Whittling with a folder

[KeithH]

Whittling and Pocket Knives

Looking through some of the old historical carving books I noted that many of the early carvers used pocket knives that they loved and coveted. Many also made their own custom knives out of old scrap steel or even hack saw blades.
I noticed while working on a previous article that the carver was using an old worn pocket knife to carve with...he had a few custom knives...but preferred to use this old Jack knife. Hmmm...I should have asked a few more questions.
While digging through an old box I found up in the attic while pulling down all the Christmas stuff several weeks ago, I found some of my old pocket knives from a few decades ago. One of my first jobs was at a nursery/hardware store and we had the 'Old Timer' 'Uncle Henry" display. In the evenings we would grab a piece of wood from anything we could find and just carve whatever...maybe even just a toothpick.
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Note on this knife that each blade is supported by one spring…the long silver piece.
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In that old box was a nice old Uncle Henry "Stockman" that has the traditional clip blade, small pen blade, and small sheep-foot blade. It is old enough to still be made in the USA and not China....so I pulled it out and honed it back to a razors edge. I grabbed a small piece of juniper and started whittling on it and thought...."Boy, this wood is pretty hard." All the blades had issues going through the good carving wood. So not wanting to put blame on the knife, I grabbed my favorite custom knife...a Bob Bart prototype...and this knife went through the wood like butter. Switching back and forth between the 2 knives and going through each blade on the pocket knife produced the same results.
Now all I could figure the difference was between the knives was the grinds on the old pocket knife's blades. They look very similar in actual blade thickness, and all the blades took a fine razor's edge, so the grind must be the difference.
The carver I mentioned does contemporary antiques, so I got back up with him and asked him what kind of pocket knife he was using. He swears by an old Case XX Sway Back Gent that is made using their old carbon vanadium steel...the stuff that will turn an ugly black/gray....'scuse me...the steel that gets a very nice aged patina to it over time. Many whittlers swear by this fine steel that takes and holds an edge very nicely. Case is still made in the USA and you pay a bit of a premium price because many collect them.
So for Christmas when my oldest daughter asked me what I wanted, I told her a Case CV steel Stockman...and I got it. Straight out of the box, all of the blades had a razors edge. And taking them to a piece of old dry cypress...they carved like bunk. Grabbing a sharp Knotts...it easily sliced through the hard brittle wood. Hmmmm. Must be the grind on the blades.
My new Christmas present…a Case CV steel Stockman

Well this just made me more curious. Lots of folding knife makers produce a 'whittler' style knife. It appears that this design has double springs along the back. On one end there are two smaller blades that rest against each spring and on the other side there is a thicker large blade that is supported by both springs.
This is a Case Seahorse Whittler…
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Note that the two smaller detail blades are supported by a single spring and the main large blade is supported by both springs…
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Also note that the traditional whittler’s main blade fits between the other two smaller blades when closed…
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So my question to you old die-hards...do any of you use a pocket knife to do any 'whittling' and if so, what is the maker and model of knife you use...what kind of steel does the knife have...and have you changed the grind of the blade? Let's see some photos too!

 

[Vince Pagliaroli]

Keith - I have that same Uncle Henry knife circa 1974, still in very good condition. Also a bunch of Case knives, folders and fixed blades, but I've never carved with any of them. When I worked in the scrap yard in a PA steel mill, Case would bring truck loads of their reject blades and dump them. The magnet on the Swing Crane that loaded scrap for the furnaces never got the chance to load very many... White hats showed up form every department to take their pick. We made the steel for Imperial Knives, lots of game and fish have gone under the blades of my Imperials since 1981. We also made steel for cluster bombs, but that's way off subject. Working in the steel mill furnaces was like hell on earth, but by Gawd the men and women that worked there took great pride in their job. Seems like a life time ago.

 

[Carl]

I have an Uncle Henry just like the top one, couple of buddies gave it to me for my 21st birthday. Used it to clean birds yesterday!

 

[KeithH]

That Uncle Henry is about a 1976. I bought it out of the display case at work so I could carve toothpicks with the rest of the old gents that hung out and sat on the benches whittling and drinking bottled Coke with peanuts poured down inside the bottle. The first time I saw that...I thought someone had puked in their bottle and then I saw them swig it down and it about made me puke.
I carried that knife around with me all through college and then when I started my career job with the state Wildlife commission, I got a single lock blade service knife and thought they were the bomb. All the knives I had after that had to be a lock blade and all the folders went into the junk drawer. My boss used to collect knives and had them by the hundreds...and every time we went to his house for our annual review, he would give all of us a new knife. The first one I got was a big fat bone handled Stockman...Ranger brand I believe....and it was so big in the pocket I just put it straight into the drawer. After that, he would give me Frost lock blades. At some point that drawer got so full I had to dump it all into a box and shove it up into the attic somewhere.
Now it's almost 2015 and I decide to go on a SD pheasant hunt with the pooch. I knew I would need a knife so I got my favorite Old Timer lock blade out and gave it a quick sharpening...and headed off out west. Boy...they got some crazy mean cockle burrs out there. Things about the size of a big white oak acorn. And my poor pooch got them hung in all the wrong places. All up and down the soft fur flags on his legs...around his neck....ears...armpits, and....yep...privates.
He would tolerate me chopping at them with that big not too sharp lock blade...but when he saw me going towards the back end with that big blade...he started to squirm a bit. Then one of the old gents that was with us reached into his pocket and pulled out an old, old little folder. It was an Case medium Stockman with dark tarnished CV blades his grandpaw had given him. He opened up the main clip blade and it had been sharpened so much you had to look twice just to see it was really opened. The old pooch saw it and had to take a sniff...then laid down with his legs spread wide opened and somehow managed to relax. With that thin razor sharp blade I was able to easily slide it between the pooch's acorns and those nasty cockle burrs. The only comment the gang made was, "It sure is a good thing that dog is calm."
Well anyhow...after using that little folder, I got back and had to find that old box up in the attic and see what treasures it held.

 

[John Bourbon]

I'm no slouch when it comes to sharpening a blade, but I could never get any of my folders to carve worth a darn....my main carving knife is a 2" fixed bladed Sloyd style I got from Wood crafters years ago.


John Bourbon