All About Pocket Knives

Thanks for keeping me honest Eric. Your forever teaching me. I'm sure you recognize the 285 # 00067! I remember some cut co's used steel liners during ww1. Brass was just to crucial for other things. I remember hearing that Albert acquired a whole bunch of brass flat stock right before ww2 broke out. He had a knack for making the right moves. Do you recall hearing the same?
Jay

Jay yes I do recall that, he bought it off a defunct knife company but I don't recall which one.

I thought that was #67. First day production of the 285's, how cool is that??? I thought that was the best thing about that display.

Eric

ea42 wrote:Schrade never used steel liners on their production folders either, just brass. There may have been an SFO or two along the way with steel liners, but I don't recall ever seeing one and it would have had to have been a pretty substantial number for them to go to the trouble of getting sheet steel of the correct thickness. They got it in huge rolls so I'm sure it wouldn't have been cost effective. There are numerous factors involved with using different metals on a knife. Nickel silver and brass are of similar hardness, so they wear evenly during grinding and buffing. Steel is much harder resulting in uneven removal of material during buffing. This can lead to the liners being higher than the bolsters and covers on the backs and fronts. Steel also gets a lot hotter, which could melt the covers.

Eric

Are you referring to all schrades in general or the "newer" ones? In the cut co catalogs many of the more simple and inexpensive knives are listed as steel lined and bolstered. I'm assuming the steel was relatively mild so it was more workable? Was it much cheaper than brass and nickel silver back then?

Paul, sorry about that, I was referring to the post Schrade Cut. Co. knives, most specifically the Schrade Walden and Schrade Old Timer and Uncle Henry patterns. Schrade Cut. Co. did use steel liners and bolsters on their barlows and steel bolsters on a number of their jacks. Their assembly and finishing processes were quite different from the modern Schrades.

Eric

There's nothing to be sorry about Eric, you inadvertently taught me something. That explains why stainless is almost never seen as bolsters and liners on a production knife, but it is common to customs and is thicker stock than other liners. I am not sure whether the thicker stock is just the fact that it's a custom knife and they are made very sturdy to the last detail, or also due to the minimum stock thickness that is attainable.

ea42 wrote:
Schrade never used steel liners on their production folders either, just brass.

Eric

As per previous posts in this thread, Schrade used nickel silver too. I know some refer to n/s as white brass since both are of a copper zinc alloy. Not sure if a metallurgist would agree that's technically accurate.

gwelker62 wrote:

ea42 wrote:
Schrade never used steel liners on their production folders either, just brass.

Eric

As per previous posts in this thread, Schrade used nickel silver too. I know some refer to n/s as white brass since both are of a copper zinc alloy. Not sure if a metallurgist would agree that's technically accurate.

I've never seen nickel silver liners on a stock production Uncle Henry, or for that matter an Old Timer. Like I said maybe an SFO or LTD, and that's a big maybe, but never something like a stock 285.

Eric

I can only speak for uncle Henry knives. Only ever seen brass liners. If anybody has something differant I would be very interested in seeing it

The only one I know of are the first 885's and that's because I have one. Can't say if any other walden uncle henrys did.

JAMESC41001 wrote:I can only speak for uncle Henry knives. Only ever seen brass liners. If anybody has something differant I would be very interested in seeing it

Schrade did use nickel silver on first production 885UH at least. I have a Walden 885 with a fairly low serial# that is not brass. Here is a pic of it compared to a later version Schrade+ that doesn't have a s#.

Well I just went through mine and sure enough I have one. #9184. Never took notice. Pretty cool. What serial number is yours?

Well I'll be, I stand corrected. Ya learn something new every day

Eric

MIne is #15760

I wonder when the switch to brass occurred, and why they used nickel silver on that one to begin with. Very interesting, don't know of anyone to ask anymore except maybe Harold B.. Gonna need Jay or Tom to give him a call, they've got the direct line

Eric

Thanks for weighing in on this Eric, it’s always good to have the opinion of somebody who’s been there!

I see several of these early Uncle Henrys that have milling on the liners. Do you know how long they continued to mill them?

I also notice that many of the descriptions in the early catalogs mentioned milled liners along with bone stag handles. These seem to be mostly in the late 1940s and 1950s. Of course it’s rare that one finds one of the older knives that actually has milled liners or bone stag handles, most that I seem to find our later production. Was there a set time, six months, one year or two years that they continued to mill the liners and use bone stag handles? The descriptions in the earlier catalogs are much better than in the short line catalogs or even in the large catalogs of the late 1990s and early 2000’s.
I was just wondering if there was any rhyme or reason or set time when they discontinued the milling of the liners?

Thanks Eric, as always I appreciate your willingness to share your knowledge!

Just going off the few knifes I collected and pics seen online, it appears a lot of the first production Walden Uncle Henry's came with milled liners. And the 885UH came with nickel silver liners to boot. I don't have a Walden 285UH, but IIRC, I've seen pics of some that had n/s liners too. All the other UH Walden folders had brass liners. Here I have 3 897UHs to compare. A Schrade/Walden with a s# in the 50k range that has milled brass. A Schrade/NY in the R12k range and a Schrade+ with no s# that do not have milled liners.

Dale and gwelker, when Schrade was in Walden (Schrade Cut Co, early Schrade Walden) they had the milling done off site by a woman who kept the hand operated machine in her kitchen. This was one of the last things done once the knife was finished. Of course this was before the Uncle Henry knives existed. In Ellenville they developed a machine that could do it, also as one of the last steps. I don't believe it lasted more than a few years on the Uncle Henry knives, I recall Dave saying he thought they cut it out around 1970, maybe a bit earlier but he couldn't recall exactly when. It got to be too labor intensive, too difficult to keep on track, and if a knife didn't pass QC due to issues on the back that required re-finishing, the jimping had to be ground clean and re-done. This all added to the overhead at a time when the industry was experiencing a temporary downturn. To make the dating even more difficult the jimping could be had as an option on knife orders for a time afterward. Very few things were set in stone at Schrade with regards to dating. Bone dried up around 1960-61 keeping in mind that they probably had some in inventory that helped them extend this offering for a very short while afterward.

Eric