Third Party Press

German gravity knife with phenolic resin grips

Not to derail this thread, but along the lines of late war phenolic resin experimenting, did anybody see this within the warrelicts link?

http://lmd-militaria.com/page538.html

k43_resin_stock-199.jpg
 
Thanks for posting these pics. I am very skeptical of this item. In my opinion this is not a period original piece. The knife itself is original but the resin scales and copper rivets/bolsters are not period. Rather replacements at some point probably post war. The double set of rivets to the reverse lower body is also not seen on original period knives and unsure why it would be necessary here. There is no documentation for this type of resin material being used for the FKM. Even the latest knives with carbon steel blades and fittings used wooden "grip" scales. The earliest pieces used walnut scales while later examples were fitted with softer wood grips. The presence of copper rivets and lanyard bolster has long been associated with reproduction or otherwise altered FKM.

In regard to mdarnell19's question. The knife shown in the OP is a Type 1, manufactured prior to 1942 and is constructed of all plated or rostfrei metal parts. The Type 2 or "takedown" knives like the example shown in the WRF link were introduced in 1943. Both were made by SMF. As always, my thoughts only .....
 
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Sorry for the late reply.
In EUGEN VON HALÁSZ's book "Deutsche Kampfmesser" printed in 1996 you can find that red bakelite grips were used for both models.
Copper rivet are usually a very early feature, but not totally unknown with German equipment.

Other than that, I can only say that I know the shown knife for more than 25 years. It is in the hands of a Swiss collector and I finally had the chance to take some photos.

Thanks
 
Thanks Slash, Amberg, that’s what makes this site excellent. I’ve been watching this thread as the best I can offer is that I know what I don’t know on this.
 
Not to derail this thread, but along the lines of late war phenolic resin experimenting, did anybody see this within the warrelicts link?

http://lmd-militaria.com/page538.html

k43_resin_stock-199.jpg


Personally I’ve never liked it, it looks to have more modern thixotropic fillers in it, and there are contour issues which IMO shouldn’t be present from looking at the wide range of molded products from the era where sharp and true contours are easily obtainable as they are inherent to the tooling. I would love to see it internally and have to wonder if a material analysis has ever been done. A simple touch of a soldering iron tip into an inconspicuous area internally should be enough to determine the base resin by someone experienced, ester, epoxy and phenol based resins all have very particular smells when heated. Perhaps even less intrusive a small section could be heated slowly to roughly determine the Tg temperature through physical characteristics at that temperature. If a small area of flashing exists internally, a burn sample analysis could be performed to determine the fillers as well.

I’ve only had the chance to handle one real resin stocked k98 but it sure gave a “one look” impression of authenticity that I simply don’t get even from pictures here. Believe me, I would love for this to be real, I’m just not seeing it though.
 
I have to say I agree.. I think if they used bakelite panels it would look more like the panels of a puma fighting knife and the pins wouldn't have been made of brass at all never ......:facepalm:
 

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