I bought these blades from Craig Barr of Deer Mountain Forge. Craig lives and works in Colorado near the Arkansas River just upriver from the Royal Gorge. He forges his own steel products, including forging his own Damascus. Besides knife blades, Craig also forges tomahawk heads and some other products. I have several of his hawk heads, and they are nice.
The longer blade is a high layer count 5160/15N20. I don't remember what the actual count is, but it was in the hundreds of layers. I only know of a few blades that Craig has made of the high layer count Damascus, because it is much more work than the lower layer count he normally produces, so when this one became available, I bought it. The shorter blade is 52100 ball bearing steel, which I like a lot as a knife steel. You can see the distinctive hamon on the blade that was created during the differential heat treatment. I bought the Damascus blade about a year ago and the 52100 blade about 9 months ago, and I have been waiting to figure out what I wanted to have done with them. I have bought three knives from Clarence in the past, and I knew what great work he does, so I asked him to reshape the full tangs to my design and to install the handles that we discussed and agreed would look good. I already had another mammoth ivory and snakewood handled knife from Clarence, so that choice was easy. I am excited and pleased with the superior job that Clarence did on these two knives. Now I have just a little longer to wait while he builds the sheaths and sends everything to me.
Allan
Topic: Knife handle up! (Read 671 times)
