Damascus Hunter

Recently I bought a hydraulic press and produced a Damascus bar.

Although the press makes easier to produce the damascus, I coud not manage to create an uniform pattern. Thus, this first bar is an aleatory pattern with few rain drops. It is made of 1095 carbon steel (old files) and 15N20 and have near 200 layers. In order to produce the desired contrast between the layers, the knife was eached in Ferric Perchlorate and then Phosphatized. The overall shape follows the last hunters I made. The blade is approximatly 4 inches long and was silver soldered to the guard, made of the same damascus piece. The handle is Olive Wood hand sanded and treated with Tung oil.

The sheat was made of dyed leather and ornamented with some basic stamps.

Resuming the Activities

After several attempts, this is my new creation, a carbon steel hunter knife. The blade was forged from 5160 steel and received selective quenching. As a matter of fact, I changed the quenching fluid and it produced visible improvements on the quality of heat treatment.

I forged two twin blades, quenched and tempered both to produce identical properties. Then, one of them was bended 90º as shown in the picture.Just the hardened area near the edge presented a crack. The remaining blade received the proper finish and is presented here. The guard is made of 1/2" Stainless Steel piece and was soldered to the blade.

The handle is made of Imbuia Burl, and the shape follows the one I made during R. Sfreddo´s Knife Making Course. This is a very simple and elegant shape, though special care must be taken to keep edges and corners clear and well defined.