Newbie Pays Hommege

[agd68]

Hi all
I have to say that you guys are artits. I started reading the topics and could'nt stop til I finished them all, nothing whines like a teenage girl deprived of MSN for a week. LOL.
I have a couple of questions
1. Any other Canadians lurking out there?
2. Damascus steel: Does it have any benefit other than artistic appeal? From what I gather it mars easily and is hard to refinish. IMO a truly great knife should be used often and well.
My preference is carbon steel with the aged look. I had enough of shiny metal in the army..

[skullworks]

Not sure about damascus being any better or worse. Maybe one of the pros will weigh in for you! Hope to see some of your work in the future!

[kbaknife]

Welcome to the Trad Gang knife hang-out.
(Now you have to invite us up fishing!)
Here is a pretty ambiguous answer to your question - is Damascus better.
A piece of simple carbon steel and a piece of Damascus laying on the bench do nothing. One is not better than the other. It's what WE, the knifemakers DO, that determine how they will perform.
Here is at least one sad truth, and it is an old blacksmith saying:
"The most a blacksmith can ever hope for is to end up with a piece of steel as good as the one he started out with".
See, we have FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRR more opportunities to completly ruin that piece of steel than we do to actually make it perform well. The entire selection, forging, post forging, normalizing, annealing, stress relieving, hardening, tempering process is nought but one long "heat treating" process. Only ONE of those steps gone wrong and you end up with a worthless piece of steel.
I'm lucky to have a close friend whos entire career is based on his Damascus making.
He has a saying as well:
"Jesus in Heaven could send down the perfect bar of steel, but it'll only be as good as the heat treatment it gets".
My point with all this? It really doesn't matter what type of steel the maker uses, the ONLY thing that matters is the heat treatment.
You can have a perfectly good piece of known steel, but, done improperly, and all you'll have is a letter opener.
There is a huge long list of steels that perform well when properly treated.
As well, when you talk about Damascus you are refering to a PROCESS that can be improperly done as well. Pretty, but worthless.
The combinations of steels used and the proportions also need to be considered.
So is Damascus better?
Yes.
Wait, no.

[agd68]

Thanks for replying guys. Karl hope I did not offend you about damascus steel. I read one of the topics where the owner was asking about getting a scratch out of the pattern. The solution seemed rather difficult. I was just curious about how well the finish holds up on a feild knife. I made 2 knives so far. I made them before I read anything on how to do it. I just cut the blanks from an old sawmill blade and used an angle grinde and file. what a ..... that stuff was hard. Probably too brittle though.What do you like fishing Karl?

[kbaknife]

You didn't offend me AT ALL, friend!!
Just thought I might help to broaden your horizons!
I figure a scratch on a working knife just proves that it's being used. If you want it to look pretty all the time, just leave it on the shelf.
Small mouth and walleye!