WIP vintage knives

Son gave me the idea to poke around ebay, find some vintage knives and rework them into usable equipment. Picked two up. A carbon Dexter that is extremely oxidized, rusted and beat to hell. The other is a carbon 12" carving/scimitar. The Dexter I'm just planning on cleaning and working a bit at the handle. The carver I plan to rehandle and do a little work on the blade. I've been looking through some burls and trying to figure out whether I want to keep the pins or sand them down and epoxy in.

Both of the knives look like they will be fun projects.
I look forward to seeing what happens.

glad you are keeping the tradition alive. as soon as i start getting some more knives i will continue my projects. good luck

My 2pennies worth:

Love the boxy old school handle with the large pins. Nice new wood, same profile and same pins.

That scimitar is really nice, i'm refurbing an old Sheffield butcher knife at the moment, will be interesting to see how they come out.

Cool projects

I've got a few on the way also.


One question to ask here... how to grind down the metal bolster so you can sharpen the blade evenly and easily?

slowtyper said:

I've got a few on the way also.


One question to ask here... how to grind down the metal bolster so you can sharpen the blade evenly and easily?

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Make friends w/ someone with a grinder or put some sweat in on a dmt.

Sand"paper" on linen by Robert Bosch.

I am so glad I googled Robert Bosch. I was thinking you were talking about a fictional cop that Michael Connelly writes about. Or even the painter that the cop is named after.

Yeah, take the bolster into the primary bevel (grind at the angle of sharpening, until it reduces the size of the bolster).

slowtyper said:

I've got a few on the way also.


One question to ask here... how to grind down the metal bolster so you can sharpen the blade evenly and easily?

Click to expand...

Ill grind it down for you if you want.

Very generous offer Bishop but unless you are in Toronto I don't think it will be worth it to ship the knife around just for that.

Thanks for the offer though, it is appreciated.

Handle of the carver has been removed today during brunch using the most efficient tools found in the kitchen: an oyster knife, an eel spike, and a meat tenderizer. The pins are brass rivets. Does anyone know how to remove these without damaging them?

Pictures of said knife, rusted to hell handle, and tools used will follow later.

It's probably not worth the effort of annealing them and extracting them safely, but a propane torch will do the trick just fine. They need to be glowing red (ie when you take the flame off the brass, they should be visibly glowing red even in normal daylight) first, and then quenched in water. Then hammer one end of each pin down to a narrower cone and extract. You might want to anneal them again before putting on the new handle, just to be safe.
I don't think that the annealing temperature for brass will do anything noteworthy to the tang of the knife, but I don't know much about steel.


Note: Quenching brass does not harden it by any significant amount (unlike iron), and working it hot is a really bad idea - it will break.

Note #2: Obviously, you only need to anneal the part of the pin you're gonna whack, so don't go overboard trying to make the whole thing glow.

Note #3: Brass rod stock is available at most hardware stores at less than $10 for three FEET.

If they are cutlery rivets they are not reusable. BTW, the optimum annealing temperature for brass is 1100º f.

SpikeC said:

... BTW, the optimum annealing temperature for brass is 1100º f.

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Good to know, but I still think "it's glowing red even in daylight" is easier to measure for a cottage armourer like myself.

Are you going to shine the blade up? I'm a patina fan, but it might be cool to shine it up and start your own. It's very cool that these older knives get a new life.

I'm going to leave the color on the carver. I was breaking down some pig ribs and loins a couple days ago and it took a nice blue sheen mixed with the old patina. The chef's knife I'm in the process of polishing, mainly because of all the rust and years of dirt corroding it.

As for the annealing, I reiterate that the handle was taken off w/ an oyster knife, an eel spike, and a meat tenderizer. Blow torches in the 1000 degree range are a bit too high falutin for this operation.

Why is it that vintage knives cost as much as a new one? I would love to get my hands on an old slicer like slowtyper has, but looking at Sabatier's on ebay has driven me mad. I have a hard time buying a knife that is scratched all to hell for the same price, if not more than a new suji. most are $200 and up, and a few up to $350....

search vintage german carbon or soligen german knife. i find vintage wusthof,henckels,f.dick etc etc cimeters and slicers for $30-40 all the time. as long as the handle is "serviceable" its all good! the blades ive picked up come back to life with BKF, sandpaper and some turtle wax after ive reset the bevels. sabatiers go for more than they probably should most of the time...

Mike Davis said:

Why is it that vintage knives cost as much as a new one? I would love to get my hands on an old slicer like slowtyper has, but looking at Sabatier's on ebay has driven me mad. I have a hard time buying a knife that is scratched all to hell for the same price, if not more than a new suji. most are $200 and up, and a few up to $350....

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I might have something for you Mike. Send me a PM.

Mike Davis said:

Why is it that vintage knives cost as much as a new one? I would love to get my hands on an old slicer like slowtyper has, but looking at Sabatier's on ebay has driven me mad. I have a hard time buying a knife that is scratched all to hell for the same price, if not more than a new suji. most are $200 and up, and a few up to $350....

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Thiers-Issard Sabatier Nogent, 10" Slicer = $84.95.

tkern said:

As for the annealing, I reiterate that the handle was taken off w/ an oyster knife, an eel spike, and a meat tenderizer. Blow torches in the 1000 degree range are a bit too high falutin for this operation.

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As I said, a regular propane blowtorch (even the $5 variety) will do the trick.

Then again, I also said it probably wasn't worth the effort.

You really can't save those rivets. I can send you some if you like, I have a bunch.