William Wales Scagel

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William Wales Scagel or Bill Scagel (* February 12, 1873 - March 26, 1963 ) was an American knife maker from Michigan , whose style had a great influence on cutlers from all over the world, such as B. Bo Randall had in the 20th century.

Replica of a Scagel hunting knife from 2G Knives

Early life

William Wales Scagel was born near Alpena , Michigan, in the United States and grew up in Canada. He began making knives in 1910 while working in logging camps in Michigan and Canada. Before that he worked as a blacksmith and bridge builder. After his shop in Muskegon burned out in 1920 , he settled near Fruitport and built a new store on a piece of land which he named Dogwood Nub . This started his full-time job making knives, axes, cookware and boats.

Cutler

From 1920 to 1929 Scagel sold its knives through Abercrombie & Fitch in New York and their subsidiaries such as Von Lengerke & Antoine. Scagel made hunting knives, machetes, and axes for the Smithsonian Institution's expeditions . Scagel manufactured a wide variety of knives throughout his career, including Bowie knives , combat knives and pocket knives . One of Scagel's rarest knives is his personal hunting knife design, a fixed hunting knife with a drop-point blade with another foldable castrier blade in the handle. These knives fetch prices in excess of $ 15,000; seven of the twelve knives produced are in private collections.

Scagel's typical knife handles, consisting of a crown of antlers in the lower half and leather discs in the upper half, became his trademark. Such a knife influenced Bo Randall to make knives himself. In 1937, near Walloon Lake , he saw someone use a Scagel knife to scrape old paint off the hull of a boat without damaging the blade. Randall acquired this knife, and in the years that followed, Scagel became Randall's mentor, influencing many of his designs. In addition to the leather and stag horn handles, Scagel also used ivory, rosewood, bakelite, vulcanized fiber, and maple wood, which he obtained from friends who worked at the Brunswick Pool Table and Bowling Ball Company .

Scagel manufactured every knife entirely by hand, without the aid of modern machines such as grinding or polishing machines. His Fruitport business got its electricity from a generator powered by a Cadillac engine. Because of the purely handcrafted nature, the number of knives made in Scagel's 50 years of creativity was quite small. Scagel was known for rejecting mass products, he made his own hunting weapons. Scagel had great distrust of doctors and preferred to treat himself. B. straightening a broken wrist or pulling teeth and making dentures. During a polio epidemic in 1939, he even made prosthetic legs for children. A year before he died he made his last knife. 23 years later, he was inducted into the Blade Magazine Cutlery Hall of Fame at the 1990 Blade Show . The Randall Knife Museum in Orlando has the world's largest collection of Scagel knives.

Nowadays, Scagel style hunting knives are made by blacksmiths such as 2G Knives, Treeman Knives or Scagel Knives.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Harry K. McEvoy: Scagel: The Man and His Knives . Blade Publications, Iola, WI 1985, ISBN 0-940362-09-0 , pp. 1-28 .
  2. ↑ a b c Gerard Pacella: 100 Legendary Knives . Krause Publications, 2002, ISBN 0-87349-417-2 , pp. 18 .
  3. ^ A b Mike Carter, Treasure Found in a Barn: Bill Torrance Buys a William Scagel Knife for $ 5 and Sells it for $ 10,700 . In: F&W Media (Ed.): Blade . 35, No. 3, 2008, pp. 50-59.
  4. ↑ Harr K. McEvoy: Knife throwing: a practical guide . Tuttle Publishing, 1989, ISBN 0-8048-1099-0 , pp. 99 .
  5. ↑ Jack Lewis, Roger Combs: Gun Digest Book of Knives . DBI Books, Iola, WI 1992, ISBN 0-87349-129-7 , pp. 66-69 .
  6. ^ Wayne Goddard: The Wonder of Knifemaking . Krause, 2000, ISBN 0-87341-798-4 , p. 137 .
  7. ^ Richard W. Barney, Robert W. Loveless: How to Make Knives . Knife World Publications, 1995, ISBN 0-87341-389-X , pp. 6-10 .
  8. ↑ The Scagel Knife . Retrieved March 7, 2011.
  9. ↑ Wayne Goddard, Kevin Michalowski: Wayne Goddard's $ 50 Knife Shop: Get Started Without Spending a Fortune . Gun Digest, Iola, WI 2006, ISBN 0-89689-295-6 , pp. 49 .
  10. ↑ Scagel Knives . In: Rebel publications (ed.): The Muzzleloader . , Indiana 1976, pp. 21-36.
  11. ^ Harry K. McEvoy: Where are all those Scagel Knives . In: The American Blade . 2, No. 2, 1974, p. 41.
  12. ^ J. Bruce Voyles: Blade Cutlery Hall of Fame . In: Blade Magazine . 17, No. 1, 1990.
personal data
SURNAME Scagel, William Wales
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American knife maker
DATE OF BIRTH February 12, 1873
DATE OF DEATH March 26, 1963