sorry guys, my job takes me on the road for most of the week so mainly i have the weekend to do any posts. there should be alot of reading soon as the sub folders thing gets worked out so hang on
sorry rave, some bad weather has gone thrugh iowa and north, so i havent been online much do to power outages and such, ill take alook man,,,
what post is that under? lead me to it man,, anyone giving ya !!!!!? saying it's not so let me at e'm heheheeeheee ive been off line for a week so ill try an d pick up on what's going on here.
The benchmade Knife company of Clackamas, Oregon was founded in 1988. The companyuses state-of-the-art equipment (it was among the first to use laser) and unconventional materials such as stainless ATS-34 steel, tempered to 59-61 HRC for the blades and aircraft aluminum 6061-T6 for the handles. Benchmade intrudeced the Designer series in 1991 , combining designs from top custem knife makerswith modern production methods to produce designer knives at affordable prices.
The name 'Buck' is so well known that the words 'Buck folding knife' have become synonymous with the article intelf. In the late 1890's Hoyt (Heath) Buck, an apprentice smith dedided to find a way to keep farmers' hoes sharp longer. The simple hardnining process, which he developed and tested on knives he made from old files , is the foundation of the company's current hardening system.
In 1941 he and his son Alfred charles Buck set up a smithy in Hoyt's church basement and started making Buck pocketknives for the military.
Hoyt died of cancer in 1949 at 59. Al and his family barely kept he company running untill Howard Creig, A quality controller at Ryan Aeronautics, helped AL establish Buck knives Inc. and acquire the necessary capital to expand the company by selling shares.
Nowdaws, the company in working on a hardening process developed by Paul bos an employee of Buck knives Inc. The steel is first heated to 1,950 degrees Fahrenheit and suddeny cooled . It is then frozen with liquid nitrogen to -120 F and slowly reheated to between 350 and 950 F, depending on the knife and type of steel.
Buck also has a speacial technique for grinding the edge to obtain its trademark 'Edge 2X'. In the past , blades had always been ground to an angle of 35 to 50 degrees. The height of the cut was 0.03 inches. The new edge 2X was deeloped by a team of engineers and experienced grinders under the leadership of AL's son Chuck Buck who changed the grinding angle to 26 to 32 degrees and increased the height to 0.04 inches. the result led to a sharper, wear resistant and easy to sharpen blade.
beretta
The Itallian company Pietro Bretta is well known for its pistols and shotguns. Less known is its excellent assortment of knives. Their daughter company Beretta-USA makes collectible knives mainly for the American marker.
It is not knownexectlywhen Berettastarted making knives. The company has been handed down from one generation to the next since the fifteenth century, when the Beretta family started making weapons in Gardone. Old records show that Master Bartolemo Beretta received 296 ducats from the Arsenal of Venice in 1526 for delivering 185 haarquebus barrels. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Beretta was producing hunting weapons, and knives were added as service articles.
The S687 EEL for example, had a casing ad similar to the forearm plates of the doube-parrel shotgun with the same model number.
Today Beretta makes excellent hunting knives with addiional blades that can be removed and used to clean venison. Beretta knives are currently made in Japan.
Camillus
The Camillus Cutlery company is one of the oldest knife factories in the United States. Its history began with Adolf Kastor, a young German immigrant who established Adolf Kaster & Bros in new York City, for importing and distributing knives from germany. But the Dingley Tariff of 1897, imposed to protect homeland industries against imports, made foreign knives too expensive, so kastor started making knives himself.
In 1902 he and Charles Sherwood modernized the latter's small knife factory in Camillus, New York, adding the Clover and Sword Brand. Within eight years the company had grown from 25 to 200 employes. As production increased , Ccamillus modernized and brought German Craftmen to the United States and even built a German hotel, Known as Germania Hall. Kastor started a sponsorship program for faithful employees, allowing entire families to emigrate from Germany to help him make knives.
During the first world war , the shipped over 471,000 military knives to the battlefront. In the 1920's Camillus started importing a new "stainless" steel. It made knives for trading houses, which sold them under their own trading names, including : Hibbart, Spencer< Bartlett & Co with the OVB (our very best) label, Sears, Roebuck & Co with the trading name of Craftsman & Dunlap and stay sharp, Woolworth with the Kentmark, Simons Hardware Co with the Keen Kutter and Spahleigh Hardware Co with the Diamound Edge.
During the Second World War, Camillus made over 50 million knives for the Allied Forces. After the war, the company made knives under Camillus and Camco labels. Camillus also issued speacial editions for young people, such as the Lone Ranger, the Dick Tracy, Davey Crocket abd Daniel Boon knife. Camillus still produces an impressive series of models under the labels Camillus, Western, Becker Knife and Tool and Cuda.
Last edited by chrish; 03-09-2007 at 06:23 PM.
Reason: Automerged Doublepost
Well something went wrong anyway, it all got merged into one post, and thats not what i wanted it to end up as, one big long post, i was able to post back to back and it would have been easer for reading with each brand name in it own post.
I finnaly got time to sit down and do my "one finger typing" on this topic and i was going to go back and revise some things but ive decided not to at this point, theres alot of knife makers and history and i dont have all week to type it and wait for someone to post so i can add another post,
i suppose i could create another account and logg back on and use that to make a spacer so i can add on, take too long tho.
Hay thanks Dallas, I would like to present it in a way that is easy for people to read thats not one big long post, and easy for people to find something, thinking to much like a baseness man i guess.
It's great reading of the origin of many of these companies - especially as too many are going under these days. Camillus just folded, from what I've read.
We are losing history and good blades.
