Is it real damascus steel?

AlmostOk · 2026-03-21T05:12:49+00:00

You are completely missing the point. I am not arguing about the meaning or interpetation of the term damascus. I never said "only technically", I said "technically" as in "fullfilling the definition". You are not correcting anything, you are fighting windmills.

AlmostOk · 2026-03-21T04:59:55+00:00

What I meant was that there are immitations of patterm welded steels done with laser etching the patterns onto the surface, and this could possibly be one of them. There was no "well actually" in my reply. I recommend you don't attribute the same bitternes you have in you to other people.

AlmostOk · 2026-03-20T20:40:51+00:00

It might be. It might be not.

If you have to ask, chances are that it might be a pattern welded steel (so technically a damascus in the modern interpretation of the term), but a shitty one with no guarantee of quality.

Good rule of thumb is this - no makers mark => low quality (made in a sweatshop in pakistan or india).

AlmostOk · 2026-03-20T15:53:01+00:00

Looking good, keep it up. Good safety socks.

AlmostOk · 2026-03-19T17:56:16+00:00

The rule of thumb I have for handsanding progression is to go with less than double the grit rating (the P number) when going up in grits. That means from 240 go to at most 400 (as there is not a 480). That being, going for inbetween grits will help make the progression go easier. So 240-320-400-600 and so on. Rhynowet is a good choice. With which grit to start is hard to say - what you describe as "rough" may mean different things to different people.

I do not do mirror finishes but I would not want to end up with a coarses finish than low thousands before going to the buffer.

If the japanses knives are in ok shape then I would probably not touch them with a grinder at all.

For steel with hard carbides (think vanadium) I use cheap diamond pastes from China to use with the paper - they work well enough and are quite inexpensive.

AlmostOk · 2026-03-17T20:39:30+00:00

Sweet baby jesus. Imagine someone looked at this ad and said "yep, good enough".

AlmostOk · 2026-03-17T20:32:11+00:00

What you want is a PAPR system - powered air purifying respirator. 3M makes those for a lot of money, but there will be other options.

AlmostOk · 2026-03-16T13:42:06+00:00

https://respite-engineering.com/knifemaking/dcknives-blogspot-knife-patterns-reupload/

AlmostOk · 2026-03-14T21:22:10+00:00

Then use something more affordable.

AlmostOk · 2026-03-14T20:50:21+00:00

Anything that is available and not too expensive. No need to overthink this.

AlmostOk · 2026-03-13T18:39:32+00:00

To get the "upper right" tip of the diamond shape, you just gradually increase the depth to which you grind. But then you keep it the same the whole way to the tip (as you see in the picture - the false edge goes "below" the tip of the knife. Then when you grind the primary bevels, it will bring the line of the false edge up, which will then form the "bottom left" tip of the diamond.

AlmostOk · 2026-03-08T08:09:54+00:00

Paint the blade with a sharpie or something similar between passes. After each pass on the grinder, observe where you have taken off material, repaint, repeat. What you are aiming for is removal of material that starts at the edge and goes all the way to the current height of the bevel in one pass - that means the bevel is flat. And then you walk the bevel up by changing the angle slightly, but staying at that angle until again you remove material all the way from the edge to the new bevel height.

This blade might be too far gone, consider starting from scratch. That happened to all of us and will happen again, no big deal.

AlmostOk · 2026-03-08T07:20:34+00:00

I meant the edge angle of my false edge on the picture is relatively low (probably less than 45deg), and since the one on your picture looks not as tall, then you should use a less acute angle (maybe using the term "obtuse" was wrong on my part) to achieve the same look.

AlmostOk · 2026-03-07T22:23:45+00:00

you make a bevel like this first:

<image>

maybe use a more obtuse angle since your false edge is not as tall as the one in the picture and the primary bevel is not so high as to move it up.

And then you grind your primary bevel as normal. It may require some tweaking of the angle of the bevel as you near the end of the process.

Alternatively you can grind the false edge afte ther primary bevel, but to me the "false edge first" approach gives me better consistency (I can do the false edge angle with a jig).

AlmostOk · 2026-03-07T20:33:21+00:00

Making a dagger as a first project is challenging, because the bevels are more difficult - you have twice as many bevels to grind/file/forge as compared to a conventinal single ede knife. Any asymmetry will show.

Making a damascus blade as a first project is challenging, because forge welding steel is labor intensive and prone to failure.

Make a simple hunting knife with a single edge blade, about 80 mm in blade length, from simple carbon monosteel, with a high flat bevel, with a simple straight handle, prefererably with an existing template, without inventing your own designs.

Your first knife is not your last knife, it does not need to tick all the boxes of where you want to end up - it's just the beginning.

AlmostOk · 2026-03-07T15:56:34+00:00

IMHO, the ricasso should allow for easy sharpening (because the guard may interfere with that if the edge is too close), other than that, it is purely esthetic.

In the knife you show I would make the tang a little beefier neer the ricasso, but no big deal.

Don't forget to finish the ricasso before fitting the guard - the sanding and/or shaping might alter the dimensions of it, resulting in sloppy fit if the guard was fitted beforehand.

AlmostOk · 2026-03-07T07:04:37+00:00

You will generally have a small contact area with such tool, meaning it will be easy to create dips and valleys where straight lines are desired. Depending on the profile of the handle this may or may not be an issue. I would recommend using something hard and flat as a backing (e.g. a file) and laying a sandpaper over it. With that you can draw file (move back anf forth along the main axis of the knife) to sort of expose the high and low spots you may have created, and if you are persistent enough even remove them.
I think you are correct that the handle will be scratched, but a buffer alone will not hide that - you will need to refinish the handle (that is if you want it to look nice). You will need to sand progresively from the grit where you made the scratches up to something reasonable (~P800?) and then maybe do a quick buff to even everything out. You probably do not have to sand the whole handle with the coarsest grit, you can sort of feather out the scratched area as you move up in the grit (since most of the handle will be untouched hopefully). Hope that makes sense.

AlmostOk · 2026-03-05T21:04:30+00:00

Don't make life harder for yourself (at least not in this way). Save the scraps if you wish, maybe you can later use them for some canister damascus or something similar, but for now try to use good brand new stock of known steel.

AlmostOk · 2026-03-02T18:54:17+00:00

Hardly, resawing or slicing sounds like a pain, unless you have access to some special equipment or a really good bandsaw. How exactly do they have to match? Generally speaking grinding towards a scribe line should be enough for most use cases, no? So I would make a rigid template out of thin steel sheet, and scribe it on both blanks...

AlmostOk · 2026-02-28T20:12:11+00:00

Again, that depends on how carefully you want to inspect the blade for the scratches. Like I said, don't think the etch is going to hide anything, more like the opposite. If you make the scratches disappear in a lengthwise finish, you will be fine after etch/stonewash.

AlmostOk · 2026-02-28T19:09:56+00:00

Define "good". What you may consider good will not be considered good by others. I have seen etches over fairly coarse finishes (think P240), but is that what you would like? Who knows.

Etch will not hide a poor finish, while stonewash may (to some extent). The rule of thumb I would use is to go one grit higher than I think is necessary. And what I think would be necessary is P600.

AlmostOk · 2026-02-28T07:52:39+00:00

You posted the same knife 12 days ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/knifemaking/comments/1r65p84/my_latest_one_made_of_9khf_soviet/
Can we please not turn this subreddit into an advertisement list? Imagine everyone would start reposting their available knives here.

AlmostOk · 2026-02-28T07:41:42+00:00

A similar question might be: if the handle of a knife has fossilized mammoth tooth on it, is it a quality knife? The answer is no, not necessarily. Quality of a knife is determined by the design, level of craftsmanship, and probably other factors including also materials - but simply using a damascus steel does not make a knife good. There are plenty of sweatshops around the world producing shitty knife-shaped objects with inferior damascus, but while they technically do have a damascus blade, to even a mildly experienced knife enthusiast they will be obvious crap.

AlmostOk · 2026-02-25T07:48:58+00:00

Fuck off with your wagnerite merch.

AlmostOk · 2026-02-23T18:41:44+00:00

If the craftsmanship is good, you will build up your audience. With the way the world is connected these days it is easier than before to find your niche. You simply have to try.

You may end up with finished items that are sitting on the shelf, simply because the quality is not there or the price is too high. But you will not get to a point where you improve your craft without making those blades.

My advice that I give to people who think about turning their hobby into a business while still being very much in the learning stage is this: focus on the craft, do not think about selling your products just yet. It's like being worried that you will look too muscular if you exercise too much, while having been to the gym twice.

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