Carving knife

“ A word about the care of carving knives: a fine steel knife should not come in contact with intense heat, because it destroys its temper, and therefore impairs its cutting qualities. Table carving knives should not be used in the kitchen, either around the stove, or for cutting bread, meats, vegetables, etc.; a fine whetstone should be kept for sharpening, and the knife cleaned carefully to avoid dulling its edge, all of which is quite essential to successful carving. ”

“ If used in the house, a strong draught must be made, to prevent the deleterious effects of the charcoal. A box and mill, for spice, pepper, and coffee, are needful to those who use these articles. Strong knives and forks, a sharp carving-knife, an iron cleaver and board, a fine saw, steelyards, chopping-tray and knife, an apple-parer, steel for sharpening knives, sugar-nippers, a dozen iron spoons, also a large iron one with a long handle, six or eight flat-irons, one of them very small, two iron-stands, a ruffle-iron, a crimping-iron, are also desirable. ”

“ This is especially convenient for carving thin slices from any large roasts, or other varieties of solid meat. The width of the blade helps to steady the meat, and its great length enables one to cut with a single, long, smooth stroke through the entire surface. With a knife having a short blade a sort of sawing motion would be made, and the slice would be jagged. As there are no joints to separate, a point on the blade is unnecessary.
A jointer is another form of carver, useful where the joints are so large or so difficult to separate that considerable strength is required. ”

“ The kinds of knife in which the housewife is particularly interested are: carvers, vegetable slicers, parers, fruit, cleavers, etc. Subdivided, they are: paring, bread, meat, poultry, carving, cake, boning, paring (small pocket type style) , spatula, lemon, grape and orange, curved in French, German and American fashions, cleavers and scrapers.
Where it is necessary for a knife to conform to shape in paring, a flexible knife is more comfortable than a stiff one. ”

“ Children came running with their mothers' scissors, or the carving-knife, or the paternal razor, or anything else that lacked an edge (except, indeed, poor Clifford's wits) , that the grinder might apply the article to his magic wheel, and give it back as good as new. ”

“ With knives like the corrugated types, there are often metal wire handles drawn out on them. The corrugations on these blades are to obviate tearing and reduce, some think, the pressure necessary in cutting.
Handles themselves are made of various things,—woods, rubberoid, celluloid, metals, stag and in the case of table knives, mother-of-pearl, shell, silver over nickel, etc.
The kitchen knife handle must be able to stand all heats, be impervious to hot water, be smooth and comfortable in shape, and must be nicely finished so as to give the worker a feeling of worth-whileness in his job. ”

“ GUN SLING. Cutlery.
Knives.
Tools.
Do not be induced to encumber yourself with one of those ornamented, highly polished, useless abominations popularly known as hunting knives; they are worse than useless, and only serve to exasperate the owner. For general rough and ready work, nothing is better than a strong well-made butcher’s knife. The blade should be continued through the handle, which is formed by pinning two cheeks of hard wood or horn together. The hand grip should be long, and the steel sufficiently soft to be cut by a common hand saw file ”

“ Descended from his flint knife is the abounding variety of steel cutting tools all the way from the razor, concave on both sides, to the axe, doubly convex. As the arts have become more specialized, as artificial power has been introduced, the contrasts of the form of one tool with another have grown more and more striking. The bar which slices metal is stout of build, and rectangular in section, while a lancet is little wider or thicker than a [90] blade of grass. The knives which divide leather, rubber, and rope, differ much from one another ”

“ Though the entire cost of keeping the saws in proper condition is borne by respondent, the knifemen are required to sharpen their own knives outside the scheduled shift of eight hours, and for this activity they are not compensated. The sharpening of these knives is done either before or after the work shift or during the lunch hour in a room equipped by respondent with an emery wheel and grindstone. A knifeman ordinarily sharpens from two to four knives a day. At the time a man is hired for, or promoted to, a knife job, it is understood that he will be required to sharpen knives. ”

“ The housewife’s best method of sharpening or rather keeping the edges straight and keenly cutting is the steel. When the knife really gets dull it should be ground. The use of the stone or carborundum by the ordinary operator often wears the steel. However, if the use of the grinder or the stone or the carborundum is really known, time and money will be saved in the sharpening process. Sharp knives save temper, save food to a great degree, and therefore if you can’t sharpen knives yourself send them out to be taken care of once or twice a year. ”

“ These knives are usually about eighteen inches long, with a broad, sharp, murderous blade. The handles are of tortoise or ivory, often carved richly, or inlaid with figures of the Virgin, the Saviour, or the crucifix. The knife is kept open by a curious little wheel, between blade and handle, and is used indiscriminately, to slice a melon or lay bare a quarrelsome neighbor’s heart. ”

“ But since the steel which we use is limited in its hardness and its power of resisting crushing and 79bending influences, the blades of our knives must have a certain strength or thickness, depending upon the character of the material to be cut. For very hard substances the knife must be stout and the edge ground to a comparatively obtuse angle; for moderately soft substances, such as wood, the angle may be more acute, while for very soft tissues the thinnest blade and the sharpest edge are most suitable. ”

“ Grinding (fig. 2) is necessary because new knives are not usually sold in a form sharp enough for immediate use. The stone should be water, or oil-cooled to avoid overheating the knife. The blade should not be ground back more than 1⁄4 inch from the edge to form the proper bevel. The bevel should be the same on both sides of a skinning knife so that it may be used with either hand in removing the hide from a beef carcass. It is best to grind the knife by holding the knife edge against the stone at a right angle to prevent scarring the blade any farther back than the actual bevel. ”

“ It is very sharp at the point, and the fact of being made from the finest Razor Steel, Hand Forged, Nickel Plated, makes it a very durable knife for Carpenters, Farmers, or Wood-Workers. Price 75 cents.
“GOOD LUCK” KNIFE.
Given for new subscriptions amounting to 50 cents and 15 cents cash additional.
This is our Good Luck Knife; the cheapest and best ever made. It has two strong, hand-forged, razor steel blades; German silver bolsters; is brass lined; cocoa handle, round corners. This is a genuine “Boys” Knife, but is made from better material than most of the boys’ knives. ”

“ It is very important for safety that the fingers of the left hand push downward only to maintain an even pressure on the knife blade over the stone. If the left hand pushes laterally with the sharpening stroke, and the knife catches on an irregularity, then the fingers will slip off the edge and can be cut severely by the freed knife blade. With a sweeping motion toward the right of the stone, draw the knife completely across the stone, against the cutting edge of the blade. ”

“ Most larger skins need thinning with a special tool, though an experienced hand can manage to thin a heavy hide with a common draw knife.
An empty lard tub, a half barrel or a large earthenware jar to hold the tan liquor, a fleshing knife and a fleshing beam are necessary to begin with at least. Any smith can make a knife of an old, large file or rasp by working both sides to a blunt edge and drawing the upper end out in a tang for another handle. A piece of old scythe blade with cloth wrapped around the ends will do, or a dull draw knife, either. ”

“ Study carefully the knife. No matter how carefully the machine is built, an imperfect knife cannot cut right. Most knives are imperfect in spite of the rigorous specifications given them by makers. They vary in thickness, straightness, concave, bevel, flatness, temper, and quality of steel; and also in the character of their sharpening and honing, which varies with the fineness or coarseness of the grinding wheel and stone. These variations need only be a few thousandths of an inch to cause trouble. ”

“ The last operation to which the knife is subjected is that of stropping, and as the blade should be stropped after every section, it becomes important that our tools should be good and that we should know how to use them. By having two or three knives we can always avoid grinding and honing the blades ourselves, for it is then easy to hire the work done, and half a dozen knives will last a careful worker a long time with merely the aid of a good strop. ”

“ When the knife is to be honed, the back is applied and fastened by means of two or three set screws. When laid on the hone, the edge of the knife and the lower surface of the back form the guide and regulate the cutting angle. In this way we can use a broad, thin blade and yet secure great accuracy in honing it. Such a blade has this advantage also, that it is not so liable to be rounded and thus injured by stropping as one in which the relief is obtained by hollowing out the sides. ”

“ Section knives, during the process of sharpening, are subjected to three distinct processes: 1, Grinding; 2, Honing; 3, Stropping.
Grinding is one of the most important, though it is probable that it will rarely be undertaken by the microscopist himself. More knives and razors are spoiled in grinding than in any other way. We have now in our possession an excellent knife, which in an evil hour we entrusted to a New York cutler, and received it back utterly ruined, the temper being entirely taken out of the blades! ”

“ Hone the knife only on the bevel. To remove the wire edge burrs along the edge lay the hone flat on the face and rub gently so as not to round over the edge.
A knife will sometimes cut better after it has been ground the first time. A polished knife will give a better surface to the cut. The cutting of the same kind of stock will often vary with different makes of knives. An oily rag tied to a stick kept handy and passed along the bevel of the knife before cutting hard stock will improve the cut. A blunt bevel is preferred for hard stock; a long, thin bevel for soft stock. ”

“ I have seen flint knives in outline very like Fig. 240 in the museums at Cracow, Moscow, and Kiev. Some are highly polished by friction and may have served as sickles.
It is difficult to assign any definite use to the British form of knife, but as the curvature is evidently intentional, and as probably it was more difficult to chip out such curved blades than it would have been to make them straight, there must have been some advantage resulting from the form. As both edges of the blade are sharp, it is hard to say whether the convex or concave edge was the principal object. ”

“ Two men will be required to work the instrument promptly,—the one to bind the condemned, the other to drop the axe. The bascule is so arranged that the whole weight and length of the trunk will rest upon it, leaving the head and neck free, and when prone it will reach to the grooves, leaving space for the knife to pass below it. The knife itself is short and wide, with a bright concave edge, and a rim of heavy steel ridges it at the top; it moves easily in the greased grooves, and may weigh forty pounds. ”

“ Such knives were by no means an uncommon decoration of the table at the period when this was designed: it is now a branch of art utilised until all trace of design has gone from it; for we cannot accept [9] the slight scroll work and contour of a modern silver knife-handle as a piece of art-workmanship, when we remember the beautiful objects of the kind produced in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, gorgeous in design and colour, and occasionally enriched by jewels or amber. ”

“ I daresay that has been used for anything, from primitive carpentry to cutting tobacco. The one knife always does for everything.”
We continued our conversation while Dennis idly examined the knife, opening it and studying the blade absently. ”

“ The cutting part of the blade thus rudely formed is next welded to a piece of iron, which forms the bolster, or shoulder, that is, the part that rises round the handle of the knife. To make the shoulder of the size and shape required, and to give it neatness and finish, it is introduced into a die by the side of the anvil, and a swage (see Blacksmith) placed upon it, to which a few smart blows in the proper direction are given by the striker. ”

“ One man drills holes through the various materials, another rivets the bone, or horn, or pearl to a thin plate of steel or brass; and a third rivets the handles and blades, and such other accessories as may be necessary, together. The knife is then passed on to the final polishers and burnishers—generally women—and is then ready for the market. ”

“ The bronze objects, according to Dr. Forel (B. 462) , amount to 48, viz. 11 winged celts, two lance-heads, six knives, two sickles, 14 bracelets, two rings, five hair-pins, and six diverse objects. One of the knives, which is finely ornamented and one foot in length, has the peculiarity that the handle contains less tin than the blade (Fig. 17, No. 16) . Another knife was adapted for side-plates to be riveted on its handle (No. 11) ; while others were socketed and tanged (Nos. 17 and 18) . Some of the hatchets have a side loop, and others are devoid of it. ”