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Blade Origins

For those of you that do not subscribed (and you should) the AG Russell weekly newsletter always has some great info in it. This weeks stated this

Starting today, in these weekly e-mails, we will once again focus on providing knife terminology and other information about knives. For the next few weeks, we will be talking about blade shapes. In each case, we will give you some background information on the shape. This week, we are covering the Zulu Spear Blade and the Hawk Bill or Pruner Blade. A more complete list of traditional blade shapes for folding knives can be found at http://agrussell.com/encyclopedia/blade-shapes.

Featured Blade Shapes

The Zulu Spear Blade first appeared in a 1920s Schrade Catalog, no other history is available. The shape is a little different from the common spear blade, the point drops a bit more with a remarkable change in shape and attractiveness.

This blade can be found in the A. G. Russell Curved Regular Jack -http://agrussell.com/knife/3893, and in our Medium Barlow Lockback -http://agrussell.com/knife/3886.

The origin of the Hawk Bill or Pruner Blade is lost in times before there was a cutlery industry. It began as a harvesting hook for grapes and other produce. A larger size was built for pruning fruit trees. When Linoleum was invented and there was a need for a way to cut it easily, and then again when electricity began to be used and the insulation needed to be stripped off the ends, the design was there and adapted for those uses as well.

As this goes forward we will capture as many as possible here

Tags: Blade, Origins

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Tobias Gibson on December 10, 2015 at 8:45

Of course the basic spear point was first made by Ogg, the cave man, when he realized pointy things were more likely to puncture hide than an non-pointy one, He realized this when he tried to pet the porcupine.

Permalink Reply by Jan Carter on December 10, 2015 at 9:29

LOL! Well, that could very well be true!

Permalink Reply by Syd Carr on August 24, 2016 at 20:53

I have AG Russel's website bookmarked, and visit their site often to not only look at the knives, but to look up stuff on their "encyclopedia", which is full of great info. I also am on their email & catalog lists. have yet to buy a knife from them but I find their website a valuable educational asset. I suppose I will ultimately buy a knife from them, but for now I just use them for reference.

Permalink Reply by Michael Squier on August 29, 2016 at 8:10