Removing the blade and end cap was tricky. The blade had been glued in as had the silver cap on the end. We were not sure how things worked so we chiseled off the end cap to find that it had been brazed to a rod and glued in one end of the knife. The blade came out with a little twist and the round short tang offered little resistance. We tried to make a blade out of the steel. Here it is hammered flat on the right. We ground it into a long and elegant filet knife but after 3 efforts at hardening the back half of the blade would not take a temper. So we switched to Plan B. We had a file from Johnson Brothers File Co. circa 1860-1914. We turned it into a multipurpose outdoor knife with a much beefier tang. So in the end the wedding knife from the 1800’s met a file from the 1800’s and lived happily ever after.