Theater knife

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A coworker had a knife the other way. His friends still in the machine shop back home made a knife and sent it to him in a care package to the Aleutians. It was a big Bowie style, looked like they expected him to take on a Polar bear.
 
Gunny, you ain't gonna believe this, but my old man may have made that knife.
I had one of the last he made, a skinning knife. I gave it to a good neighbor of mine. He has left for the holiday weekend so I could not get a picture of it to you. I will do that soon here.
My dad made about 25 of them back in the 50's. He got the sheets of plastic at a place called "House of Plastics" in Detroit. The blades were all made of real sword blades that were sold at a war surplus place in Detroit called Silversteins.(or close spelling.)
He cut up squares of the plastic and drilled them. I'd have to guess at how he cemented them together on the shank of the blades. He then shaped and polished the plastic. As a young boy I only saw the squares of plastic and the finished products.
He made butcher knives, (long butcher knives) hunting knives etc. just as a hobby. Most were given to his friends.
Picture to follow after Thanksgiving.
 
Gunny, you ain't gonna believe this, but my old man may have made that knife.
I had one of the last he made, a skinning knife. I gave it to a good neighbor of mine. He has left for the holiday weekend so I could not get a picture of it to you. I will do that soon here.
My dad made about 25 of them back in the 50's. He got the sheets of plastic at a place called "House of Plastics" in Detroit. The blades were all made of real sword blades that were sold at a war surplus place in Detroit called Silversteins.(or close spelling.)
He cut up squares of the plastic and drilled them. I'd have to guess at how he cemented them together on the shank of the blades. He then shaped and polished the plastic. As a young boy I only saw the squares of plastic and the finished products.
He made butcher knives, (long butcher knives) hunting knives etc. just as a hobby. Most were given to his friends.
Picture to follow after Thanksgiving.
Sounds interesting.
 
OK_ here we go! My neighbor is still away but I will get pictures of his knife when he returns.
One of the last knives to be distributed when my father passed is in the possession of my brother. He has made available the pictures of the long butcher knife that he has. The blade as I remember is 12-15 inches long.
knife2.jpg knife1.jpg
The color pattern must be some kind of cryptographic code?
The blades used in these knives were fashioned from sword blades sold at the surplus place. I was about 10 years old at the time and I can remember a wooden barrel full of blades. All in some state of rust. None had any hilts or guards, just bare blades. These might date back to the Spanish American wars. They were 3-4 dollars each .
M1 Garands were displayed by the rackful and were about $90 as I recall.
Pictures of the other knife to follow Monday if I can get access.
 
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Interesting, but as RC and I discussed it can be challenging to sort knives made overseas during WWII from those made stateside during the war.
 
Gunny's knife may have been one of the first made by my old man. Dad had to work out the kinks in making the knives. Some hilt failures had to be scrapped.
Plastics like these were not common during the war and might not have been available until the 1950's era when my dad started to make the knives.
The blades used by my dad could be sharpened to a razor edge, but sadly needed sharpening too soon in my reckoning.
 
Scrap plexiglass was available in all theaters of operation. Not only was it used for knife handles, a number of pistol grips were fashioned out of it as well, often with pictures of sweethearts or pinups under them.
 
Nice looking handle on that knife, bet there are a few deferences. The colors in the Handel on my knife are paint or something else added, when the colors in the handle your dad made it in the material itself. On mine, each piece has a thin sheet of brass between them.
There was plenty of plexiglass, or whatever they called it, around during WWII. It was used in place of glass on plains. Some of it was pretty thick.
 
I've handled a number of what I believe are theater knives. Many started off as bayonets from one country or another, with hardware and sheaths or scabbards cobbled up from whatever was handy. I had one that used flattened toggle switch bezels as spacers between thick discs of plexiglass that possibly came from aircraft windshields. The blade was marked "PAL".
There were many others.
The ones that seemed older all had clear plexi panels, most had aircraft aluminum spacers. A few had solid cast aluminum grips formed directly on very hard, very thin steel blades that had no markings and looked kind of like Fairbairn pattern knives. I still have one of those.
 
Gunny, your pictures fooled me. On second thought the slabs are clear? It's still hard to clearly see. At first glance it looked like my fathers work. Hey maybe your knife inspired him to start making these? :)
 
Gunny's knife may have been one of the first made by my old man.

That may be nice to think, but it is a long shot considering the years and miles. OTOH, old knives have traveled years and miles so ya never know.

In this case we can't know since the knife is unmarked and isn't that unusual for a knife made by hand of that era.
 
Well, at any rate they look similar. :) Gunny, Your new pictures are fabulous! I can really see the quality and the reason you bargained for it when you did. The idea of interior coloring is quite unusual. Too bad the craftsman did not at least leave his initials on the blade or inside the hilt.
BTW- is there a "LEFT HANDED" knife as opposed to ......?
 
Gunny's knife looks a lot like the ones that I picked up over the years - thick plexi separated by thin shim stock of some sort and some chunks of aluminum castings or aircraft sheet aluminum of various gauges.
Some hilts and pommels appeared to be castings, but most looked to be chunks of engine parts that were ground to shape.
I always figured that they were turned out in maintenance shops and then traded to the G.I.s.
I usually found these in old tackle boxes or tool boxes.
 
-Another mass-produced "trench art" item (beside enemy battle flags) was the ship clock that was to be found on so many televisions in the '50s and '60s. The originals were made from packing case braces, G.I. flashlight lenses, switch fences, rifle cleaning rods, boot eyelets, ammo can tops, clocks taken from aircraft, and other bits of scrap.
image.jpg

They became so popular that companies kept right on making them after WWII and the Korean War were long over - much like the "trench art" knives.
 
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