When I was growing up, my Mom"s favorite butcher knife was one that her father had made in the 20"s or 30"s. It was my understanding that the knife had originally been a worn out file.
My grandfather was a self taught mechanic/blacksmith who built lots of his own tools. He made a trip hammer out of pieces of steel that is still operational in the old farm shop in Montana. It runs off a line shaft that was originally powered by a gas engine, but now is powered by a large electric motor. Grandpa spent lots of his time in that shop during the very cold winters and enjoyed building things.
The knife in question is very nicely made and holds an edge very well. It is shaped like a conventional butcher knife and tapers down in thickness from about 1/16" on the unsharpened edge to a knife edge on the other side. The handle is two pieces of some kind of hardwood attached to the tang with 6 small rivets. The blade is about 9" long and is not very flexible, but in 80+ years of use, it never broken or chipped.
Unfortunately my grandfather died when I was 3, and my Mom now has dementia, so I cannot ask how the knife was made. I doubt that my grandfather had anything more advanced than a foot operated grindstone, a post drill and his forge and blacksmith tools. So, in order to get the file soft enough to grind it, I suspect that he heated it up and carefully annealed it. He may have worked out the shape on the anvil, and possibly put the holes in for the handle rivets while the metal was hot. And then he probably spent a very long time grinding the metal down into the thin, tapered wedge that it is today. And when he got it about where he wanted the final knife to be, he must have retempered at least the cutting edge. After he was satisfied, he likely riveted on the handle and spent some time honing the final edge.
The knife was always one of my Mom"s prized possessions, and she used it all the time. She used the unglazed bottom of a ceramic cookie jar lid to rehone the knife, and it was always incredibly sharp.
I sure wish my Grandpa had lived longer. People have said that he and I share many characteristics and I bet we would have had a great time together. How many things I could have learned from that interesting and creative man!
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Today's Featured Article - A Lifetime of Farm Machinery - by Joe Michaels. I am a mechanical engineer by profession, specializing in powerplant work. I worked as a machinist and engine erector, with time spent overseas. I have always had a love for machinery, and an appreciation for farming and farm machinery. I was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. Not a place one would associate with farms or farm machinery. I credit my parents for instilling a lot of good values, a respect for learning, a knowledge of various skills and a little knowledge of farming in me, amo
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