Thank you for this photo!
Comparison with zippo is very helpful in understanding the size

The Smoke Jumper Model is about the same overall size as the Randall Model 10-3, but has a wider blade and a thicker handle. You can get the Jumper with the famous flap sheath for a little extra. Makes a very nice EDC.

Pap

The 14B is no giant, either, a 5", but deep, blade and short small diameter handle (about same as old smokie at thickest), and more like a turn of last century boy scout knife.

Which is to say, if your hands run larger than MED/5-6, you might give serious consideration to one of their larger handles. They offer a couple of knives where only difference is handle size/style, the 14B being one of them. The 20B is its larger handle otherwise twin.

The larger handle (normally) has finger grooves which often enough do not fit me, no matter the maker, so I opted for the smaller which turns out to be Goldilocks just-right for what I wanted (including option of IWB where large handles ruin it for that purpose).

These two previous (10/14) are pretty much normal and mini version of same knife.

Just for informational purposes, for those unfamiliar with the shop, it is a three man operation, Rudy's son-in-law Vic coming aboard 1964, and Rudy's grandsons Mark (1976) and Mike (1984). It never had more (in the late 1970s/early 1980s), in addition to those three, than Vic's other boy, Matt, and grandson from a son, Dave, working there for any amount of time, as far as I know.

Vic is now about 80, and who decades back left a solid phone company job because he wanted to keep his young family out of large dangerous cities, loved hunting/fishing/floating the rivers (passed on to his sons), and admired his father-in-law working with hands, is back to enjoying sheath making, rather than playing "the best hammer man I have ever seen," as Rudy said late in life.

Mark is circa 59, married/childless, and has been the blade man for decades, and Mike in his early 50s has a daughter in mid-teens, and a son of near 10yrs old, and does the handles and books (he left MBA job offers to work the shop).

What I am getting at, is that this seems an end of an era is approaching. Only time will tell.

Interesting information and you might be right on the Ruana shop coming to an end in the not too near future.

Pap

I had done a little reading, outside of either of two books which probably tell most everything about the shop, reading such as magazine articles, etc, written over the years, as mainly was wondering if I could ever find out how much Rudy maybe worked on my old mail ordered smokie.

In a nutshell, Rudy was by himself until Vic asked if Rudy might train him. Rudy was skeptical an electrical guy could be trained in smithing and took him on for a provisional year. Vic really wanted this. Watching Rudy work just called to him.

Before then, in the 50s, especially early 1950s, in that area, one could hardly give away a handmade to your average guy, probably same struggle most knifemakers at local shows today feel. Late 50s, and Rudy was buying a single micro typed classified space ad in Guns Magazine buried under "other", saying simply "Ruana Knives, send stamped envelope for list and prices, to:etc", which was nearly all advertising ever done.

Vic started off on light finishing, then grinding, then the forge etc, while his wife took another job as fall-back.....within about 5yrs, Vic was doing the forging and Rudy was doing the finishing as Rudy's 65th approached, and passed, and planned retirement which ended up put off another 15yrs.

Within a couple more years, Vic had dealers in Alaska, and word was spreading like wildfire, and they honestly had just too many orders flowing in, no matter how much bounce Rudy had added to his step as he returned from the post office. The decision to expand, or not, was made, and not made lightly, and they made a conscious decision to keep it small, and keep it family. And so it has stayed.

Two of Rudy's three sons were military pilots. Not interested/not there. One would assume his grandsons of remaining son were ones who worked there Saturdays in the mid 1970s while in school, simply because by 1980 they had tried their own short-lived hand with "Ruana Bros" knives. One of those, Dave, kept at it a few more years on his own, then dropped out, and then came back to the trade in the last 5-8yrs and has won numerous awards in Denver at shows.

Again, this documentary video link, showing just how small, how old, that shop is. We are talking a milling machine made with Model T parts and a grinder made from a washing machine motor, the original coal fired forge and Rudy's old anvil which was on the trailer which broke down in Finn Town/Bonner in 1938. Mainly so one can see there just never was room for more than a couple of people there. Even one person trying to train would be a major headache.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBKnLe7tYmU

Vic was out with health issues when the documentary crew came by, but was able to return and is still stitching sheaths. Their total annual production is on the order of 750-800 knives, when everything and everybody working as hoped.

A major "take-away" to me from all this info, is that the shop and Rudy would have been retired well before 1970, had not Vic stepped up to the plate for love of the smithy.

PS- having gone through a great many internet threads, one subject which gripes me is folk griping as to increased price of knives over the years.

As with my same commentary as to Bill Bagwell, people need to keep in mind that these knife makers are self-employed. They pay their own taxes, health and business insurance, Social Security and Medicaid FULL contributions, etc, and have families to care for and cover, as well. All of these costs have skyrocketed, and the choice is easy, costlier knives, or no knives at all.

scrounged these up off the net. Rudy's daughter, Ilona, her husband Vic, and sons Mark and Mike. Good shop views and the players, taken this past Nov/Dec 2016.

Great video I had not seen that one.

Pap

Pap,

Spot-on, great video. Now the milling machine is something that I can relate to. That shaft bearing completely worn out and wobbly "but" it still works. Nothing wasted in that shop either.

It is one of the better outside (state run?) truly artful documentaries I have seen in a very long time. They captured "old shop" of any variety better than most any film of late, and seems somebody on the film crew also knew and loved old shops. It could have been filmed in Europe both for the quality and the grimy small paned shop and workers. Watching that documentary had me smelling oil and metal for an hour after the video ended.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBKnLe7tYmU

Sadly, the mortise cutter for the stag which Rudy built by hand finally died a year or two back, the twin cutters finally lost too much tooth.

Rudy was not just "clever with his hands", he was a mechanical genious, building his own equipment. I would imagine the cutters started as plow discs, or from a piece of mine equipment, or maybe even something from a sawmill. If he needed it, he made it.





I guess you guys caught the hi-tech guards on the grinders? Shows in the still shot above, as well. I think their Singer dates from something like 1899. And the row of files, with artful worn stag handles.