Gifted.
On my recent trip up North to visit an amazing blacksmith I’m dealing with and some old friends, the ’smith offered to make me a blade as a demonstration while I was there.
I sketched out a shape, and a couple of hours later he’d rough-forged the most amazing blade. I’ve reprofiled it & ground the sides, etched the steel & sharpened the edge ’til it took hairs off my arm. I don’t know if this is how I’ll keep the finish – the deep etch is perhaps a little over-the-top for my tastes, although I really want to do justice to the work the guy did folding the original billet (although the rough shaping took only a couple of hours, pattern welding the damascus takes several more!)
So, it’s a damascus steel body with a carbon steel fillet folded in for an edge – the guy absolutely nailed it, with the carbon edge steel being wafer thin but absolutely bang-on central. Now I’ve filed it into form, I’m dying to get it hardened so I can get to work on a wooden handle…
There’s a second blade, very different, to follow at a later date as well. That’s still looking too rough to show though, so stay tuned.
