CUTLERY, the name given to the various types of knives and cutting instruments used for domestic purposes. It also in cludes razors, scissors, carving forks and steels used for sharp ening knives. Table forks which were formerly made from steel have been generally superseded by the nickel-silver article, which along with spoons form another trade.
Among primitive tribes in pre-historic times, cutting tools and weapons used in hunting and defence were made from stones and flint. Later. with the coming of a knowledge of the use of metals, cutting tools were made of bronze and iron. The Romans taught the early Britons much concerning the working of iron, and the Norman invaders are said to have brought over many smiths and skilled workers in metal. Some of the early knives and weapons acquired a high reputation for perfection and skill of production, and examples of Toledo and Damascus blades remind us of the high quality of these productions.
The production of cutlery is centred and localised in definite towns in England, the United States, France and Germany where the bulk of the world's cutlery is produced. In Europe, this local isation has been largely due to the natural resources of Sheffield, Thiers and Solingen respectively. Each of these towns is situated in a district plentifully supplied with mountain streams, the en ergy of which has been utilized from early times to drive water wheels and thereby to provide the power required for manufactur ing purposes. In Chaucer's time (13 28-1400) the name of Sheffield was especially associated with cutlery, as when in writing of the miller, he says: "A Sheffield thwitel baar he in his hose." In the United States now there are important centres of cut lery manufacture, especially in the New England states. The workmen employed there are largely immigrants from Sheffield and Solingen. According to the latest United States Census of Manufactures, there were then 211 American establishments under the classification "Cutlery and Edge Tools," employing r6,400 persons, with a product valued at $80,260,000. The inter esting feature of American cutlery production is the growing adoption of machine processes and the passing of certain branches of the industry into the hands of some of the leading American engineering firms. A similar movement in the direction of the extended employment of machine methods is also at work in Sheffield, Solingen and Thiers.
Types of Cutlery.—There are many types of cutlery, each having distinctive uses. They vary from a small wafer blade used in the safety razor to such larger cutting instruments as the carving knife or tailor's shears, and they may be divided into the following classes : table knives, butcher and kitchen knives, pocket knives, scissors, razors, safety razors, and miscellaneous cutting tools. In all these types the blade is the fundamental part which determines the value and quality of the tool or instrument. Blades are made from steel and the quality of the article is largely a question of the quality of the steel employed in its production, and of the skill with which it is manipulated during manufacture.
In the early days of the manufacture of high-grade cutlery both cast steel and shear steel were used, and the cutlery made from these steels is specially noted for the quality of its cutting edge, and for its ability to maintain it. Later, open-hearth steel has been used for table-knives and scissors. But the introduction of steel known as "stainless" steel for cutlery has been revolu tionary in its effects, and much of the steel hitherto used has been superseded by the new material, particularly in Sheffield.
The use of the word "stainless" is not a strictly accurate de scription of the steel, though it does resist corrosion from domes tic acids to a remarkable extent. The stainless quality of the blade depends upon its having been produced in a properly hard ened condition.