Damascus blades

[dyemaker]

Found a wealth of knifemaking links and had been looking them over. The possibilities are seemingly endless from dinosaur bone to mammoth and walrus fossil ivory to flamed birch and tiger-striped and birdseye maple. Lots of exotic woods and horn. Many Scandinavian custom knives to look at too. One blade company had antiqued rough looking textured high carbon blades which would work well especially since they are stamped with the makers mark RB ( my initials).

What would look really nice is a Damascus bladed traditional knife with a blade that matches the pattern of the wood handle such as tiger-stripe or ladder patterned Damascus with curly tiger-stipe Maple flowing in the same direction.

My problem is I don't know what blade shapes are appropriate for a 18th. century patch knife or hunting knife. The Viking Sax blade may be appropiate other than that I have no clue. Should pay more attention to details. What style would be a safe PC choice of blades? I like the hunters longknives. A time proven practical and useful design is what I am looking for. The choice of handle should follow function as well.

I like daggers too. Daggers have always been around but even those blades vary in style. A dagger which can be thrown might not work well with a burl handle because of irregularities in the grain. Highly figured wood is often weaker.

Any suggestions for a PC fixed blade hunting knife or patch knife blade type? Just daydreaming about all the possible combinations.

 

[crockett]

Not to bust your bubble but I'm not sure Damascus steel is pc. Good steel but if you want to make a knife out of it you might as well just design whatever appeals to you without regard to trying to make it pc.

 

[dyemaker]

It's a different time (1890) but I found several items from George Washington Sears, eastern explorer/writer. There were Nessmuk knives, a Nessmuk double edged hatchet, Nessmuk backpack, and even a wooden Nessmuk canoe. Would be good for campers etc. Just pointing it out because it seems practical.

 

[dyemaker]

I thought that Damascus steel had been in use since the age of Vikings? Gun barrels were made of it around the turn of last century. Damascus knive blades are not historically correct for the 1700's?? Most of the blades I saw were 1084 and 15N20 carbon steels.
:hmm:

 

[LRB]

If PC is a concern then you need to know much more than just blade shapes. To start, pattern Damascus would have been an anomally in American made 18th c. knives. Whereas shear steel was a similar process, it is not the same. Common blades were thin, guards rare, and brass fittings even more rare. Smallesh iron pins, common American woods, antler, and horn would be the more common handles. Partial tangs, most often tapered, and stick tangs. The most common blade shape would be a dropped point with a distal taper, but there were other shapes. Contemporary makers, and I am guilty myself, often stretch the facts in order to sell, and make unique knives, but there are really not all that many, documentable, 18th c. knives to work from, that are acually all American in origin. Those knives you see with brass fittings are most often cut down, or broken swords.

 

[jmforge]

Even blades that can show a "damascus" pattern, like shear steel, would not have been intentionally etched to show that pattern like knives are today. Also, a fine pattern of alloy banding in a mono-steel knife which can give an surface appearance similar to wootz or shear steel, is considered by some makers to be a sign that you didn't get all of the alloying elements back into solution when you heat treated the knife,

 

[jmforge]

I thought that Damascus steel had been in use since the age of Vikings? Gun barrels were made of it around the turn of last century. Damascus knive blades are not historically correct for the 1700's?? Most of the blades I saw were 1084 and 15N20 carbon steels.
:hmm:

"True" Damascus steel or wootz/bulat, has probably been around for almost 2000 years, but it is crucible steel that just happened to be made from ore that had vanadium in it, so the pattern you are seeing is caused by the smelting process and the alloying elements.
Pattern welded steel like we are talking about was made that way because you had to make steel from iron in your forge. The Romans made some swords using this type of technique. In the case of Viking swords, I guess they figured if they were going to make a "multibar" blade using the easier to make/cheaper/more impact resistant iron for the core and the rare. expensive steel for the edges, they might as well make it look cool in the process. Point being that the pattern was an afterthought, whereas with modern forge welded steel, it is the end all, be all of the process, to the point where sometimes things like pure nickel are added and mosaic welding techniques used which can actually degrade the performance of the blade. But in those cases, the knives are not meant to be used in anger, so to speak much like the highly decorated suits of plate armour of the late medieval period.

 

[LRB]

Pattern welded Damascus blades were being made in Europe at the time, but even so, not for the common folk. Some of these blades surely came across the waters, but not that many, and again, not brought by common people in common circumstances. You will find quite a few damascus blades being made by some contemporary makers with all else being reasonably correct for 18th c., but these are fantasy knives, and usually presented as such. Dyemaker, there is absolutely nothing wrong with making such knives, but the maker, and customer needs to be aware that they cannot be considered seriously PC for American made 18th c. knives, nor should they be presented as being so.

 

[jmforge]

Pattern welded Damascus blades were being made in Europe at the time, but even so, not for the common folk. Some of these blades surely came across the waters, but not that many, and again, not brought by common people in common circumstances. You will find quite a few damascus blades being made by some contemporary makers with all else being reasonably correct for 18th c., but these are fantasy knives, and usually presented as such. Dyemaker, there is absolutely nothing wrong with making such knives, but the maker, and customer needs to be aware that they cannot be considered seriously PC for American made 18th c. knives, nor should they be presented as being so.

They will be presented as fantasy knives only if they are being sold to folks interested in PC by knifemakers who know what PC is....lol. The term fantasy knife had a much different meaning in custom knifemaking than in the reenactment community. :wink: Knifemakers would be more likely to use a term like reproduction.

 

[dyemaker]

Thanks for the information. I guess the intentionally rough textured plain looking high carbon blades are the way to go instead. My intitials are the maker's mark too. Just can't recall the maker's name now.
The reenacting thing is tough. I do see your point that such materials were not common then. I got caught up in all the beauty of handle materials available. I even saw a bowie made with a patterned iron meteorite and fossil mammoth tusk. The Cape York iron has a nice pattern. This was actually used by eskimos in Greenland.

Fossil coral, fossil whale, meteorite palisites with space peridots in them not good, Plain jane good. Got it. The Mr. Fancypants knives can wait for now.

What about the use of cury maple for knife handles? It would seem to me that a denser wood like osage orange might be better but I don't know if this was an eastern tree back then. They were planted as windbreaks and fence lines later on. Even though natives had wide trade routes for the wood, it may not have been readily available to colonists.

I imagine there were (isolated) cases of "fantasy" knives back then but you are right, such materials were hard to find let alone two or more.

The meteorite bowie might have been authentic ... but ONLY if you were a US knifemaker traveling to Greenland in the 18oo's and intermingled with eskimos. :haha: :haha: :haha:

 

[LRB]

Well now, you done and gone and opened another can of worms. Rough textured blades do not necessarily make them PC. If the blade was smith made then, it would have a reasonably decent finish. Smiths had their pride in clean workmanship, whatever they were making. If homemade by a farmer or whatever, just as a utility item, then it might be quite crude in all aspects. It is widely thought that the best, and fancier knives, were gunsmith made. They had better training in fit and finish work, and many did blacksmithing as a side line. If you were referring to ageing, some like it, some don't. I like a light ageing. Just enough to make the knife look used, but not 200 years old. To me, a little patina gives the knife a warm look, and the customer is not so reluctant to use it.

 

[dyemaker]

Nice knife. It looks like it would have been used during the Revolutionary War. :thumbsup:

I was looking at daggers from Anders Hogstrom. I particularly like the matching wooden sheaths on some of them but I think it is either a Japanese or Scandinavian thing. Some of his knives are hybrids.

Antiqued but not overly rough looking... got it.

I know some knives were made from shortened German hunting swords but they are usually rough looking as if they were altered by someone who did not really know what he was doing. I wonder how frequently you would come across a well done one.

 

[dyemaker]

I saw a replica of Daniel Boone's knife which was a trade knife at DGW. That's where this started. The same blade design as a sax or scramasax and also Scottish dirks which were in use at the time.
While looking over images online alot of replica patch knives I saw had that very same drop point design.

It seems that a cut down scramasax blade with a antler handle might fit right in. Some of these original blades have grooves in them. Not sure about that part. Damascus is out. How far off am I in choosing a blade design for a longrifle hunter knife?

Link

Link

 

[dyemaker]

Looking through images of custom colonial knives on google images just confuses me more. I look in my kitchen drawer and find paring and steak knives. Again... seax or sramasax style blades. There must be something to that. It shows up again and again.

The one here with a curly maple handle seems unmistakeable.

Link

Link

 

[LRB]

The general shape of the sax knives is basicly correct, but that is a pretty generic shape not confined to just viking knives. That Boone knife blade would be ok, but not the grip. You would not find the large brass rivets, and the brass mounts would have been extremely rare. I don't think the shape of the blade is of great importance when compared to grip contruction, materials, and attachment. Simple blade shapes of relatively thin steel, compared to modern knives, seems to be the more common denominator, along with relatively simple grips. Distal blade tapers, and tapered tangs, whether half tang, or full, and many stick tangs. Ball/pistol grips were pretty common among French, English, and NA's. Here is is my carry knife. A pistol grip style having a tapered tang, distal tapered blade, and bone grips secured with 1/8" iron pins. A 9" blade, but very light and handy in use due to the tapers and base thickness of the steel.

 

[DBox]

I read a book a long time ago when I was a teeneager getting started in blacksmithing, and don't remember the title,that in a shop there was a smith and an apprentice. One job of the apprentice was to use scraps during slow times to make nails and billets of damascus. The billets were made by welding old horsesho nails, broken files, and anything else that was too small to be of use anywhere else. Then these billets would be used to make anything that was needed in the shop. This kept the apprentice busy during slow times and made use of all of the scrap, which was essential since in some places the raw material was hard to come by. This was also a kind of test for the apprentice to show that he could forge weld. I can weld some but I can't imagine welding up billets fron scraps as small as used and broken horseshoe nails. Maybe that would be a good practice for me.
The "cable damascus" that I have welded up has almost no pattern at all until you etch it with acid. It would be hard to tell by simply looking at an aged knife with some use on it if it was damascus or not if it had not been etched. I don't know id damascus is PC or not, (and I really don't care) but I'd be willing to bet that some of those billets welded up by those young apprentices found their ways into knife blades from the time man found that he could hammer two pieces of iron together until now. What do ya'll think?

 

[jmforge]

I read a book a long time ago when I was a teeneager getting started in blacksmithing, and don't remember the title,that in a shop there was a smith and an apprentice. One job of the apprentice was to use scraps during slow times to make nails and billets of damascus. The billets were made by welding old horsesho nails, broken files, and anything else that was too small to be of use anywhere else. Then these billets would be used to make anything that was needed in the shop. This kept the apprentice busy during slow times and made use of all of the scrap, which was essential since in some places the raw material was hard to come by. This was also a kind of test for the apprentice to show that he could forge weld. I can weld some but I can't imagine welding up billets fron scraps as small as used and broken horseshoe nails. Maybe that would be a good practice for me.
The "cable damascus" that I have welded up has almost no pattern at all until you etch it with acid. It would be hard to tell by simply looking at an aged knife with some use on it if it was damascus or not if it had not been etched. I don't know id damascus is PC or not, (and I really don't care) but I'd be willing to bet that some of those billets welded up by those young apprentices found their ways into knife blades from the time man found that he could hammer two pieces of iron together until now. What do ya'll think?

Cable is not a terribly high contrast material. The pattern you get from cable is, in part, because you have decarburized the outer layer of each individual wire during the welding and forging process. You gert the same effect when you forge weld old school damascus like Bill Moran did originally using O1 and mild steel or like Don Hanson III has done with W2 and wrought iron. The different shades you see in current damascus comes mostly from the alloying elements. Silver comes from nickel in steels like L6, 15n20 or 203E or from pure nickel. Gray can either be from chrome from steel like O1, 52100 or even 5160 or from steel with low amounts of manganese like W1 or W2. Steels with higher manganese content like 1070 or 1084 tend you give you the very dark grey colors. I have been told that you can get the contrasting grey colors of the older high/low carbon high layer count damascus using a combination of say W1 or W2 and 1070 or 1084 without giving up so much carbon content.

 

[jmforge]

Thanks for the information. I guess the intentionally rough textured plain looking high carbon blades are the way to go instead. My intitials are the maker's mark too. Just can't recall the maker's name now.
The reenacting thing is tough. I do see your point that such materials were not common then. I got caught up in all the beauty of handle materials available. I even saw a bowie made with a patterned iron meteorite and fossil mammoth tusk. The Cape York iron has a nice pattern. This was actually used by eskimos in Greenland.

Fossil coral, fossil whale, meteorite palisites with space peridots in them not good, Plain jane good. Got it. The Mr. Fancypants knives can wait for now.

What about the use of cury maple for knife handles? It would seem to me that a denser wood like osage orange might be better but I don't know if this was an eastern tree back then. They were planted as windbreaks and fence lines later on. Even though natives had wide trade routes for the wood, it may not have been readily available to colonists.

I imagine there were (isolated) cases of "fantasy" knives back then but you are right, such materials were hard to find let alone two or more.

The meteorite bowie might have been authentic ... but ONLY if you were a US knifemaker traveling to Greenland in the 18oo's and intermingled with eskimos. :haha: :haha: :haha:

Guys who make meteoritic iron damascus tend to use scraps left over from cutting sleces for display and usually laminate it around a core of high carbon steel. Meteorite would make cool fittings like guards or buttcaps, but I have been told that the pattern goes away of you forge the stuff even more so than with crusty old wrought iron, so you would need slices that were close to the right size for the finished parts so you wouldn't waste a lot of it. The good stuff can be quite pricey and a blade made from straight meteorite iron would be pretty useless as a cutting instrument.