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Tackler Blade

I have just acquired after a long search some of the discarded timbers from HMS Victory Nelson's flagship at the battle of Trafalgar. We are going to use the wood for knife scales commemorating the Napoleonic wars and the 200th Anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo which is next year. We use all the old traditional blade types and was considering using the authentic tackler blade but whilst the blade is still made I can find no reference to it's origin. Some of the tackler blades you see are not tackler blades at all and if anybody has an ideas regarding it's origin just let me know. regards malcolm

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Permalink Reply by Steve Hanner on April 16, 2014 at 15:31

Great read.... you have to say Bernard Levine knows his stuff. I always had the suspicion that knives made for sea use never seemed to carry a tip or point. I did think it might be for a purpose like this...I mean going to sea put you out there alone for a long time and who knows what might happen! I guess the same thing holds true today and that's why they all are blunt end knives!

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Permalink Reply by J.J. Smith III on April 16, 2014 at 15:32

I think I'm in love with this one...
Wonder if Ken Daniels has something along these lines in his back room?

Steve Hanner said:

OK like the look of this one and thanks to John , JJ and Malcom for clarifying a tackler knife and giving a bit of history! Even an old dog like me can learn something new!

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KnifeMakerPermalink Reply by M. Carpenter on April 17, 2014 at 4:17

Blades for naval use would have the blunt end. Having said that the old knives which come up out of the Thames seem to be clip point. We have not got a true naval blunt end blade and we will use a Farmers otherwise known as a Sheepfoot for some of the knives made with scales from the HMS Victory timber. I am trying to extract some of the brass nails to go with the first few knives sold but it is hard going.

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Permalink Reply by Mark Zalesky on April 17, 2014 at 13:24

Very interesting discussion of the tacklers pattern -- I didn't know a tackler was one who worked on looms. To my mind a tacklers knife is a jack with a wharncliffe master blade and a swayback handle, like the Tidioute pictured above. In my experience when we find antique examples of this pattern we find English knives, very rarely American ones.

Perhaps the American equivalent of the English tacklers jack is more-or-less the same thing with a sheepfoot blade, which is functionally about the same. Point of reference: the Case xx17 pattern which is a 4" swayback jack, two blades, the master a sheepfoot -- one of the traditional names associated with this Case pattern is "loom fixer." Does that seem like a reasonable conclusion?

Square ended Navy knives... now that's a whole 'nother subject!

Mark Z

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Permalink Reply by Tobias Gibson on April 29, 2014 at 23:33

I've read that stuff and have also heard such things about breaking blades but the thing is, you can kill a man with a sheepfoot blade quite easily and you can also stab a person with a knife with a broken tip, especially if it is a fixed blade. I've have seen no official records from any navy stating blades need to be broken.

The reason the sheepfoot blade is used is so you have a nice straight edge so you can hammer the spine of the blade to cut through a tarred line. The sheep foot blade gives you a longer straight cutting edge than a spear or clip point which also give you more blade to cut with! Wharncliffe blades were also quite common on sailing knives and they are very much a pointy type of blade. The blunt tip does aid in reducing accidental stabbings on a rolling deck but really isn't go to make much of a difference if two sailors decide to get into a knife fight.

Using a work of fiction for a source is not what I call research. I would like to see a ship's log from actual country's navy that discusses this practice or an official doctrine affirming the practice from the admiralty. The Royal Navy and the US Navy issue pointy knives to all ranks, depending on what the sailor is suppose to be doing! And even today, there are fixed blade rigging knives that have a very pointy blade. For instance the Grohmann's Canadian Navy knife which is nautical version of the Canadian Belt Knife.

And if Mates were so concerned about sailors getting into knife fights and stabbing each other, why weren't marlinspikes confiscated? Heck you can put a marlinspike right through a man's skull if you had mind to. And in the age of sail Marlinspikes were often kept right along side belaying pins. (Foot long wooden poles that look like billy clubs, used to secure a line.) They were located all over the place and often carried. Naval officers and other trusted figures of authority had swords and pistols. Swords and pistols trump knives!

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KnifeMakerPermalink Reply by M. Carpenter on April 30, 2014 at 7:20

The knives which I see which have come up out of the Thames mud which look pre say 1850 are a squat Navaja type clip point. The HMS Victory oak which we are using for knife scales will use a Sheepsfoot blade.

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Permalink Reply by Tobias Gibson on April 30, 2014 at 8:47

M. Carpenter, do you have a photo of one the knives recovered? That sounds really interesting. I would love to see a photo.

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KnifeMakerPermalink Reply by M. Carpenter on May 1, 2014 at 8:06

Hello

No I see them from time to time but they are not much use to knife collectors. Lots of people spend their time on the foreshore of the Thames metal detecting and digging things up but they seldom find anything interesting. On the foreshore outside of some of the pubs people find lot of old clay pipes - people used to watch the pirates drowned or hung and then threw the empty pipe in the river. Better than some of the television programmes you get now. regards malcolm

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KnifeMakerPermalink Reply by M. Carpenter on May 5, 2014 at 10:05

This is the Lambsfoot in a traditional pattern made with Oak from HMS Victory. The blade is carbon steel and we have sourced handmade paper of the kind used at the time for the accompanying letter which is set in Caslon a English typeface of the period. We sold the first folding knives within 30 seconds of them going on the web site so we now have a few days delay.

Attachments:

Handmade penknife with HMS Victory scales.jpg, 18 KB
HMS Victory.jpg, 60 KB

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Permalink Reply by Tobias Gibson on May 5, 2014 at 10:21

Very nice.

M. Carpenter said:

This is the Lambsfoot in a traditional pattern made with Oak from HMS Victory. The blade is carbon steel and we have sourced handmade paper of the kind used at the time for the accompanying letter which is set in Caslon a English typeface of the period. We sold the first folding knives within 30 seconds of them going on the web site so we now have a few days delay.