Knife collecting is an extremely rewarding experience for knife enthusiasts. There truly is a knife for everyone. Many increase or hold their value throughout the years, making collecting knives something to pass on to the next generation of knife collectors.
To understand the Camillus M3, you need to know a bit about the history of the company that originally designed it.
It all ended for the original Camillus on February 2007. The old Camillus went gone out of business due to poor sales, a workers’ strike and a lockout—and then the long-time knife manufacturer filed for bankruptcy. Acme United Corporation bought the company’s brand name and intellectual property rights, relaunching the Camillus brand in 2009.
Camillus hadn’t always had business problems. The company was founded by Charles Sherwood in 1876 and became a good candidate for buying when the Dingley Tariff Act, which greatly raised the import duty on knives, was enacted in 1897. The company then had 20 employees.
This issue’s cover knife, here’s the one of six “Salesman’s Sample” M3s Camillus made in the early 1990s that Bill Adams found in a bucketful of leftovers he bought at the auction of the old company in 2007. According to Phil Gibbs, who worked at Camillus when the one of six M3 was produced, it was “truly handmade” in the Camillus Model Shop. (Terry Moss image)
The War Years
In 1902, Adolph Kastor, a powerhouse of a leader, bought Camillus and the company grew quickly. Camillus had grown to over 200 employees by 1910 and produced over 900,000 knives that year alone. During World War I, the manufacturer cranked out over 470,000 knives for the U.S., British, Canadian and Dutch governments.
The company continued to do well during the ’20s and ’30s. It had knife contracts with Sears Roebuck & Co., Shapleigh Hardware, Simmons Hardware and Woolworth. In fact, in the ’30s Camillus had the reputation of being the highest quality maker of knives in the United States.
During World War II, the company made over 15 million knives for the U.S. Armed Forces. Throughout the Vietnam War, Camillus produced the GI four-blade utility knife, the pilot survival knife andthe U.S. Marine Corps 7-inch Mark II.
(Author’s note: Camillus had developed the Mark II during World War II, and made more Mark II’s than anyone else, though the Marines stillcalled the Camillus-designed Mark II knife “the Ka-Bar.”)
The New-and-Improved Camillus M3
In the 1980s, the U.S. Armed Forces discussed improving the M3. Then in issue to troops, the M3 having been first produced and issued in 1943.
Of course, that was very interesting to Camillus—the company had designed the M3 in 1942—and military contracts, with additional sales in the commercial market to users and collectors, would be very welcome.
The Camillus prototype shop started work on improving the new M3 design. Most everyone thought the blade was OK as it was—6.5 inches long, .85 inch wide and made of carbon steel.
(Top) Most everyone thought the blade of the original M3 was OK as it was—6.5 inches long, .85 inch wide and made of carbon steel. As a result, the blade of the newer M3 maintained the same specs. (Bottom) The stacked leather handle of the “newer and improved” M3 has five grooves and is longer (4.7 inches) than the World War II original. (Terry Moss images)
The stacked leather handle had five grooves and was longer (4.7 inches) than the World War II version of the knife. The handle diameter was larger (1.2 inches wide) and had a pinned-on stepped pommel 1.35 inches wide.
The guard was a little wider than the one on the World War II knife. The lower leg/quillon was marked on the front with a capital “M” in a circle over the number “4.” The new design M3 weighed 9 ounces finished.
(Left) The guard of the newer M3 design is a little wider than the World War II knife. The lower leg/quillon is marked on the front with a capital “M” in a circle over the number “4.” (Right) The handle diameter of the newer M3 is larger (1.2 inches wide) than the original and has a pinned-on stepped pommel 1.35 inches wide. (Terry Moss images)
One of the things the U.S. Armed Forces learned in Vietnam was the importance of guarding against mold and insects—leather handles had deteriorated quickly in the jungle.
As a result, the new knife’s handle was saturated with deterrent. It would use the current fiberglass M8A1 sheath, the same sheath in issue for the M7 bayonet.
The 12th president was and is a hot knife commodity.
Some examples from the article of “Old Zach” bowies that included the American general and president’s name, slogans or likeness. The lower bowies have his visage, the second from bottom a stamp motif on the ricasso of Taylor on horseback, the bottom a bust of the celebrated general.
Ever in tune with what’s popular at the moment, knifemakers have never been afraid to cash in on a hot trend. William R. Williamson documented one of the more peculiar vogues of the middle 19th century when Zachary Taylor and bowie knives were all the rage.
Fresh off his triumphs in the Mexican-American War, Taylor was the 1850’s version of a rock star—Americans just couldn’t get enough of him. And while not known to carry a bowie nor affiliate with the hero of the Alamo—Jim Bowie—the general and president’s likeness began to pop up on the most American of knives.
Funny thing is, as William’s points out in his article “Old Zach and the Bowie Knife,” from the March-April issue of The American Blade®, it wasn’t the Yanks cashing in. Instead, England Sheffield’s makers had the pulse of the USA and stamped Taylor’s visages on blades and bolsters.
Unfortunately, Old Rough and Ready’s short-lived presidency didn’t inspire the same outpouring of effigies. But modern collectors did and do find these unusual and patriotic blades desirable, as Williamson points out in his article.
Spyderco founder Sal Glesser once said, a tactical knife is any knife you have with you when you need a knife.
Some say custom knifemaker Bob Terzuola made the first tactical folding knife, while others say Ernest Emerson did.
Maybe it’s all a marketing gimmick!
A Brief History the Tactical Knife
The term “tactical knife” was coined in the mid-1990s to define a look with certain characteristics. Regarding fixed blades, the characteristics included a non-reflective blade coupled with either no guard or one of stainless steel. Some still use brass and others incorporate titanium for guards, while some use black zirconium. Currently, zirconium’s price deters both makers and collectors. If the price comes down you can expect to see more zirconium for guards. Handle materials should be synthetics, including but not limited to Micarta®, G-10 and carbon fiber. However, these three are far and away the most popular handle materials on today’s custom tactical fixed blades.
Over the past century grip materials have evolved from wood, leather washers and even cast brass and aluminum to the current synthetics. In the mid ’90s, primarily Micarta was used. Linen, paper and rag Micarta were the staples of the day. G-10 then came along, offering more colors and configurations. Over the past five years carbon fiber has increasingly become a handle material of choice.
The non-reflective blade was accomplished through several methods, the most common being a belt satin finish. As the name implies the finish was applied simply by using a sanding belt. This gave the blade a good-looking surface that was not reflective.
Key Tactical Knife Feature: Non-Reflective Finish
Another method was sand blasting. While providing a non-reflective finish, this technique had a problem. The sand created micro pits in the steel. The pits held moisture, leading to blade rust. That led to replacing the sand with silicon glass beads that did not leave pits and produced a more even, flat-gray, non-reflective finish.
Walter Brend and BLADE Magazine Cutlery Hall-Of-Fame® member Chris Reeve were early proponents of techniques previously used on firearms to blacken their blades/knives.
Chris utilized a black Gun-Kote® finish early on, and Chris Reeve Knives still does today. Brend was asked to produce blades with a black finish and he used Parkerizing to do it. Both finishes were/are subject to scratches. The scratches were especially noticeable when the knife was combined with a Kydex sheath.
Today finishes such as those from Cerakote® and other specialty outfits can provide choices not only of color but also of surface designs for your blade.
See More Tactical Knives at BLADE Show West
The world’s biggest and best knife show, BLADE Show, is coming to Portland, Oregon, from Oct. 5 to 7, 2018.
Drawknives Are A Woodworker’s Best Friend And One Of Many Unique Knives Craftsmen Use Regularly
Knives take on many shapes and sizes. As tools, their designs sometimes focus on specific tasks. In the case of the drawknife, it is designed for woodworking. Drawknives have been found to date back to the Viking era more than a millennium ago.
The design itself takes many different shapes for a variety of purposes. At times, it is not referred to as a drawknife but, at first glance, you can see the relationship and how a number of tools can be considered part of the same family. As with any tool, different cultures have different interpretations of how the tool should be designed.
What Is A Drawknife?
A drawknife is a single-beveled blade placed between two handles. The tool gets its name from how it is used. You simply grab both handles and draw the knife towards you bevel up. Controlling the angle that the blade enters the wood will control the depth of cut. A steep angle will get you a deeper, more aggressive cut but will also require more effort.
Lowering the angle makes for a shallower cut and also gives you a finer finish as the material is removed less aggressively. Some designs have long handles on plane with the blade. Other designs have the handle tight in and below the plane of the blade. No matter where the handles are, the action is the same but the point of control changes.
Top row, from left: a German-style drawknife made in Western Germany, Mora push knife, English-style drawknife, Flexcut 5-inch drawknife and a cooper’s knife. Bottom row, same order: Round drawknife and a chair maker’s scorp.
How To Use A Drawknife
When working with a narrow stock up to two inches wide, it’s easy enough to draw the knife straight back toward you. On wider stock, it is better to skew the knife. Skewing the knife provides a leading edge and causes less resistance during the cut. When working with hardwoods you want to keep the cut light, as the dense grain provides more resistance and bogs the knife down.
If you skew the knife and work the corners it is easy to remove long curls.
Even when working a flat when skewing the drawknife blade you can get some beautiful shavings.
Learning to use a drawknife properly is a bit like working a puzzle. The easiest way to make a cut is to work the facets of the material. For instance, say we are working on a piece that is square. To shape the piece to the required size it is easier to work the corners down, creating more corners until you get to your desired shape. By working the flats, you must use more energy and struggle to make a cut.
When first using a drawknife, the tendency is to use your arms to power the tool. Instead, use your back muscles, which are larger and less likely to fatigue quickly. Draw the knife back as if you were using the same muscle for rowing. If done right, it should feel like your shoulder blades are trying to meet in the middle of your back. For safety’s sake, keep your elbows in tight. As you draw the knife back your elbows will hit your core acting as a safety stop, preventing you from slipping and cutting yourself.
Types Of Drawknifes
A debarking knife is usually a larger style of drawknife used for extracting bark from logs. They are larger and heavier than their woodworking counterparts so that you can blast through the bark.
It has been my experience that when working green wood, the knife doesn’t need to be kept as sharp. In fact, it is somewhat more helpful to keep the knife a bit dull when cutting green wood so as to avoid diving too deep into the wood itself. On seasoned logs, because of the lack of sap between the bark and sapwood, I find it better to have the knife a bit sharper.
Woodworking drawknives come in a variety of shapes and sizes. The two main types I have used: English and German. The English style has a blade that bares a slight arch and the handles are on the same plane as the blade. German-style knives have handles that sit lower than the blade and the blade tends to be straight. The knives’ handles can vary. Most of mine have a pear-like shape. There are other styles like a round knob style, which is a ball shape.
The English style drawknife has a small but thin bevel that makes for some beautiful curls.
The German knife has a steep angle to the bevel. If used straight across a narrow piece wood, it can remove large amounts of material. At the time of the photo, the author had not finished cleaning up the blade, ergo the hammer marks in it.
Specialty styles of knives include any drawknife that is shaped to obtain a specific result. A cooper’s knife is shaped to accommodate the making of barrel staves. I also have a handle-making knife. The handle-making knife is a tight arch designed to make handles for things like brooms or garden implements. The basic shape is a half circle, so instead of trying to round a piece off by angling a number of cuts, you get a piece of wood close to size and simply let the knife shape it.
The cooper’s shave is designed to hollow out the staves of a barrel.
Push Knife
The model uses the Mora push knife to clean up curls left at the bottom of a curve. With the push knife, you can work the wood in an opposite direction without repositioning the piece.
A Scandinavian invention, the push knife is similar to a drawknife in that it has a blade attached by two handles on either side. Using a push knife is different in the way that you are expected to force the edge away from your body instead of pulling it toward you. Unlike a drawknife, the handles come straight out from the sides, which allows you to either push or pull the knife. I normally use the knife in the manner that gets the job done—meaning on occasion I will draw the knife toward me rather than push.
What Is A Scorp?
Technically, scorps are not drawknives. However, in terms of looks and use you can’t help but lump them in the same family. I have a chair maker’s scorp that is designed to hollow out the seats of chairs. On older chairs is a slight depression where the person sits. A chair maker’s scorp was used to produce the shape. The tool operates just like a drawknife except it has a shorter blade with a more pronounced arch.
How To Sharpen A Drawknife
Like any other cutting tool, a drawknife must be sharpened. Perhaps the trickiest part of sharpening a drawknife is finding a way to brace it. I find dynamic sharpening the easiest way to sharpen a drawknife. I brace the knife and move the sharpening medium instead of the other way around. One way to brace the knife for sharpening is to put one handle in your armpit and hold the other handle in your off hand. Once the knife is braced this way, take a stone to it. Another way is to brace one handle on the bench, lean your chest on the other handle, and then begin sharpening. Keep in mind a drawknife must be sharp (except where noted previously) but since it is not necessarily a fine woodworking tool, don’t get carried away.
YouTuber James Wright shows you how to sharpen a drawknife using a set of sharpening stones in his shop.
Lastly, keep it oiled. Even the newer ones are not made from new high-tech steels. Most are from simple carbon stock and a light coat of oil goes a long way. Among others, Flexcut offers a contemporary drawknife.
Other Wood Carving Tools
Beyond drawknives and planes, there are many other types of wood carving knives out there that can help with some of the finer points of woodworker. Small, nimble wood carving knives like a sloyd knife or a spoon knife.
A sloyd knife is a short, sturdy blade good for small, finite carving tasks. A spoon knife, as the name suggests, is meant to carve out the concave scoop of a spoon but can be used for any other situation where you are trying to create a concave dip in the material.
There are certainly more than just these few tools to being a successful woodworker, but knowing how to use wood carving tools big or small can get you on the path to success.
Why To Use A Drawknife
Long before there was solar power, fossil fuel power, steam power, etc., there was muscle power. Humans developed the world using tools with muscle and sweat. There is something satisfying about making something by hand. The feel of a good day’s work is sometimes what the soul needs. A drawknife not only gets the job done but also gives you an accomplishment to savor.
Small game can be even more challenging to dress out than large game. Consequently, makers build what are called bird and trout knives, which generally feature thin, slender blades 3 to 3.5 inches long. You can find such knives with both drop-point and skinner-style blades.
The blade is primarily designed for the tasks of dressing out birds and fish, hence the name. Birds are generally dressed out to harvest the breast meat. Fish are dressed to get the fillets. (Most hunters and fishermen discard the remainder of the bird and fish.)
While a fillet knife may be the better choice for dressing out fish, you then must carry two knives.
The other choice is a folder with a 2.5-to-3-inch blade. Some feature a blade and a gut hook. As this implies, the idea is to insert the hook into the bird or other small game to pull out the intestines and the rest of the intestinal tract.
Generally, the ideal bird-and-trout folder has either a 2.75-inch drop-point blade or is a multi-blade with 2.25- or 2.75-inch blades featuring a combination of a skinner and a drop point.
While most don’t think of a folding knife when it comes to dressing out game, there is a place for such a knife in your hunting gear.
