would it be alright to post an inquiry about identifying a truly bizarre knife?

[briandg]

This thing appeared in a box in an attic and I can only suspect that it is an abattoir throat slitting knife.

i can't get a photo posted yet. The thing has a wooden grip with four holes in the steel behind the grip. The grip is at a right angle to the blade. The only way to hold this thing is by wrapping fingers around the grip, putting the fingers through the holes (like a pair of knuckle dusters) and gripping. the blade is cut on the top and the dull edge of the blade lays on the top of the forearm, almost tucking into the inside of the elbow. The blade is perfectly straight.

The only way that this can be used is to slice or slash either upward, or inward towards the chest. This is why I am believing it to be a bleeder, it is made to reach around a hog and slice backward to take out both blood vessels of the throat in a single stroke.

[JohnKSa]

Sure! I'm interested to see what it looks like.

[briandg]

waiting for an actual picture, can't supply anything but a drawing.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...KpHRdrE2qQ3ZRY

[briandg]

I hope that the photo can be read. A hog plant runs through one every five minutes or so, IIRC, or used to in the past. A guy at the top of the chain would whack a hundred or three in a day. Mostly, they used long curved blades now, but this seems to have been undoubtedly safe as long as there was a heavy leather jacket and gloves protecting the hands.

But, those finger holes? Those would shred a person after a day. Gloves may not have fit. I handled it, and really, there just was genuinely no other way to hold it besides over the forearm facing upward.

[briandg]

This is it.

You would reach in with your right hand, put your fingers through the holes, pick it up and it would be laying on your forearm with the sharp (straight) edge facing up. The curved edge, which one would expect to be the cutting surface, is unsharpened.

Now, seriously, nothing about this knife indicates that it could be put to hard or strenuous work without injuring the user. No chopping, no forceful cutting, it could only be used to slice, much like a jewish Kosher butchering knife. Even for light duty, a user would have to have cut proof armor all the way up to mid-bicep, as well as a glove. That thing would be so slick if it was a butchering tool that the finger rings would be essential.

[JohnKSa]

Very strange. I can't find anything else like it in searches. I suspect it's something someone came up with on their own since it is so unusual and doesn't seem to be well thought out.

For one thing, if it is held with the blade along the arm, cutting an animal's throat with it would make an awful bloody mess of the person's arm.

And then there are those fingerholes in the bare, thin metal.

[TXAZ]

You might want to post the picture on bladeforums.com, a lot more knife guys there who may have seen something more like it.

Or maybe it was a movie prop from Mutant Teenage Throat Slashers?

[10-96]

I may be way off base, but I could better picture that thing in a tannery or something as some sort of scraper rather than the butchering end of the process. Interesting tool though, looks exactly like something I ain't never seen before!

[briandg]

John, I see your point and have considered it.

I'm looking it as a commercial processor running thousands of pigs a day.

Picture the hog hanging. Grab the ears, slip the knife around the back of the neck, then slash forward. No blood spilled. The benefit to it would be that the cutter would have better leverage than using a knife held at arm's length, maybe?

Again, you'd have to have leather armor and gloves on the arm.

I'm clueless.

A fleshing knife will be curved, and will absolutely have to have dual handles. Worked with them before.