Stamascus!

THE BEAUTY OF DAMASCUS, THE UTILITY OF STAINLESS STEEL TOGETHER AT LAST.

Next to the rifle itself, a hunter's most personal piece of equipment is probably his knife -- his huntin' knife. Be it for hunting or self-defense, knives and guns are tools that work well together.

If you like guns, chances are that you have more than a passing interest in knives, and like guns, you can never have too many knives. Yet among knives, perhaps the most interesting are those featuring damascus blades. With the development of stainless damascus, the knife market has reached a new level.

Carbon damascus blades have been around since the 11th century B.C. My interest doesn't go quite that far back -- more like 15 years when I had my first knife made of damascus. I was immediately hooked on the stuff. Here was steel with a fingerprint that made every knife constructed of it unique in the entire universe. Not only was it beautifully distinctive, it sharpened easily and maintained its edge. It was precisely the elitist kind of thing that attracts superficial louts like me.

However, back then no one was forging damascus in stainless. Like other such knives at the time, mine was carbon damascus, which meant rust was a constant concern. Rust on any valued knife is a terrible thing, but on damascus it's a travesty!

It was with more than casual interest that I recently learned there was a fellow in North Carolina by the name of Mike Norris who was forging stainless damascus. A licensed master welder, Norris worked on nuclear reactors, so his interest in forging steel was closely related to his vocation. With that kind of background, it's easy to see how Norris took up an interest in knife making.

That was nearly 20 years ago. Within a couple of years he found himself running a part-time business making custom knives in the purest form -- from steel he forged and tempered himself.

It wasn't long thereafter that Norris became fascinated with the damascus process. After months of research, trial and error experimentation, and the information gleaned from the few people who themselves were forging damascus, Norris began turning out the tortured steel for himself. His reputation spread and soon he was supplying other custom knifesmiths around the country.

Profitable Forging

At about the same time Norris got into knife making, another fellow by the name of Ed VanHoy started making knives as a hobby. He soon found himself making them in his spare time on a professional basis. Like Norris, VanHoy quickly developed a passion for working in damascus. The two seemed destined to meet.

Over the course of bumping into one another at regional and national knife shows, where both were regular exhibitors, these two North Carolinians struck up a friendship. Both continued to make custom knives independently for a while, but ultimately saw a future for themselves as a team, and decided to quit their "real" jobs and start having fun.

Shortly before deciding to form their own company, Norris developed a method of forging stainless damascus, thus explaining the choice of "Stamascus" as the name for their new company. At present, Norris is one of a mere handful of men in the country capable of producing stainless damascus, and the only one using three different steels: AEBH Swedish surgical, D2 and 304SS.

"The use of three steels," says VanHoy, "gives us a higher carbon and vanadium content for a higher Rockwell, and also increases abrasion resistance and ability to hold an edge."

In just three short years, Stamascus Knife Works, Inc. has grown to such an extent that Norris is now occupied full-time in producing damascus bar stock, while VanHoy fashions the knives and does some of engraving. In fact, both Ed and his wife. Tanya, completed a two-year course in engraving. In addition to doing the bulk of the engraving and inlay work, Tanya also crafts the fine leather sheaths that are furnished with all Stamascus fixed-blade knives.

Classic Steel

There are currently 21 models in the Stamascus line -- nine folders and 11 of fixed blade configuration. Because each knife is made to order from scratch and there are so many options available, about the only specification that is fixed is the shape.

You can, for example, order your knife in any one of four damascus patterns: random, twist, raindrop or ladder. Then there are all sorts of scale materials such as stag, buffalo horn, micarta, ironwood, blackwood, and ebony, to name but a few.

Since each knife is made to order from blank bar stock, it presents no problem when a customer comes to SKW with a design of his own. In fact, a good percentage of Stamascus' business is creating one-of-a-kind knives. Providing there's nothing radical about the size, shape or materials specified, the cost of an original design is no more than one of their standard models of comparable size and materials. Fixed-blade models in the Stamascus line range from $265 to $325. Any model can be had in ATS-34 stainless for $75 less than the price of damascus.

I recently visited the VanHoys to have my own knife design created in Stamascus stainless. Interestingly, I was able to follow my knife as it went through the various production stages. Unfortunately, all the various stages of forging, shaping, quenching, tempering and surface grinding required just to arrive at a blank takes more than a day, let alone all the other work required to come up with a finished knife.

We decided that the only practical solution was for me to send a drawing of my knife several days ahead of my visit; that way they'd be able to have my knife in various stages of completion for illustrative purposes. It worked just fine.

From Ore To Art

Logically, my first order of business was a visit to the forge located on Mike Norris' property in Albemarle, N.C. The forge is a half-hour's drive from the VanHoy's shop in Candor.

Because damascus blades are so beautiful, it is only fitting that the process by which they are fashioned is complicated -- a combination of art, craft and alchemy. The first damascus steels were made by twisting two strands of thick wire -- one of soft iron, the second a primitive form of steel -- into a rope. That rope was then heated and hammered into shape. The melding of the two steels imparted the ductility of iron to the hardness and edge-holding qualities of carbon steel.

Modern methods for producing damascus are vastly different, yet the principals are the same: the forging (hammering) of red-hot steels having different properties, into one, thereby imparting the attributes of each to the other. In the case of Stamascus stainless, it's the attributes of three steels melded into one.

Norris uses 2"-wide, 1/32"-thick coiled sheet stock of three types of steel, and cuts them into 5" long strips. These thin, 2" x 5" strips are arranged in alternating layers until they form a stack roughly 1 1/2" thick. The stack is clamped together and TIG-welded across the edges to hold it together.

A long steel rod is then welded on one end to enable the stack to he picked up and moved around while in the molten stage. It is then placed into a venturi-type furnace that's no bigger than an ordinary gas patio grille -- but is much hotter!

When the stack of steel reaches 2,300 degrees, it is removed from the furnace and placed under a hydraulic hammer. The steel is then beaten into a solid yet heterogeneous billet that is 6" long and 1" thick.

More Than Skin Deep

The next step in the process determines the patterns that will emerge on the finished blade. To create a ladder pattern, for example, the billet is hammered to approximately 1/4" in thickness and a foot in length. It's then heated once again and run through a set of roller dies which press grooves into both sides of the blank.

As a surface grinder removes stock from both sides of the blank, a ladder pattern emerges on the surface of the taper that forms the cutting edge. This is similar to the contour effect seen in the grip area of a laminated stock because the different layers are bisected at an angle.

To create the raindrop pattern, dozens of holes are drilled about 1/3 of the way through each side of the billet. Following that, progressive forging brings the chunk down to the desired thickness. As the surface grinding commences, a pattern of circles or raindrops" emerges.

For twist damascus, the billets are hammered into a square rod rather than a flat rectangle. This allows the steel to be twisted like a rope before additional hammering draws it to the flat configuration needed for a knife blank.

Finally, random damascus is the result of the progressive hammering on the flat of the billet, allowing layers to form in a random, rather than contrived, pattern.

There is no difference in the edge-holding qualities or durability among the various damascus patterns ifs strictly a matter of cosmetics. While the patterns are easily seen when the blade is held in the right light and viewed from the proper angle, it is the immersion of the finished blade in an acid bath of ferric chloride that brings out the vivid contrast. The acid etches and darkens those areas having lesser nickel and chromium content, providing the attractive silver/gray contrast that is so appealing.

The manufacturing of Stamascus knives is clearly labor-intensive, but worth the effort. Appointed with stag scales and a 416 stainless guard, a Stamascus knife may just be the finest "huntin' knife" you'll ever see.

COPYRIGHT 2000 Publishers' Development Corporation
COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group