sheffield knife grinder

[mat]

a few months ago a sheffield knife forging vid was posted the man in his heyday forged 2 gross a day i was rewatching it today and noticed the youtube channel had another great vid posted on knife grinding.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfXYBheE_Fs

[Eddie Mullins]

Great videos. I didn't see the OP for the forging video but found it, I have watched it over and over again now, lots to learn from it. Thanks for the post.

[John McPherson]

I had heard of a baker's dozen (13), but I had never heard of a blade forger's dozen (14). Great videos.

 

BTW, George Herron used to knock out a gross of blades on the grinder before lunch. He said he got better rates on heat treating in big batches.    0-o

[Frosty]

13-14? A gross is a dozen dozen - 144. Unless gross means something else in England something that wouldn't surprise me a'tall a'tall. 26-28 blades in a day sounds doable for someone less than a superman.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Steve Sells]

you said 2 gross?  I find it hard to fathom 288 blades in one day, unless its a machine doing the work.

[metalmangeler]

Maybe they were just forged and not ground?

[ThomasPowers]

Yes he was the *forger*; the grinder was someone else.  You also notice he was referring to small work; so things like pocket knife blades and he mentioned working LONG hours.  They were paid on a piecework basis so cranking them out was good for the paycheck

[Loneforge]

Cool video thanks for sharing

[Frosty]

As I recall Mr. Craven saying, there were four stages done by different craftsmen. Forger, Grinder, handle fitter and sheath maker.

 

I wonder what one of the small knives cost.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

[ThomasPowers]

look through the old sears&roebuck catalogs---the ones with complete blacksmith setups for $12.  If the knife was Sheffield it will be listed as such as a selling point.

 

Anyone know when that video was made?

 

The handle maker was the "cutler" and in medieval/renaissance times generally let the contracts for all the other stages and acted as POC for sales.

[Eddie Mullins]

The forging video was made in 1978 if that the one you are referring to. So he started in 1902.

[JHCC]

On 6/8/2013 at 4:13 PM, Steve Sells said:

you said 2 gross?  I find it hard to fathom 288 blades in one day, unless its a machine doing the work.

Yup. Mr. Craven says that when he started, they were paid at 14 to the gross, so that was forging 336 blades per day. "And that was terribly hard work" is a top contender for Understatement of the Year.

In the video, he's shown making two pocketknife blades in about six minutes, but that's with him pausing to explain what he's doing. (The video also cuts back and forth between him and the anvil, but doesn't seem to skip much of the forging process. He may have been even faster.) Let's say that in his heyday (and he does say that he was one of the fastest forgers in Sheffield) he was working twice as fast, averaging two blades in three minutes. That's well within an eight hour work day. 

If he's talking 12 to the dozen and we assume two blades in four minutes, that's still about nine and a half hours of forging per day, not unreasonable.

Pretty XXXX impressive, anyway.