Cool Old Knife

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HoosierQ

HoosierQ

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This knife is a Henkels that my grandfather used to butcher back in his day. The wooden handle had long since cracked and fallen off and my mom let me put another one on it. Fast forward 30+ years, I re-did the thing a second time with a dear antler. I went to sharpen it with my Lansky and thought I'd steel it first. Low and behold, the thing is like a razor. My Grandfather really knew how to sharpen knives and make and edge that lasts.

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Very cool! That knife screams experience. I've got one kinda like it. I took one of my grandfathers broken hunting knives and put a antler handle on it.
 
Yeah...that blade probably butchered a thousand hogs and calves in its day. My grandfather was known in the community as a top notch butcher and he was the community's foremost rope-splicer. You didn't throw out a broken or frayed rope during the depression, you fixed it! He could splice rope together tight enough to run through a pulley.

He also sharpened everybody's knives and tools for them. He died when I was just 5 so I never learned that stuff from him but I would like to think at least some of that genetic material got through.

That very knife is one reason my mom ate like a princess through the entire depression...even though they didn't have much money. They weren't poor really...they had a car and a tractor...just not much money. People did for themselves in those days.
 
Very nice to see an old knife restored to duty, and appreciated for the tool it is.
 
Thanks guys. That was my first attempt at using antler. For me it was all about the steel and I wanted to preserve that first and foremost and I think that was accomplished.

When I was about 13, I had taken some rather questionable plywood and fashioned a handle for that same blade and for what it was worth it was on there pretty good for 35 years.
 
A knife like yours is exactly why I started making blades. I lost a very special knife my Grandad had given me and I wanted to make a replacement....I'm still trying.
 
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