Monthly Archives: May 2018

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Solid Brass Dunhill Lift-Arm ‘Wafer’ Cigarette Lighter (Ca. 1930)

The things you stumble across at the flea-market, hey?

Today, one of…many…things…which I stumbled across at my local market, on a cold, windy, drizzling Sunday morning, was A cute little piece of antique brassware…

The back of the lighter, showing the striker-wheel, snuffer-cap, flint-tube, and the threaded cap to the tube. Inside the flint-tube is a piece of cylindrical flint-stone, and a small flint-spring, used to adjust the pressure of the flint against the wheel, for optimum striking.

I’ve always had a thing for oldschool, lift-arm cigarette lighters. And today, I finally found one – in brass (which I love) – from one of the most prolific makers of flashy, stylish lighters in the world: A. Dunhill. I was able to haggle the price down and toddled off into the cold and blustery morning air with a really cute piece of antique smoking paraphernalia (not that I smoke or anything, I just think lighters are cool…).

Lift-arm cigarette-lighters (so-called because of the spring-loaded arm with the snuffer-cap on the end of it), were among the world’s first truly successful cigarette lighters. With the invention of standard-sized lighter-flints in the early 1900s, mankind realised that portable firelighting was now possible, and on a scale much larger than just a box of matches. Lighters could be any size, any shape, and any style, so long as they all had the major components of a striker-wheel, wick, fuel-reservoir, flint-tube, flint and snuffer-cap or lid.

Early lighters were fiddly things. They resembled lipstick-tubes. You removed the cap, spun the wheel, and once you were done with the flame, you blew it out, or snuffed it by putting the cap back onto the lighter.

This might be alright, if you didn’t need a hand free to light the candle…or a cigar, or cigarette…or lamp…or incriminating business-documents…clearly, something better needed to be devised.

Enter: The lift-arm lighter.

Lift-arms started being made roughly around the time of the First World War. Two-part lighters with a separate body and cap were still around, but obviously in combat, it’s kind of tricky to be fiddling around with stuff like that when you need to light a fuse or a lamp or a candle in a hurry.

By the 1920s, lift-arms (and variations on that theme) became the go-to lighters for the discerning smoker. The design was simple:

A spring next to the snuffer-arm held it under tension. It either kept the arm closed, or open. The spring forced the arm to assume one of two positions, with the pressure of the spring holding it in that position until it was changed.

With this design, the size of lighters could be made more compact. There was no need for removable caps anymore, and as such, the whole top half of a lighter (which would usually cover the flint-wheel and wick etc) could be made much smaller. On top of that, a cigarette lighter could now be operated easily in one hand, rather than two.

In fact, a lighter could easily be operated by one FINGER, on one hand. When holding the lighter in one’s hand, ready for use, the only digit that moves, to open the snuffer-cap and strike the wheel, is the thumb. All other fingers remain stationary.

The famous concave-shaped lift-arm, on the top of the lighter, with ‘DUNHILL’ marked on it. To the left is the snuffer-cap, to the right is the L-shaped spring that holds the arm open, or shut.

Companies like K.W. Weiden, Dunhill, and many others besides, all made variations on lift-arm lighters, which were most popular between about 1920-1939. This particular model dates to 1930. For reasons I’ve never understood, the design died out after World War Two, with very few, if any, of this particular type of lighter being made in the postwar era. Some companies (Dunhill among them) did make some right up through the 1950s, but by the 60s, they appear to have dropped off the map completely.

After that, most companies (Dunhill included) switched over to spring-loaded snuffer-cap lighters, which could be opened, and lit, all in one movement, instead of the two-movement lift-arm-and-strike-wheel motion of the older lighters (the ZIPPO, based on a pre-war, 1930s design, is about the only lighter made today which still does that).

I think it’s because this style of lighter was around for such a short period of time (probably not more than two decades between the wars), that I find it so interesting. It dominated the world for a few brief years, and then was seen no more.

The arm lifted, ready for use…

Are Lighters like this Collectible?

Yes they are. Well, all lighters are collectible, but I think people like these above some other designs just because they represent a particular era in lighter manufacturing.

Are they Rare?

Not especially. The nicer ones, which were made in sterling silver, or even solid gold, are rare, sure. But a standard brass or nickel-plated one, similar to what’s shown here, is not especially rare. That said, they do cost a bit more than your average, vintage, liquid-fuel lighter just because of their age.

I notice the cap on the flint-tube doesn’t screw in all the way. Is it broken?

Nope! It’s designed that way. As the flint wears down, you tighten the cap, which increases pressure on the spring inside the tube, which causes it to press the remaining flint harder against the striker-wheel.

So What did you Have to Do to Get it Working?

Well, a fair bit, actually. Remember, this lighter is about ninety years old!

To get it working, I removed the wick, I removed the cotton wadding inside the lighter, and using a needle, I poked at, and broke up, the old chunk of flint still left inside the lighter.

The flint-spring was long gone. I got another one of the right size from another, broken lighter, and trimmed it to the right length using a pair of pliers. Then I simply slipped it into the tube, after a fresh flint. When buying a vintage lighter, keep in mind that there’s usually a piece of old flint stuck in the tube, from when the lighter was last operational. After decades, this flint hardens up, crumbles and clogs the tube. You can’t put another one in before you remove the blockage, and this can easily be achieved by poking the old flint with a needle or pin until it crumbles to dust. Then just tap it out of the tube. The tube is clear when you can see  the corrugated striker-wheel at the other end.

The next step was to replace the wick. I’m not going to lie – replacing a wick is a real lesson in patience. First, you need to remove all the cotton wadding inside the lighter…Yes, through that tiny hole in the bottom. The wick comes out after it.

After that, you need to insert a new wick. I recommend using Zippo wicks because they come with copper wire woven into the length of wick. This is useful because you can bend, shape and twist the wire to stop the wick from bunching up and kinking. Once you’ve twisted the wick and the wire into a thin enough point, you can simply poke it through the hole in the TOP of the lighter.

You may need some tweezers to help you with this. Ideally, the wick will snake through the body of the lighter, and come out the fuel-hole in the bottom. If it doesn’t, just catch it with some tweezers and yank it through, leaving maybe a quarter-inch of wick at the top (fold the wick over using the copper wire, to stop it from being accidentally yanked through the lighter).

The next step is to re-stuff all the wadding back into the lighter. If you want, you can change this for fresh wadding (use cotton-balls), but this isn’t strictly necessary. Cram the wadding into the body of the lighter any which-way, using tweezers or something similar to stuff it in. Fold and coil the wick back into the lighter as you go along, first one way, then the other, holding it in place using the chunks of wadding as you stuff them back in.

The final task is to juice up your lighter. Fill the wadding-packed compartment with as much lighter-fuel as you can squeeze into it. Be prepared for a bit of runoff.

Finally, screw in the filler-cap.

Last but not least, take a closer look at that filler-cap. You may notice that the inside of the cap has a little ‘nipple’ on it. Twist that thing and see what happens. In most cases, the nipple will gradually unscrew. This little compartment inside the filler-cap is meant to store spare flint-stones. Depending on the size of your lighter and the cap, you can easily store one or two extra flints in here. Don’t worry, the lighter-fuel all around them won’t damage them, and at any rate, the cap will keep them dry.

My Lighter Won’t Light!

The end-result.

Yeah that’s a bitch, huh?

A vintage lighter not lighting can be due to a number of factors.

1). The striker-wheel is worn out.

This rarely happens, but it can happen. Basically, the corrugations on the striker-wheel are worn so smoothly that they no longer catch the flint. Not much you can do about this. If you can actually remove the striker-wheel (this is sometimes possible, depending on the design of the lighter), then you can try filing in new grooves, but it’s a fiddly process. In most cases, a lighter with a worn-out striker wheel is a lost cause.

2). The striker-wheel is clogged.

Basically, the striker-wheel won’t strike because the grooves in the wheel won’t catch the flint. Same as above, except this time, they won’t catch the flint because the grooves that do the catching are clogged – usually with flint-dust from hundreds of previous strikings. You can fix this by using a needle or pin to scrape out all the gunk hiding inside the grooves. To make the process easier, you can try cleaning out the gunk using lighter-fluid, and cotton-buds.

3). The lighter won’t spark, but it has a new flint…?

Yeah this can happen from time to time. Usually the reason it won’t spark is because there isn’t enough pressure between the flint, and the wheel, which is regulated by the flint-spring (mentioned above).

To increase pressure, tighten the flint-tube cap. If the spring is really tired and worn out and dead, you can increase pressure in another way – put two flints into the tube, instead of one. This isn’t always possible, but if you can do it, it’s a cheap and dirty fix.

So How old is this Lighter?

Researching a number of online collections and catalogues suggests that this lighter is from ca. 1930, with a ‘wafer-pattern’ design on the body, as made by Dunhill in gold, silver, and brass (this is the brass model), the last of which could come with gold or silver plating as a variation. I doubt this one ever had any plating, but I love it, regardless!

 
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The Wonky Wertheim Winder

Almost exactly a year ago, I wrote this posting about an old Wertheim hand-cranked sewing machine that I bought. Since making that posting, I’d been struggling to find a replacement for the broken bobbin-winder on the machine. Well, this posting now exists because, at long last – I managed to find that replacement, and today, I fitted it onto the machine!

For those of you who don’t remember the Wertheim…here it is:

In this photograph, you may notice the elastic band wrapped around the bobbin-winder. That’s there for a very good reason. Because without it…this happens:

Unfortunately, nothing that I tried was able to fix this problem, so the only choice I had was to completely replace the winder. After asking around, I finally got the word from some friends of mine who had a replacement that they were willing to sell. For a nominal amount, I paid for the replacement and had it shipped to me. It arrived today, and I spent the whole of an hour or so, trying to fit it onto the machine.

The replacement winder. Surface-rust was a small price to pay for a working component. Sandpaper would deal with the grime.

Removing the old winder was the first order of business. The winder was affixed to the machine surprisingly simply. One screw, one bolt, and one spring.

Removing the spring was the easiest bit. A bit of tugging and stretching and it was released from the hook that attached it to the sewing machine. Next came the removal of the screw that held in the bolt, that held the winder onto the body of the machine. This too, was relatively easy, once I’d found the right screwdriver.

So far, so good.

The next step was to remove the winder from the machine. To do this, I had to remove the bolt that attached it to the side of the machine’s pillar. The bolt had a slot in it, so at first I thought that you had to unscrew the whole thing. After a few minutes tinkering with it, however, I realised that this was never going to work.

While I sat around feeling sorry for myself, I started work on the replacement winder. This was in full working order, albeit, very rusty order. I removed the rust with sandpaper, rubbing and grinding it off, and using an ultrasonic cleaner to blast out all the sanded grime. The more I removed now, the less I’d have to remove later. On top of that, it would be easier to remove the rust when the winder was off the machine, rather than on. Once I had removed as much rust as I could reach, or as much as I dared, without damaging the integrity of the piece (I didn’t need TWO broken winders!), and then returned to the one still fixed to the machine.

After examining the replacement winder, I realised that the bolt isn’t actually threaded. It just sits there. Finding a miniature hammer, I started tapping the edge of the winder still on the machine. Tap, tap, tap, tap…milimeter by milimeter, the winder came off, and the bolt came with it. Eventually I was able to just yank it right off. A couple more taps removed the bolt from the broken winder, and I recycled the bolt, and the screw, to mount the working winder onto the side of the machine.

The machine with the bobbin-winder FINALLY removed!

It took me a couple of tries to get the orientation of the new winder right, but once it was, the bolt slipped in smoothly. I cleaned it out with tissue-papers and sewing-machine oil to remove the grime and let it slide better, and once it was on, I tapped it back into place with the hammer, and then replaced the screw that I’d taken out earlier.

And there it is, with the decidedly less-attractive, but infinitely more functional, bobbin-winder fixed on. Mission complete! Fixing this was definitely an adventure, and a long one in the making, but at least it had a happy ending.

 
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Russian Silver Beaker (Moscow, 1850).

I think if you’re going to try and make it as an antiques dealer – even if it’s a small side-business or hobby that you do between other things, it’s good to hunt down, collect and keep the occasional trinket for yourself. A silent reminder to enjoy the things that you can come across while out hunting for stuff.

One example of this was something I picked up recently, a beautiful solid silver Russian pedestal beaker…

I’m not sure who the maker is, but this gorgeous piece of silver was manufactured in Moscow in the early 1850s, with a zolotnik mark of ’84’ on the rim (more about that, later). It’s comprised of two parts: The body, and the base, which are curved and circular in form, and soldered together at the neck. After buying it, I had a quick peek online to see what these things generally go for…and I think I got a pretty decent bargain, considering! Hahaha…Aaaaanyway…

The Russian Beaker

Let us begin at the beginning. This is a Russian silver – BEAKER. A beaker is different from a MUG in that beakers do not have handles. It’s called a pedestal beaker because it’s mounted on a pedestal, base, or foot. Not on a STEM, like a goblet, which is similar, but longer and thinner in shape.

How Was It Made?

Like most silverware, this piece was likely made using a series of hammers in a shaping process known as ‘raising’. Basically, you start out with a flat disc of silver (a ‘sheet’ as it’s called); you trace a circle on it, make a dent in the middle, to mark the center, and from the center, you work out and up, beating the sheet with a hammer in a series of concentric rings.

As you beat the silver, the metal stretches and forms, rising up as it’s manipulated by all the hammer-dents (hence ‘raising’ the silver). This builds up the sides of the cup. As the process continues, the silver would be heated (annealed) to soften it and remove brittleness. Failure to anneal the silver would mean that the constant beating would compact and harden the metal, making it brittle.

Eventually, the basic shape of the cup would be complete. A similar process would’ve been used to create the base. Once the two pieces had been made, they would’ve been planished and then burnished (smoothed out and polished), possibly on a lathe, to get uniformity of shape.

Once that was completed, the two parts would’ve been decorated – separately – before being soldered together.

The decoration on this piece is all hand-engraving. It is extremely intricate, but not exactly the best of quality – there are a variety of inconsistencies here and there around the body of the beaker. There are places where the decorations are uneven, or lines cross or cut into other decorations by accident.

Because of these inconsistencies, I suspect that this beaker was likely a practice-piece, made by an apprentice (student) silversmith, or a journeyman silversmith, who had graduated his apprenticeship but was still new to the craft, and who was attempting to show off what he had learned.

Whoever made it (the maker’s mark is unknown), the smith obviously felt that it was of sufficient quality to put on sale, because the beaker, warts-and-all, was sent off to be assayed!

Russian Hallmarks

By the 1800s, like with most other countries around Europe, Russia had established a solid system of hallmarking – the testing and certification of silverwares prior to their entrance onto the commercial market – a necessary middleman step to weed out any fraudsters and con-artists from cheating unsuspecting customers.

As with almost every other European country, the hallmarks followed a specific system: There was the place of assay, the date of assay, the purity of the silver, and the maker’s mark. This beaker includes a fifth mark, which is the mark of the Assay-Master – the name (or in this case, the initials) of the big-cheese who ran the office to which the beaker had been sent for assay.

In this case, the marks are:

[A.K.] [185-] [84] [Image of St. George and the Dragon] [Maker’s Mark in Cyrillic letters]

The hallmarks on the rim of the beaker. The fact that they’re uneven tells me that the beaker was hand-marked, using a hammer, a supporting-block, and a series of steel punches.

The A.K. stands for Andrey Anatovich Kovalsky, who was master of assay at the Moscow Assay Office until he left the post in 1856. The next mark is the ‘185-‘. This is the year of assay. I left the last number off because it’s not clear. But it still dates the beaker to a very narrow window – 1850 to 1856.

The next mark is ’84’. You would think that ’84’ is the purity – as in – 84%.

Well…yes…and no.

84 is actually the zolotniki.

“…the what?” I hear you ask.

The ‘zolotnik’ (plural ‘zolotniki’) was a Russian measurement of weight, which came from a 12th century gold coin – the zolotnik. Although the coin went out of circulation centuries ago, its name was repurposed in the 1700s for the national hallmarking of silver. There were four grades of zolotnik, starting at 96, then 90, 84, and 62 zolotniks (62 was later replaced by 72, which was replaced less than a century later, by 84, which remained the national lower-limit up to the time of the Revolution in 1917).

96 zolotniki = 100% pure silver.

90 zolotniki = 93.7% silver.

84 zolotniki = 87.5% silver.

So the mark of ’84’ on the beaker represents 87.5% silver purity.

The next mark is that of St. George slaying the dragon – a famous story from European folklore. This is the coat of arms for the City of Moscow, signifying where the piece was hallmarked.

The final mark, as with British silverware of the same era, is the maker’s mark, which was usually the maker’s initials. In this case, it’s his initials in Cyrillic (Russian) lettering. Unfortunately I don’t read Cyrillic script, and information on Russian maker’s marks can be very hard to find. We may never know who made this piece.

Closing Remarks

So is a beaker like this a rare piece? Yes and no. As a possible apprentice piece – probably. Russian silver is fairly rare, but not THAT rare. You can find it and you can definitely collect it. Although I imagine that pre-revolution pieces tend to fetch a premium.

Is it a piece of first-order manufacture? I don’t think so. I have seen other pieces online which looked even more lovely than this (and I think that’s pretty hard to beat!), but that said – the prices on those were hundreds, even thousands, of dollars more than what I paid, so I’m happy to have it! I think it’s beautiful, different and certainly unique!

 
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A German Stockman – Restoring a Vintage Pocketknife!

I got interested in pocketknives when I was in university. I found that I was doing a lot more cutting than I did previous to that point in my life. Cutting open food-containers, cutting open boxes, slicing paper, cutting open wrappers and plastic packaging, cutting tags…all kinds of things. And I often found myself in a situation where I needed a pocketknife, but didn’t have one. And after this happened more than a couple of times, I decided that the time was right for me to actually go out and find a nice knife.

Well, that was about ten years ago, and since then, I’ve gained a minor appreciation for antique and vintage pocketknives. I wouldn’t say that I’m an active collector of pocketknives, but I know what I like, and I sometimes go hunting for them at flea-markets and antiques fairs, and if I see something nice for a good price, I buy it. Depending on how practical the knife is, or how interesting or different it is, I may either add it to my small collection, or sell it after I’ve finished tinkering with it.

My current, modest knife collection. The largest knife is four inches from bolster to bolster.

That said, I don’t have a large collection of pocketknives. Maybe three or four small ones? I used to have loads more – at my max, about eight or nine, but I sold the vast majority of them simply because I tend to be a USER more than a COLLECTOR. I don’t like owning things that I don’t use, and so because of that I sold almost all of them, except ones which I really, really liked.

I have three little pen-knives with mother-of-pearl and ivory scales (if you’re a regular follower of this blog, you might remember I did a posting about a couple of those a few months back), and I used to have four or five others – which I gradually sold over time as I found better knives to replace them.

As of the writing of this particular post, I just sold another knife (a two-bladed English Barlow-pattern) online to trim down the collection a bit.

But that’s not what this posting is about. This posting is about the knife I found, which replaced that English Barlow!

…and there it is!

The German Stockman

I bought this knife about two weeks ago for a couple of tens of dollars. I don’t exactly blow the bank when it comes to buying pocketknives, and this is probably the most I’ve ever spent on a knife in my life! It’s a three-bladed slip-joint folding pocketknife, of a style known as the ‘stockman’, so-called because this design was originally meant for use by farmers, cowboys, drovers, shepherds and livestock managers. The three blades were meant to accomplish different tasks when it came to looking after livestock (I’ll get into that later on down the line…).

I liked the knife because it was a nice, medium-sized knife with blades of decent length and thickness, and it had the sort of simple, clean look that I generally go for in things that I like to use on an everyday basis. The three blades gave me options, and the black scales were elegant without being flashy.

How Do You Know it’s from Germany?

I’m not entirely sure what company made the knife, but it comes from Solingen, Germany. This much I do know, because it’s stamped on the shank of the blade. And as the ShamWow guy says: “You know the Germans always make good stuff!”

They sure do! After all, not for nothing has Solingen been the cutlery capital of Europe for the better part of…what? Five hundred, six hundred years? The cutlery trade in Solingen dates back, quite literally – to Medieval times.

They still make surgical blades, razors, scissors, kitchen-knives and cutlery and pocketknives there today! Famous companies like DOVO (straight razors), Wusthof (kitchen knives), and Boker (more razors), are all based in Solingen. The city was originally home to a famous guild of swordsmiths back in the Middle Ages. If you’re collecting antique straight-razors or pocketknives, you can generally rest assured that any knife with ‘SOLINGEN’ stamped onto the blade is worth the money spent to get it. After all – 700-odd years worth of knife-making has to count for something, right?

I don’t know how old the knife is, exactly, but my guess is that it’s from the early 20th century, most likely before WWII. That being the case, I doubt this knife is more than about 80 or 90 years old.

The Anatomy of a Pocketknife

The classic, slip-joint, folding pocketknife comes with about half a dozen different components. So  you can follow what I’m going to write later on in this post, here’s a breakdown…

The Blades

A knife obviously starts with the blade. Most slipjoint knives have at least two blades. Some only have one, most will have two or three. Some models made by other manufacturers (such as Victorinox in Switzerland) have knives which have loads of blades and accessories folded away. But for the basic knife, one, two, or three blades – sometimes four – is standard.

A slipjoint pocketknife will have blades that have ‘nail-nicks’ cut into them. These are the little grooves that run under the spine of the blade, so that you can actually pull the blade out of the knife-handle.

The Handle

The handle of the knife is made up of about four or five different components, they are…

The Bolsters

The bolsters are the end-pieces on the ends of the knife, usually made of nickel-silver, steel, or brass.

The Liners

The liners are flat strips of metal inside the knife. They’re usually made of brass, to prevent rusting. The liners serve as washers to reduce friction between the moving parts of the knife. There is a liner between each blade, and the exterior of the knife.

The Back-Spring

The spring is the flat, flexible steel lever or leaf-spring on the knife that holds the blades open, or shut. It flexes up and down as the blades are opened and closed. The tension on this spring is what stops the blades from flopping around.

The Pins/Rivets

Knives have pins or rivets punched through them. These are here to serve as pivots or hinges for the blades, and to hold the handle components (spring, liners, blades etc) together.

The Scales

Last but not least, you have the scales. Not all pocketknives have scales. Some do, some don’t. Their purpose is to protect the liners and the rivets and other components of the knife from damage, although these days, scales are largely there for decorative purposes. Scales can be made from almost anything – celluloid, wood, bone, ivory, mother-of-pearl, tortoise-shell, and even solid silver…are very common on antique and vintage knives.

Different Knife Models

Pocketknives come in various styles and types. While these days there are loads of different variations – when you’re looking at vintage and antique knives, you’ll largely come across a set group of basic designs, although these are by NO MEANS the only types out there, and there are countless variations. Here are just three or four of the really common ones…

The Stockman.

The three blades of the stockman, from left to right: Spey, Sheep’s Foot, and Clip.

The stockman is the knife-type which I’m building this posting about. Used by livestock cowboys, farmers and shepherds in the past – hence the name. The stockman is a three-blade folding knife, typically consisting of a clip, sheepsfoot, and spey blade. They range in size from a couple of inches to four or five inches long (the one I have is four inches, closed up).

The Barlow

My old Barlow knife which the stockman has now replaced! As you can see, I like simple, clean styling.

One of the OLDEST knives around, the ‘Barlow’ style pocket-knife has two blades at one end, one long all-purpose blade, and one shorter blade, usually for cutting pen-points for quills, and sharpening pencils. Barlows go back for CENTURIES and their use is dated all the way back to the 1600s.

The Trapper!

The trapper knife comes from the knives originally used by fur-trappers back in the 1700s and 1800s. Trapper knives have two blades on one end of the handle, and the blades are long and equal-length, used for killing and skinning animals for their fur pelts.

The Canoe.

The canoe-knife is exactly what it sounds like – a knife shaped like a canoe! It’s a smaller knife, with two blades, one on each end of the handle. The body of the knife is cigar-shaped, but with a dip in the middle on one side, and curved edges at the ends, giving it the general appearance of an American Indian canoe, hence the name.

There are loads of other knife-styles out there, but these are four of the most common ones that you’re likely to find at flea-markets, antiques shops, auction-houses, etc.

Restoring Your Pocket Knife!

Keep in mind that not ALL knives can be restored. Some can, some can’t. Some are just too far gone, too broken, rusted or damaged to be repaired or revived. Here, I’ll be walking you through what I do to all the knives that I’ve ever bought, fixed and sold, or kept and used.

If you have the tools and equipment, you can literally pull a knife to pieces and clean it that way, but I’m working with the assumption that you, like me, probably don’t have most of those things, and that you’ll be cleaning and restoring your knife WITHOUT pulling it apart. Based on that assumption, let’s begin!

So, you found a really sweet pocketknife at the flea-market, or in an antiques shop, that you really love! It’s just the right size, or perhaps it’s the style or shape, or the scale-material, or maybe it’s manufactured by the same folks who made the one that grandpa gave you…which you lost as a teenager…However it happens, you found a knife! Only…it’s not in the best condition. It’s not completely dead, but it’s a bit rusty, it’s really stiff and crudded up, and it couldn’t slice melted butter. So, what do you do?

Rust-Removal.

For me, the first step is always rust removal. To do this, you need sandpaper. Get fine or ultrafine sandpaper, and a lubricant (Brasso, or sewing machine oil are generally good). Rub the lubricant over the rusty areas (usually the blades, hilts and back-springs) and start rubbing the sandpaper over it. Start coarse, and work to fine, then ultrafine. If you want to, you can also use 0000-grade ultrafine steel wool for the really soft, last cleaning. The aim is to remove the rust, and polish the blade at the same time.

If the back-springs on the knife are really rusty, then if it’s on the outside – just run the knife back and forth across your chosen polishing-abrasive to remove the rust, with oil as a lubricant. If it’s INSIDE, then you can use a popsicle stick with some really fine steel wool, or sandpaper, to try and sand out the rust on the inside of the spring between the brass liners.

This should remove most of the surface-rust on your knife, while also polishing the blade. Keep in mind that almost all antique pocketknives have CARBON STEEL BLADES. These things rust if you even sneeze at them wrong, so having restored the shine on the blade, or at least, having removed the rust – keep the blades DRY when not in use, to prevent rusting, and clean them immediately after any use involving moisture. A single drop of water is all it takes to get rust growing on these antique blades.

Cleaning Out the Guts!

Antique knives are often CLOGGED with crud! Dust, grit, pocket-lint, hair and all other kinds of CRAP usually ends up jammed up inside these things. To clean it out, open the knife entirely, and using a needle, pin, or other suitable long, thin, sharp object – clean out the grooves and gullies between the washers, the springs and the blades. This can take a while.

Cleaning under the Scales.

On the vast majority of antique pocket-knives, scales are simply riveted or pinned onto the outside of the knife and are largely decorative in purpose. But that’s no reason why they shouldn’t look nice! Loads of gunk and crud can EASILY get BEHIND the scales, between the back of the scales, and the brass liners that make the body of the knife-handle. One way to clean this crud out is to use a pin or needle.

Only do this if you can actually get the needle into the gap between the liner and the scales. If you can, simply stick the needle in and wiggle it around from side to side, up and down, back and forth. This will scrape up all the crap that’s accumulated inside there over the course of DECADES, and sweep it out when you remove the needle.

Don’t be afraid if the scales suddenly POP UP! or even worse – drop off! This is nothing to be worried about. If the scales DO fall off, simply clean them (and the liners) as best as you can (either with tissues, water, oil, or a polishing compound) and them simply pop them back on, over the same rivets that held them in, in the first place. You may need to tap the scales back on to pop them back into place. If the scales are loose – apply some glue to them (or the liners) before reattaching the scales, then simply apply pressure to ensure proper adhesion, wiping away any glue that pops out the sides.

Voila! Nice, clean scales.

Lubricating and Cleaning the Pivots and Springs

When it comes to cleaning and restoring antique or vintage folding pocketknives, this is, almost without a doubt, the one part of the restoration that can take ages. Hours. Days. Even WEEKS, if you want to do it properly!

Loads of gunk builds up inside these knives, just from decades of use, and dust and crud and lint and grime getting into the mechanisms. This can make the knives very, very, VERY stiff. This makes them hard to open, hard to close, the blades pull on your fingernails, they’re painful to use, and even worse – you could CUT yourself if the knife suddenly springs open when you’re fighting with it!

So, how to fix this?

To do this, you’ll need three or four things:

  • A bottle of sewing machine oil (you could use WD-40 as well, but you’ll be using a LOT of lubricant, and WD-40 STINKS after long use, so…it’s not my first choice…)
  • Fine and Ultrafine Sandpaper.
  • Loads of tissue paper or toilet paper, or paper-towels.
  • Cotton-buds/Q-Tips.
  • A needle or pin (optional).

So long as it’s not physically broken or damaged in some way, the main reason why the blades on your folding, antique pocketknife jam, jar and won’t open or close smoothly, is because the knife is DIRTY. REALLY, REALLY, REALLY DIRTY. To have a knife that opens and closes smoothly – this DIRT needs to be REMOVED. Dirt causes FRICTION. That’s why your damn knife ain’t workin’ properly! Capiche?

“Can’t you just…I dunno…LUBRICATE IT with OIL?”

…Yeah. But what happens when the oil dries up? You’re right back to square one. To do it properly, the gunk has to be REMOVED.

“Yeah but I don’t have any way of pulling the knife apart. How do I remove this stuff?”

Fear not, young grasshopper!

What you’re gonna do is flood the knife with oil. Then, once the knife pivots and springs are full of oil, you’re going to open and close the blades several times. This wiggling and movement spreads the oil around inside the knife, inside the pivots and springs and hinges, between the blades and liners. It also dislodges any of the crud and gunk trapped inside.

Once you’ve done that – get a paper towel or tissues or whatever – folded up a couple of times, to make an absorbent pad. Place it on a flat surface like a tabletop.

Now, put the knife, spring-side DOWN (blades facing upwards), on top of the paper. Applying as much pressure as you can – rub the knife HARD, back and forth lengthwise across the tissue-paper.

I’ll pause here for a minute, while you recoil in disgust, at the black, oily, gunky brown crud that comes seeping out of your knife…

“But my knife ain’t that dirty!”. Wanna bet? This is what about ten minutes’ cleaning of the back-springs and liners on the stockman, looks like. The black, grimy streaks is all the crud and gunk trapped inside the knife, that the oil managed to dislodge and flush out! You wonder why your knife keeps jamming? THIS IS WHY!!

See all that stuff? That’s what’s inside your knife. That’s the grunk you’re trying to get rid of. That is the stuff that’s causing your knife to jam. Remember that the oil is transparent – so anything that comes out of the knife that is NOT transparent – is grime that’s causing the knife to jam.

Repeat this process as often as you must, until the oil that seeps out onto the tissue-paper is clear and transparent (or as close to transparent as you can get it). That means that the crud between the springs and pivots has finally been removed.

If you have an ultrasonic cleaner – pop the knife in there every now and then, to flush out even MORE gunk. Just remember to DRY it really well once you fish it out of the water.

Finally – you can use sandpaper to sand down the shanks and springs when they’re exposed, to remove any surface-rust or grime, to improve the action of the knife.

To achieve results this way, it can take days, even weeks, before all the crud is removed, but once it is, your knife will open and shut as smoothly as if it were new. No more stopping, jerking, tugging, breaking finger-nails, or risking slicing your fingers off, when opening your knives, ever again! If you haven’t achieved the results you want, that means that the knife is, in all likelihood, still clogged with grime. Keep going and don’t give up on it!

Also, it’s good to repeat this process every now and then (like every few months, if you use the knife regularly) to stop gunk from building up and jamming the blades again. Finally, once the knife is opening and closing nice and smoothly, lubricate the pivots and springs with one last drop of oil, and wipe it down to clean it.

Sharpening the Blades

The final step in restoring your antique or vintage knife, is sharpening the blades! For this, you’ll need a bucket of water, two or three high-quality sharpening stones, a sink, and a towel or tissue-paper. I always recommend leaving the sharpening of your knife to the VERY END. This prevents accidental cuts during the polishing, rust-removal and lubrication stages.

Soak your sharpening stones in your bucket of water for as long as possible (overnight or longer is best) until they’re nice and wet and have soaked up the water (high quality stones are often quite porous). Then rest them on a flat surface (kitchen counter or similar) and start sharpening.

Open one blade at a time, from your knife, and rest it on the flat surface of the stone, raised slightly on the spine, and so that the edge of the blade just kisses the stone. Slide the blade back and forth along the stone, in a wide, oval or figure-eight pattern, adjusting the angle and position of the blade as you go, to sharpen its entire length, including any curves in the blade. Do this as fast as you can without damaging the blade, at least twenty times. Flip the blade over and repeat the process on the other side. If done properly, the blade will slide smoothly along the stone. If it jars or scrapes, then you’ve got the wrong angle!

Once you’ve done twenty or more strokes for each side, remove the blade, wash or wipe it down with the tissues or towel, and then start on the next blade. It can take a while to sharpen a blade successfully (especially if it’s curved) but patience will yield results!

Closing Remarks

Anyway, that just about does it for me. Hopefully these instructions were useful to you in reviving that old pocketknife you found lying around somewhere, and has restored it to being a useful tool yet again! Tinkering with stuff like this is lots of fun and it stops otherwise useful things from being discarded and tossed out. Which in the case of this knife, would’ve been a real shame…