Friday, June 21, 2013

Robert Waldorf Loveless – The Inventor with a Thousand Talents


Bob Loveless or R.W. Loveless, was an American knife maker who designed and popularized the hollow ground drop point blade and the use of full tapered tangs and screw type handle scale fasteners within the art of knifemaking.

Before Bob Loveless, a straight knife consisted of a blade on one side, a handle on the other, and a guard in the middle, the whole ensemble carried in a leather sheath. However well made it was, it was just a functional object, what some would call a tool.

Loveless was born on 2 January 1929 in Warren, Ohio. When he was 14, he altered his birth certificate and joined the Merchant Marine and later served as an Air Corps control tower operator on Iowa Jima. He witnessed a number of knife fights in the bars of foreign ports, which he attributed to giving him an interest in knives.

In 1950 Loveless attended Chicago’s Armour Institute of Technology (later renamed Illinois Institute of Technology) and took a course taught by the architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. In 1951 he returned to Ohio and studied literature and sociology at Kent State.


In December 1953, Loveless returned to the Merchant Marine on a tanker based in New York. Loveless visited Abercrombie & Fitch in New York City in order to purchase a Randall Made knife. After learning there was a nine-month wait for the knife he wanted, he decided to make his own. He ground his first blade from a 1937 Packard Automobile spring found in a Newark, New Jersey junkyard and forged it on the oil-fired galley stove of the ship on which he was serving. After showing this homemade knife to the head of the Abercrombie & Fitch cutlery department he formed a relationship with the retailer to sell his knives.

The materials were traditional, with the shapes varying according to the use for which it was intended, but there had been nothing new under the sun for many along decade.

From 1954 to 1960 Loveless made over one thousand knives called “Delaware Maids” and they became Abercrombie & Fitch’s best selling handmade items, out selling the Randall blades. Loveless admitted that these knives were copies of Randall’s designs, but by 1960 he began making his own innovations, which set them apart.

With Loveless, the humble knife was suddenly raised to the rank of art, and its’ standing soared, heralding a new era. How on earth did this man, go about revolutionizing a field that was an integral, almost institutionalize part of American culture?

Loveless was a founding member of the Knifemakers’ Guild in 1970 and served as the club’s first Secretary. Loveless would go on to serve two terms as the Guild’s president from 1973 to 1976.

A very active bladesmith, Loveless cut blades according to the orders he received. His production, of the highest quality, was not really any different from what other craftsmen were offering. The first idea he had was to develop a vast catalog that would include all types of knife. His second idea consisted of proposing sheaths that were not manufactured in advance, but designed according to the morphology and habits of the user, so that the handle would be immediately within reach.

A collector of pens, he had learned what made the difference between standard quality and truly beautiful manufacture. So he turned toward highly quality finishing, down to the tiniest details, setting prices that no longer bore and relation to those of his competitors. But to get himself known he also needed an individual style and unusual materials. He thus fathers new forms, including the “drop point” and the “semi-skinner” which were soon copied, as one might have expected.

Loveless also introduced surgical steels for the blades, 154CM and 440C, as well a previously unknown materials for the handles, Micarta, originally intended for the aeronautical industry. These steels are very hard and particularly tricky to grind, but the cutting edge is long lasting. In addition, such hardness enables very fine grinding, as well as a mirror polish previously impossible to obtain. As for Micarta, it is robust, rot-proof, waterproof and available in different colors as well as varying fineness of grain, enabling superb shimmer effects. Loveless always considered himself a “Bench Maker” as apposed to a “Custom Maker” in that he only made knives from patterns that he designed instead of ideas that came from his customers. The only input Loveless would receive from a customer would be regarding the type of handle material used in the knife’s construction.

Loveless produced relatively few, proposed special numbered series and got himself known all over the world, where his creations are vigorously sought after for high prices. He even went as far as perfecting different logos to add a touch of spice and entice collectors. Loveless marked his blades by acid etching his logo on the blade as “R.W. Loveless, Maker, Riverside, California”. Some of his knives carried the image of a reclining nude woman. Most of his contemporaries stamped their logo on their knives using a power hammer or other device. Loveless believed this stamping could compromise the strength of the knife by causing stress fractures in the steel.


Loveless made fighting knives and is considered to be the first maker to produce what is known as a “Tactical Knife”. However, Loveless refused to sell a customer one of his fighting knives unless the buyer could provide either police or military identification and could require a knife as a weapon. Loveless made knives for use by US Army Special Forces and the CIA. One such knife was the size and shape of a pocket comb and fit inside a passport case. When the case was thrown, the blade cut through the case and sliced into whatever it hit.

Loveless designed the Gerber Guardian knife model for Gerber Knives and for a time was Gerber’s lead designer. Loveless went on to design knives for other factories such as Lone Wolf, Beretta, Schrade Cutlery and others. Cold Steel makes a reproduction of his “Big Bear Classic” fighting knife. Loveless had been a participating maker from 1993 to 2006 at the Art Knife Invitational Show, which is a closed association of the 25 most collectible knifemakers.

Before Loveless, the profession was in no way structured, with cutlers displaying their creations at arms shows. Loveless breathed a dynamism into the trade, resulting in the craftsmen forming their own guild, which enabled a charter to be drawn up and shows to be organized that focused exclusively on handmade knives. These shows were a godsend, not only for collectors, but also for the bladesmiths themselves who, apart from being able to get to know their clientele, were able to see what their fellows were doing, get advice and exchange ideas.



Loveless authored several books on making knives such as the 1977 “How to Make Knives” with coauthor Richard Barney. For his many influences in custom knife design and promoting the art of handmade knives, Loveless was inducted into the Blade Magazine Cutlery Hall of Fame at the 1985 Blade Show in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Loveless died 2 September 2010, aged 81, of lung cancer at his longtime home in Riverside, California. 

Yes, Bob Loveless certainly ushered in a new era for American handmade knives. That is how this man with the colorful cap was immediately copied, in both form and material, but it is he who has become a legend, and he is irreplaceable.


Sources

How To Make Knives, 1977 by Richard W. Barney

Living On The Edge, 1992 by Al Williams, photos by Jim Weyer














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