I recently inherited some stuff, among the things was a small blade that looks to be from a tool of some sort.
Here is what I know.
It was found in the 1950’s in upstate New York, near Rochester.
It’s iron and there is a small amount of wood around the rivets at the shank.
Any ideas what this blade is?
My total SWAG is a tine from a vintage/old-school tiller or cultivator.
Looks like a lead caming knife.
Example
That’s interesting because this would be very close to corning New York and they do a ton of glass up there.
I thought “knife” of some sort at first, since it looks like the kind that Tommy Lee Jones taught Benicio del Toro to make and then eventually killed him with in “The Hunted”, but then didn’t really think tang was long enough and didn’t see two pins, just the one, and it looks more like a rivet or something to hold/hang a tine thing on. Is there a second spot on the piece that looks like it was a second pin or rivet for a tang? Does the rivet apparent in pic go all the way through and similarly extend out the other side?
There is only one rivet, and it’s at the very end. The end is also rounded, so it looks like it is the end and there would not have been another rivet further down.
Another interesting thing to note is that dispite it’s rust it’s still got a significant edge to it. You could still cut someone with it.
That makes me think it’s not a tine-thing…I don’t think one would normally sharpen something like that to that extent…right?
So probably @yashsedai FTW. Sigh…my day just keeps getting worse.
Based on its construction, I’m going to guess its made similarly to quite a few osborne style knives.
Quite a few of their knives have a handle that has a ferrule and a single pin/rivet.
https://www.csosborneindustrialtools.com/product/?cat=20
https://www.csosborne.com/l-knives_1.htm
Looks like a riving knife designed to reduce load on the saw blade if you run your hand through it backwards.
Would a riving knife be sharp? This thing is very sharp.
Yes. Like I said, it’s for when you feed your hand into the table saw backwards - it does a little pre-work for the saw blade.
Most probably an incorrect guess, but it looks like a blubber cutter blade, like for rendering whales, (sad and barbaric as that ancient industry was). Just my WAG.
It was found way up state in new York, so probably not a lot of whales around, however it does feel like it could have been a skinning knife of some kind. It’s really thin and still really sharp.
aka “flensing”
