Mappin Webb 12" Roast Beef Slicer Shear Steel & Stag Sheffield 1868-1913

12" roast beef slicer made by the great Mappin & Webb of Sheffield in the late 19th or early 20th century. A harder pattern to find but a very, very English one, especially as England is the home to roast beef. Forged carbon steel blade is most likely shear steel welded to an iron or mild steel bolster / tang, stag handle and double pinned nickel end cap. 

Mappin & Webb was a large Sheffield manufacturer with connection to Sheffiled knife making through the Mappin family to the 18th century. It seems that the company Mappin & Webb was established in 1868 but the M & Trustworthy trade marks registered in 1860. Rival to related Mappin Bros. of Sheffield who sued for use of the name 'Mappin' Mappin and web grew to employ over 450 workers in 1880 and over 1000 in 1913 when they became Mappin & Webb Ltd. 

It is a bit difficult to put a precise date to the manufacture of this knife, it has a puddle weld mark on the bolster opposite the marking side but does have the general look of a larger production hand forged Sheffield knife but many of the same techniques and materials were used from the 1860s to early 20th century. 

While not marked 'shear steel' it most likely is. 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 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.