day and he told me he is moving and having to do some downsizing. He has been cleaning out his shop, and found a box of junk pocket knives and asked me if I wanted them or he was going to dumpsterize them. I said I would take them if there may be some parts that could be recycled. Anyway I stopped over to pick up the box and there was 18 pocket knives in various stages of disrepair. This one though caught my eye because it had been the subject of a previous repair of what we can call "dubious" results. It is a Henry Sears & Son 1865 cattle knife, and even at first glance I realized something was different. It has 2 blades as opposed to the usual 3.Then when you turn it over and look at the spine, your jaw kind of does a drop when you see how this was repaired. Evidently the spring on the master blade broke, and possibly the master blade too. So it was partially disassembled, the broken parts removed, and the remainder repinned together. And you know what? It actually is somewhat usable as a 2 blade knife. The awl actually has some original blueing still visible. Note when looking at the blade well from this angle, it looks like it has a tapered back like a lot of whittlers. Then when looking at the spine you can see what really happened in this "repair" If I can find a suitable blade, make a new spring, and AcraGlas the broken bone, I may be able to rebuild this one. Or I could put it out on Ebay as an extremely rare one of a kind and worth a fortune tapered back cattle knife. lol

Haha, someone really put a lot into that to make it "usable" again.

Ingenuity at it's best!

Amazing that genius repair didn't break off all of the bone on that side!

Geeee whiz.
I think I would have just left the stub in there and maybe ground it into a washer or something.
YEP... that right there is a mess.

Well, I got real lucky on this one. As I mentioned, there were 18 knives in the bunch I got including the Henry Sears cattle knife pictured above. When I finally looked thru all of them, I discovered that there was another Henry Sears in the bunch, a bone handled jack. It was in real bad shape, handles busted up, steel liners rusted real bad. But it had a good master blade that would work great in the cattle knife. Like herbva said It was amazing that the bone did not get broken in the butchered up attempt at the previous fix. I got it all back together and it will make a good EDC. As usual, my AcraGlas repair comes in at one of two possible outcomes, too light or too dark.

Nice job!
VERY nice job..... that turned out beautifully!
YES..... nice carry knife OC.

It looks to me that you had both good luck AND good skill in that knife! She looks great!

Great job OC! Do you use the dye that comes with the Acra Glas? I'm just curious because it's be hard to match old bone with that. It's dark! I'd imagine just a pin head drop would make it too dark.

Great save on that one OC. Excellent.

Byrd wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2020 7:00 pm Great job OC! Do you use the dye that comes with the Acra Glas? I'm just curious because it's be hard to match old bone with that. It's dark! I'd imagine just a pin head drop would make it too dark.

Yes, I have been using the dye. But it's all gone now and will need to come up with something else. Maybe acrylic craft paint would work.

Here is another one from that box of knives I was given that I mentioned above. This one is a KA-BAR 4 7/8" fishing knife. Real bad shape, no handle material left, both liners were broken, and the springs were real rusty and pitted, but the redeeming value in this one is it has stainless steel blades, so they are in good shape. After dis assembly, the bolsters were removed from the liners and new ones made from .032" brass using the center divider as the template. Resolder the bolsters, rehandle with stag, and re assemble. One thing I always wondered about is on this KA-BAR fishing knife, the blades are stainless steel, but the springs are carbon steel. So when cleaning fish with this knife, the slimy residue will have no effect on the SS blades, but what gets down inside the knife will rust the springs. Why did the manufacturers do this? Was stainless steel use as spring material not economically feasible at that time?

WOW.... OC.... that one sure came out NICE!!

You made it pretty and usable OC.

Nice Work OC! It's better than when it left the factory.

Great resurrections of what most people would consider trashed knives. Your work looks excellent!

Those both turned out great!

OLDE CUTLER wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2020 8:58 pm

Byrd wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2020 7:00 pm Great job OC! Do you use the dye that comes with the Acra Glas? I'm just curious because it's be hard to match old bone with that. It's dark! I'd imagine just a pin head drop would make it too dark.

Yes, I have been using the dye. But it's all gone now and will need to come up with something else. Maybe acrylic craft paint would work.

FYI, I've had some pretty good success with powdered dyes. I use the slow curing 2-ton epoxy and add the powder a tiny smidge at a time. Sometimes I'm not happy with the match and just warm it up with the heat gun, remove the patch and start over. To match brown bone, I start by adding some tan powder I have to the epoxy, and then add a teenie, tiny bit of the brown at a time until I like the color. (The brown patch in your picture is the result my brown powder alone produces.) Using the slow cure epoxy gives you time to fool around with it for while before it starts to harden. The only drawback is you really need to let it harden for a day until you start sanding.

Those both look really nice OC!!! That bone is so "rich", on the cattle knife. Good to see it get a facelift!!!