Bolster Styles

[WhittlinAway]

Square, round, lined, pinched, threaded, rat tail.... I appreciate the rich variety of bolster styles that we have in the traditional pocket knife world, but am sometimes uncertain about the accepted names for certain styles. Likewise, when I see a style referred to without a picture, I sometimes wonder whether I'm imagining what the author intended.

I've looked for an illustrated guide to bolster styles, but have not found one. Does anyone know of a good resource? Or, do we have a thread that covers it? If so, I'd appreciate someone pointing me to it.

If not, how about we compile one here?

 

[supratentorial]

Levine's guide has an illustration from the 1933 Winchester Sales Manual.

 

[Railsplitter]

Jake, you are the God of historical documentation! Good stuff!

 

[supratentorial]

Ha! Thank you, Rick. Glad to help.

 

[WhittlinAway]

Thanks supratentorial , that's very helpful.

What's the difference between threaded, ribbed, and fluted? Is ribbed the same as threaded, but with multiple "threads"? To be fluted, do the channels just need to be wider, or is there also, for example, a rounded channel vs square channel aspect?

 

[cbr1000]

Huh, I've always thought of the "threaded" bolster as a "lined" bolster. I'd be interested to see pictures of the "threaded rib" and "spoon threaded" bolster if anyone happens to have one in their collection.

 

[Jack Black]

Good stuff Jake



Here's a threaded bolster

 

[WhittlinAway]

Here's an example of one with which I'm uncertain of its name:

Is this Schrade Walden 804 bolster threaded or fluted? Or something else?

 

[jc57]

Fluted.

 

[LastRodeo]

Levine's guide has an illustration from the 1933 Winchester Sales Manual.

Jake, I recall you once stating that a pinched bolster is not traditional. Am I remembering that correctly?

 

[supratentorial]

I think a pinched bolster is "traditional". It was used more sparingly in the past. In my opinion, it has been way over used by Schatt & Morgan and Northfield. But that might be changing a bit. For example... and if I recall correctly... my American Whittler was a Northfield with fluted bolsters. It's mostly just a matter of preference but it was more common on some knives than others.

 

[Jack Black]

Here's some Thomas Turner Pinched Bolsters

 

[AShearer]

Jake, you are the God of historical documentation! Good stuff!

Ask and we shall receive from Jake, of course!

 

[AShearer]

Here's an example of one with which I'm uncertain of its name:

Is this Schrade Walden 804 bolster threaded or fluted? Or something else?

I would call that fluted?

 

[AShearer]

Here's some Thomas Turner Pinched Bolsters

Another example of historical documentation. Good on ya Jack.

 

[AShearer]

Good stuff Jake



Here's a threaded bolster

More excellence! Thanks for the reference material Jack.

 

[Peregrin]

Rat tail and chamfered bolsters on these Ohta's. Please correct me if that's wrong.

 

[Jack Black]

Nice to see this sort of discussion here

 

[GasMan1]

Very informative. Add this to the ever growing list of things that I learned here. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Cambertree]

Here's a fluted and pinched bolster from a congress knife, recovered from the wreck of the SS Schomberg, sunk off the coast of southern Australia in 1855.



The fluting is narrower than rat-tail filing, and bordered by threading. Your example posted above, Greg, is just a kind of wide threading, I would think.

Good idea for a thread, Greg. It's interesting to me that this whole intricate field of pocket knife craft is almost a lost art, despite the current popularity of traditional styles and patterns.

It seems most bolsters now are drop forged, and I don't recall seeing contemporary custom traditional knifemakers really going all out with the old bolster pattern recreations, either.

As an example, look how wild some of the styling and shaping is in some of these bolsters from Smith's Key (1816).