Fun, but of a mild sort.

[ColoSwiss]

I've just completed most of a major project. Had a couple of custom-handled Wengers I could not find. Driving me nuts (not far to go). Finally printed out my spread sheet and went through every tray of knives in my collection, comparing the contents to the list. Found the two missing knives, also two knives which never made it into the spreadsheet. Also about 80 errors, most minor but some major. Undoubtedly missed some problems, and still have the 58mm Vics to do, but things are looking good.

Also need to reorganize a half-dozen trays so I can find stuff easier. The things we do in the name of 'Fun'.

 

[detron]

Glad you found the ones that were hiding.

[nate j]

My collection isn't anywhere near the size of some here, but I enjoy going through it occasionally and "finding" knives I had forgotten I had.

[Sweety-Sama]

Have a proper labelling of your drawers? If not I would advise to make some. Are you using excel for your list? What does your list includes?


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Stalking RT

[ColoSwiss]

Have a proper labelling of your drawers? If not I would advise to make some. Are you using excel for your list? What does your list includes?


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Stalking RT

Hi SS,

I keep my collection in trays, mainly 'Infinite Dividers' from the Container Store. Each tray includes a sheet of paper with boxes matching those of the tray, noting what's in each slot. Each tray also has a label on the end giving a brief description of its contents.

I use an Excel spreadsheet, with columns labeled Brand, Description (including name, number of blades, handle material), Number (model number, if known), Length, BX (presence or not of a box), Price, and Remarks. Generally sort by: Brand, Length, Description.; which for example groups all the Vic Classics, etc.

A useful feature of Excel is its 'Find' function. Some of the problems were caused by a model having more than one name, and using one in the box and the other in the spread sheet. Others were using abbreviations which seemed logical at the time, but which were impossible to remember and search on. Also a lot of missing data, errors; and Excel occasionally not sorting properly (generally solved by deleting the brand name or what ever, and then cutting-and pasting from further up the list. Over a thousand knives and 15 years of accumulated errors made for a rather sizable task.

Moral of the story: Take care in entering data, and check it more often than once every 15 years.

[Sweety-Sama]

Ah, that sounds quite neat. At work we use a lot of excel lists and some of them are updated every hour or so.
How about adding the columns year of release/model year and year of purchase?


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Stalking RT

[ColoSwiss]

Ah, that sounds quite neat. At work we use a lot of excel lists and some of them are updated every hour or so.
How about adding the columns year of release/model year and year of purchase?


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Stalking RT

Thought about Year of Purchase, but the existing format already takes up all the room on a horizontal sheet of paper. Don't want to go to a double-sheet format or a smaller font size.

[Sweety-Sama]

You always can use a bigger sheet of paper, if you're not already using A3 sheets.
I would offer you to print it in up to A0 for you, but I fear the shipping will costs too much!


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Stalking RT

[ColoSwiss]

You always can use a bigger sheet of paper, if you're not already using A3 sheets.
I would offer you to print it in up to A0 for you, but I fear the shipping will costs too much!


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Stalking RT

Thanks for the offer. I use regular 8"x11" paper, which is common, works well in my printer (or at FedEx for a large job), and can go in a standard loose-leaf note book.

[Sweety-Sama]

You always can use a bigger sheet of paper, if you're not already using A3 sheets.
I would offer you to print it in up to A0 for you, but I fear the shipping will costs too much!


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Stalking RT

Thanks for the offer. I use regular 8"x11" paper, which is common, works well in my printer (or at FedEx for a large job), and can go in a standard loose-leaf note book.

that's not in the DIN or ISO EN!!!


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Stalking RT

[ColoSwiss]

You always can use a bigger sheet of paper, if you're not already using A3 sheets.
I would offer you to print it in up to A0 for you, but I fear the shipping will costs too much!


-----------------------------

Stalking RT

Thanks for the offer. I use regular 8"x11" paper, which is common, works well in my printer (or at FedEx for a large job), and can go in a standard loose-leaf note book.

that's not in the DIN or ISO EN!!!


-----------------------------

Stalking RT

I'm an old timer who didn't grow up with computers. I go with what's simple and works for me.

[Sweety-Sama]

You always can use a bigger sheet of paper, if you're not already using A3 sheets.
I would offer you to print it in up to A0 for you, but I fear the shipping will costs too much!


-----------------------------

Stalking RT

Thanks for the offer. I use regular 8"x11" paper, which is common, works well in my printer (or at FedEx for a large job), and can go in a standard loose-leaf note book.

that's not in the DIN or ISO EN!!!


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Stalking RT

I'm an old timer who didn't grow up with computers. I go with what's simple and works for me.

But inch isn't simple! At least for a German... ^_^


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Stalking RT

[enki_ck]

But inch isn't simple! At least for a German... ^_^


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Stalking RT

How about Zoll?  

--------------------------------------------

Glad you made some order in the tables and collection, Karl.

And doing it every 15 years saved you a lot of work in the mean time.  

[Sweety-Sama]

But inch isn't simple! At least for a German... ^_^


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Stalking RT

How about Zoll?  

--------------------------------------------

Glad you made some order in the tables and collection, Karl.

And doing it every 15 years saved you a lot of work in the mean time.

Oh come on! We're in Germany! We got the one and only metric system! As a technical draftswoman I always scream at such blasphemic measurements! I need my DIN! 

[Caranthanus]

Also need to reorganize a half-dozen trays so I can find stuff easier. The things we do in the name of 'Fun'.

 

Isn't it funny when "lost" sak is found? 

[jazzbass]

Going through something similar. I used to have all of my 84mm and 91mm knives together organized by # of layers then age. Outgrew my storage and decided to split the 84mm and 91mm and organize by model instead of # layers. It's made things easier to find but still things get lost. Found my early 1950s Tinker Small in the "for sale" pile  .

Bought new Bisley cabinets from the Container Store. These are very nice, well made cabinets from the UK (despite which they seem to leak almost no oil). Since I wasn't mixing the 84mm and 91mm together anymore, I could make dividers in the new cabinets more "84mm specific" - see below on the left. Now I can get 28 knives per drawer and, IMO, in a much better arrangement than the 91mm dividers (right). Here on the left are 84mm Tourists from 1905 - present and on the right 91mm Huntsmen from 1905 - 1962.

[ColoSwiss]

Going through something similar. I used to have all of my 84mm and 91mm knives together organized by # of layers then age. Outgrew my storage and decided to split the 84mm and 91mm and organize by model instead of # layers. It's made things easier to find but still things get lost. Found my early 1950s Tinker Small in the "for sale" pile  .

Bought new Bisley cabinets from the Container Store. These are very nice, well made cabinets from the UK (despite which they seem to leak almost no oil). Since I wasn't mixing the 84mm and 91mm together anymore, I could make dividers in the new cabinets more "84mm specific" - see below on the left. Now I can get 28 knives per drawer and, IMO, in a much better arrangement than the 91mm dividers (right). Here on the left are 84mm Tourists from 1905 - present and on the right 91mm Huntsmen from 1905 - 1962.

(Image removed from quote.)

A lot of great looking stuff there.    I have a decent collection, but pre-WWII Vics tend to be rather scarce.

Those cabinets look interesting. I once thought about going to flat files, as used for maps and blueprints. Also Craftsman tool chests like Chako is using. However the trays are flexible, and proved handy when it was time to move a few years back.

[enki_ck]

Very nice organizers, jazzbass.

One question though. Left drawer, first row, second from the right. Is that an bail at the top rivet? Don't remember seeing something like that on a SAK before.

[SAK Guy]

(Image removed from quote.)

And I thought I had a good system......

[jazzbass]

Very nice organizers, jazzbass.

One question though. Left drawer, first row, second from the right. Is that an bail at the top rivet? Don't remember seeing something like that on a SAK before.

Yes, it is. That's a Tourist from 1942-1943 with the original plastic "celluloid" (not cellidor) scales. These celluloid scales are not very dimensionally stable and like to shrink over the years. I've read conflicting reports that this is just the nature of the plastic vs. celluloid only shrinks if improperly cured vs. it only shrinks if exposed to temps above 140F. Regardless, you see a lot of knives from the early 1940s that look like this. I bought this knife because it was a good example of shrinking celluloid scales, regardless of why they shrunk.

The bail on the head pin was a bonus, but something I'd been casually looking for. I've seen a handful of other knives like this, so I wanted to get one as well. Almost always these are knives from the handmade eras pre-1950.

[enki_ck]

Thank you for the explanation. I've seen the shrunken scales before but didn't know the back story to it.

[Sweety-Sama]

That looks kinda scary!


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Stalking RT

[Live]

Thanks for sharing that pic

[lowtech]

I have been working for our local Boy Scout Administration years ago. One of my jobs was to insert a slip of blotting paper soaked in a Camphor solution into each 8/16 mm film spool. The vapours helped keeping teh Cellulouid from getting brittle/unstable and shrinking.

I don´t know if that was just an urban myth or why it worked, but all the films were ok - Mind you, the oldest were from the early/mid 60s and apart from showing tehm they were stored dark and at a constant temp, so that might have helped, too.

[pfrsantos]

Very nice organizers, jazzbass.

One question though. Left drawer, first row, second from the right. Is that an bail at the top rivet? Don't remember seeing something like that on a SAK before.

Very good idea. This way you can use a pocket clip or put it in a key ring and when you close the blade it doesn't hit the bail and gets dented.

 

[Lynn LeFey]

ColoSwiss, if you haven't already, you could turn your pages to landscape mode, so as to print the spreadsheet sideways, and gain a lot of space for additional columns at the same font size. Just a thought.

[ColoSwiss]

ColoSwiss, if you haven't already, you could turn your pages to landscape mode, so as to print the spreadsheet sideways, and gain a lot of space for additional columns at the same font size. Just a thought.

Hi Lynn,

Thanks for the suggestion, but that's what I'm already doing. Also a bit late to be adding new columns, particularly for something like date of purchase. The big thing is being able to figure out what I have. The Wengers with their multiple names are still a bit iffy. Is it a Minathor or Microtechnician? Security 14 or Adventurer with lock? All part of the 'fun'!