Kendal & Dent 3 Pc Carving Set Shear Steel Jigged Bone & Nickel M.I. Sheffield Approx 1890s-1920

Kendal & Dent three piece carving set with 9″ hand forged shear steel blade, fork and sharpening steel. All are handled with ‘jigged’ carved bone handles with nickel fittings. Blade has been sharpened in some and had seen some rust but is ready for another lifetime, guard on fork is nice and springy, sharpening steel is a little less aggressive than it was when new but is in good shape. 

Kendal & Dent was a British retailer headquartered at 106 Cheapside in London Est 1871 and with shops throughout the UK, information suggests 1871 establishment date going to-1942, other sources indicate 1890s establishment. In any case, this set looks to have been made from the 1890s to 1920s, possibly 30s but less likely. 

The blade on this set brags of ‘best shear steel’ it shows a ‘puddle weld’ near the bolster at the beginning of the blade opposite side as markings, almost looking like a thumbprint, this is where the hard shear steel is forge welded to the mild steel or iron bolster and tang. Forks were forged in a small mold and ground by hand and knife blade forged by hand to shape and then hand ground on a saddle grinder to finish the geometry being finished on smaller buffing wheels. Many of these process were in use for hundreds of years in Sheffield which really held its strength through the massive amount of low priced skilled labor available in Sheffield. 

Shear steel was a 19th and early 20th century steel that was made by case hardening bars of iron in ceramic boxes packed with charcoal, large numbers of these were heated for days on end at high temperatures and the resulting bars were broken up (it would break or shear rather than bend once carbon added hence ‘shear’ steel) and forged welded into a larger mass. This process was done twice on double shear steel creating a steel with a higher carbon content. 

Never put old carving knives in the dishwasher, they are held together with ‘cutler’s cement’ or ‘rozzil’ a mixture of brick dust, bees wax and rosin. Rozzil is hard at room temperature but soft and liquid when hot.