[Sca-cooks] Damascus Question

[Huette von Ahrens]

Caid has several Laurels who are blade smiths and
who do Damascus knives, daggars and swords.  You
may contact them at these addresses:

This is the legendary bladesmith, Master Atar
Bakhtar (mka Jim Hrisoulas) who wrote all those
wonderful books on how to make blades:

Jim at Atar.com 
http://www.atar.com

Master Antonio el Oso (mka Tony Lemon) who was/is
Atar's finest student and now a Laurel in his own
right for blade smithing:

oso at osoforge.com
www.osoforge.com

Both of these blade artists can help you and give
you the advice you need.

Tell them Huette sent you.

Huette


--- Johnna Holloway
<johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu> wrote:
> On one of my other lists, this question was
> posed
> regarding the making and sale of Damascus
> knives within
> the SCA....
> 
> Would anyone on SCA-Cooks care to comment and
> let Danr
> know what you think as regards price and
> market?
> 
> You can reply directly to him at:
> irontree at visi.com
> 
> Johnnae
> ---------------------
> 
> Greetings,
>         I have a question for anyone.
> 
> Background: I have been blacksmithing for many
> years now and I reached a
> milestone.  I learned forge welding sometime
> ago, but recently my skill 
> level
> with welding reached the point that I am now
> making Damascus Steel 
> billets.  It
> is these billets that are then ground into
> knives and other items.  For 
> those
> of you that do not know, Damascus steel is
> layers of different kinds of 
> steel
> welded together and then repeatedly folded (or
> cut) and rewelded.  The more
> folds you do, the more layers you make.  I have
> read that some Japanese 
> swords
> had as many 246 layers. (I have never heard of
> a sword that had 2000 layers
> except in the movie Highlander)
> 
> The Question: I sell ironwork at events and
> though I like making 
> Damascus, I
> don't like the idea of making daggers. The idea
> of making Meat Cleavers and
> Damascus Chef's Knives however, that is
> appealing. I know it is a fine 
> line,
> but that is my comfort level at the moment. I
> just finished a small French
> Chef's Knife.  Would people be interested in
> buying these?  Should I 
> include
> these in my stock.  They would not be cheap.  A
> 10 inch knife would take 
> over 6
> hours and cost about $200-$300 dollars
> depending on how elaborate the 
> pattern
> and the number of layers.
> 
>     I will likely make one for A&S no matter
> what happens but Damascus 
> is fun
> to do and I would like to do more, but I can't
> justify doing alot of it 
> unless
> I can sell it at my booth.  Merchanting iron
> work is my summer job and I 
> have
> to make moeny at it or get a "real" job. 
> (shiver)
> 
> Comments welcome.
> 
> Danr Katlasmiðr
> www.irontreeworks.com
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Sca-cooks mailing list
> Sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
>
http://www.ansteorra.org/mailman/listinfo/sca-cooks


=====
Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves for they 
shall never cease to be amused.

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