Great find David. Beautiful...We'll look into those knives and their time line.
Here is another post by the RMK shop steward that fully defines how the rounded nuts were made, and adds some additional info.
". Ok, let's try this again...we placed about a dozen hex nuts on a rod and spun them manually on the Bader sanders, freely spun them till the corners were gone. They were round before they were installed and peened over...we then tightened them up with an adjustable pair of pliers and we just stayed off of them until final polishing.
"Here's the pics of our set from Tom Clinton, Tom said these were purchased around 1971..."
"... [note] the buttcap with the washer that Jed told me was used...I believe this does throw a wrench in Jack's timetable of the hex nuts because of Tom's statement that these were built for him in 1971...sorry...but maybe Tom was mistaken..."
Good lesson here.... be careful when declaring you are positive how the shop did this or that.