Nice, does he have a website or anywhere we can see the journey. I’m very interested in his work. I have made a few lately. Mainly putting handles on for now. With only now giving it a go at blade as well.
Although I do have a good Damascus maker locally that supplies a lot of Damascus steel to Australian knife makers. And has made a few knives for me. Below is a his and hers in buffalo horn and camel bone. Mrs STANDY claimed the camel bone the second I got home. This is a newer spin on Damascus for camp and outdoor knives…. Damascus or "forge welded" steel consists of different types of steel heated to welding temperatures and mashed together until they form one steel. The billet is then drawn out, cut or folded. The process is repeated again and again, every time doubling the number of layers. To get a consistent, strong edge these pieces consist of softer stainless layers over a hard single steel centre edge piece. Basically forge welding the damascus to a VG10. The billet is ready to grind into a blade and is 3 mm x 30 mm x 220 mm in size. The Damascus billet is heat treated completely, hardened and tempered to 58 HRC. This is a good hardness for outdoor knives as well as general duty kitchen knives.
Has anyone done any restorations of old high quality blades (mainly kitchen knives)? I've seen a few where the grip was destroyed but the blade was still there and probably better steel than modern stuff.
That's just san mai, which has been used for a long time in the japanese knife world. But it is admittedly odd the core is VG10. Usually a carbon steel is used, often in conjunction with stainless steel damascus so you only really need to worry about keeping the edge clean. VG10 is also an odd choice for the core if you want stainless because there are much better stainless steel to use (AEB-L, XHP, etc.) as well as some of the semi-stainless steels.
Yeah it’s a weird one. Picked it up as a really good price on special when I ordered a heap of knife making supplies a few months back. Didn’t really read up on it until after I had it. Being spoilt for choice with steels lately. Magnacut is a new steel in the buzz lately Did have a knife commissioned for my 50th from a US maker and he used Z wear
Magnacut is one of the steels Larrin Thomas developed. His father is Devin Thomas, one of the best known damascus and kitchen knife makers here in the US. Devin is a longtime contributor to the kitchen knife forums, and Larrin has been active there the last few years. He posts a lot of the stuff he develops for knifesteelnerds on that forum.