How Pocket-Knives are Made
What if I could find a description of how pocket knives were made in 1880 as told by an expert at that time, would that be of interest to you? I thought it would- This fascinating article is from The Manufacturer and Builder published in 1880.How Pocket- Knives are Made
The manufacture of pocket cutlery is one of the industries in which remarkable progress has lately been made in this country, and the products of our home manufactories will compare favorably with the best foreign made. As this growing branch of industry possesses certain special details of interest, we give in what follows an account of the processes of manufacture employed, on the authority of a capable expert, who has witnessed the operation from first to last.
The best pocket cutlery are hand-forged- not cut or stamped out. They are usually made in three heats, perfect form when leaving the anvil, except the beveling of the backs of the blades to guide engaging blades when closed into the handle. These bevels are formed by grinding. The steel is heated in a coke fire, and the blades are forged on an anvil set with dies- anvil and hammer being of peculiar form. A good forger seldom uses a gauge, the perfection of the form of the blade being assured by practice. An experienced forger will turn out about 30 pocket-blades, or 40 pen-blades, per hour. When the blades come from the forger, they are filed to make a nick between the blade and the tang, which is then ground and stamped with the manufacturer’s trade-mark. The blades are then hardened and tempered, two at a time, being heated in a coke fire, plunged in water, and drawn over a fire. This work requires a practiced hand to secure evenness of temper. If the blades are sprung in the operation, they are straightened by blows from the poene of a hammer, the blows being delivered on the concave side. 
The blades are next ground, first on the Wichersley stone form England, and then on a Nova Scotia stone. The glazing or finishing of the blades is not done until they are put into the handles. This finish is produced on emery wheels, and finally on wheels of lead, fed with cake emery and crocus.
The “scales” or linings of the handles are made of sheet-iron, brass, or German silver, punched in presses from sheets. When “bolsters” are used- that is, the metal finish placed at the ends of some handles- 
they are formed in drop-presses with dies, a teat or projection being formed on the inside of each at the same time, which enters a hole in the scale, and is secured to the same by a drop-press firmly riveting the two together. The central portion of the scale is recessed from the outside, to leave the upper portion somewhat projecting, in order that it shall insure a close fit with the material forming the outside of the handle.
The springs are punched in dies from sheet steel, and then dropped between smooth dies to make them perfectly flat.The blades, scales, springs and the roughly sawed-out scale covers, are then assembled, placed in gauges or gigs, and the holes for riveting the handles, scales and springs, and that for the pivot of the blade, are drilled and the parts temporarily united by wires in place of the rivets. The knife then goes to the cutter, who tempers the springs, rivets the parts, and completes the knife, except the final polishing and the “setting” or honing of the blades. The springs are heated over a charcoal fire, a dozen at a time being strung on a wire.
The recesses int he handles to receive the nameplate are cut by a double rotary cutter or two minute cutters rotated rapidly, the cutters being connected by a spring and guided by a hole of proper shape made through a steel template. Shoulders on the shanks of the cutters gauge the depth of the cut.
The final finish of the handles is given by rotten-stone on wheels of walrus hide.
The handles are of mother-of-pearl, tortoise shell, ivory, buffalo horn, cocoa wood, bone or ebony. The buck-horn or stag-horn handles are made principally for the Southern market, where they have the preference over all others. The rivets which form the pivots of the blades are made either of iron or German silver wire.
Source: The Manufacturer and Builder, page 155
Photo Credit: My Case Brothers Cutlers ad card c. 1898- 1915; The Knife Makers Who Went West, by Harvey Platts c. 1896- 1905
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