ratcheting mechanism on Spanish Navajas

[fernando]

Originally Posted by Lee

Here is a very well worn and nibbled upon navaja that I bought last year at the Brimfield flea market for $25. I have been using it to open envelopes. It is about 9½ inches long closed and the blade is about 7¼ inches long. It is loose enough now that you can close it without lifting the latch, but each ratchet point does engage and give some resistance. Put your thumb over the latch and fingers naturally around the horn scales and the blade is securely open. I prefer this design to the pull ring clasp style that was reputedly derived from it. I'd welcome any comments as to how long this old knife may have been around.

An excelent example Lee; a genuine one for an amazing price. I guess the pull ring clasp version ended up giving place to the 'the last of mohicans' of these mechanisms; one certainly made for purposes more directed to tourists other than villagers. Another system was that like the one of your example but with a lever to easier operate the opening. This was the system that i got used to see around since my youth; the main weakness was that the lever was rather feeble and worn out very quickly.

[A. G. Maisey]

I'm out of this discussion now, I've pretty much said a lot more than I wanted to say anyway. We now have a group of people who are conversant with the subject and the culture, and I want to escape this thread.

However --- Fernando you raised a question that I think I should in all fairness respond to for you. Bear in mind, I have approached this question of the ratchet not from a cultural nor from a societal base, but purely from the perspective of a maker who does have some understanding of knife and tool design relative to engineering principles.

You have said:- "--- i fail to digest that the multiple crack is a back up to the main notch; why would you have four, five or six back ups all in a row ?. On the other hand i can easily accept that, the knives with one only notch are those for domestic utility, while those with multiple cracks have a lethal vocation.---"

The multiple teeth found on this ratchet are not there as a back-up in case of failure of the lock notch, but rather to prevent immediate closure of a sharp blade onto the fingers of the user:- in a case where the blade notch is dislodged from the latch, that blade will decline towards the handle, the multiple teeth on the ratchet provide a longer length of interference on closure, and thus a better chance --- in fact multiple better chances --- of stopping blade closure prior to contact with fingers.

You have noted that navajas as tools have only the notch & latch, but larger navajas, possibly intended as weapons do have the ratchet.

In old treatises on knife fighting, and on fencing with a sword, what we find is that especially in knife fighting techniques we are in fact looking at free-style fist fighting or free-style wrestling, but with a knife in one hand (or maybe both).

The knife does not get used independent of the rest of the body, nope, the whole body is involved in getting the knife to where it is intended to be. This means that the hand that does not hold the knife is also engaged in combat. That empty hand is sometimes used to grasp the knife hand of the opponent.

If there are treatises specifically on fighting with a navaja, I feel that close examination of these treatises might reveal that one of the combat techniques used in combat with a navaja was for the empty hand to grasp the opponent's knife hand and trip the latch on disengagement. The ratchet prevented complete disengagement which meant that a navaja with ratchet provided a preventive measure against such a technique.

Now I'm out of this discussion. You gentlemen with a genuine cultural interest are far better equipped to discuss this important matter than am I.

[Gonzalo G]

Mr. Maisey,

I find your contributions very sensible and useful. I am personally interested in the "engineering" aspects on the construction of edged weapons and your reasonings on this subject are specially valuable to me and for certain are also very interesting to everybody. The matter of this thread is the function of the ratchet mechanism on the navajas de carraca, and it was examined from different points of view, since this subject admits it, given the common beliefs existing around this mechanism. I completely agree with your perspective and your statements and I don´t find they have less cultural interest than the historical and legal perspectives. After all, the technology is part of a given culture and your comments contribute to shed a valuable light on this topic.
Regards