All About Pocket Knives

Hi all,

Your advice needed:

I bought a pre-war Böker 182 as a parts knife not too long ago. I needed its punch/awl for a rarer contemporaneous 182, which is now happily repaired and doing well. You can read about that here if you're interested: viewtopic.php?f=37&t=75260

The parts knife has a broken, as in nothing but the shank left, cap lifter/screwdriver, a severely, and I mean *severely*, shortened main blade, a blade spring that is completely dead, and various and sundry other minor issues. I had been thinking I'd transplant the beautiful stag scales and vintage Böker shield onto another 182, but the problem is that old 182's all have their share of similar issues, and newer ones are different enough that the holes and things don't line up or the curvy profile is critically different, or something else that is a deal killer.

Then the other day I picked up this Bulldog. It's brand new and unused, but all the nickel silver bits had tarnished brown and the implements had broken out in rusty acne wherever the blades stuck up proud of the blade well. I would've thought the blades and implements were stainless steel, but they all were corroded. I wonder if it's the scales off-gassing, or maybe the knife was stored in a corrosive environment or something. I paid $37 for it, considering it a project knife. I've buffed the tarnished areas and it looks quite presentable now. Look close and you'll see where I melted the top scale a wee bit (lesson learned).

Anyway, it turns out that the Bulldog's frame dimensions, pin locations, etc are a dead ringer for the vintage Böker's. So now I'm thinking I could recycle the vintage Böker scales onto the Bulldog's frame and toolset and have a pretty cool user/carrier.

So, what are your thoughts? Leave the Böker alone and let it retire in peace? Or build a hybrid scout/camp knife that looks like a vintage Böker on the outside but has new everything else on the inside? The project sounds like a fun challenge to me, but is it sacrilege or otherwise unadvisable?

Thank you. Some pictures of the two knives follow.

Myron

I had a similar situation with having a Boker 7593 with a broken master blade and a Boker 182 with a broken spring. The 182 was also missing the shield. I considered canibalizing the spring from the 7593, or taking the blade from the 182 to use in the 7593. What I ended up doing was making a new spring for the 182 as shown in the following link, and removing the shield from the 7593 and swapped to the 182. That way I had the most complete knife that was stainless steel. I probably will at some point make a new replacement blade for the 7593 to get that back into use. The 7593 is real nice except for the broken blade. The awl still has the original bluing on it. I understand your conundrum, just trying to get it back into action. I would just make new handle material rather than take handles off one knife to use on another. There are times when even though they seem identical, problems can occur and make it more work than making new handles.

viewtopic.php?f=37&t=72220&p=945384&hil ... 82#p945384

Personally, I would go for it! That stag is really sweet, and it needs to be used somehow.
Especially if that Bulldog continues to outgas (unless it was stored near another outgassing knife).
I vote for taking them both apart, then putting the best parts into the best frame. There may be more differences than you can see by the naked eye - OR they might have been made in the same factory to the exact same dimensions, contracted by one company or the other. What do you have to lose?

Thanks guys! Yes, your two replies pretty much perfectly sum up my mixed feelings here. First I think, "why not?!" and then an hour later I think, "too much work..." We're headed out on a summer break next week, which will give me time to ponder.