Custom Forged Blades

[lvlagneto]

I just ordered 25 Damascus folding knives from Ansar (company gifts), and the work was quite good. I actually designed a knife and he was able to hit the pattern. He runs a small team of smiths and they seem very willing to do little jobs. I know that people are often searching for unique plane blades, gouges and knives, so I think that this might be a great opportunity to have custom work done for a reasonable price, and support a small overseas business. If you're just curious about the product, he does sell square steel blanks (and any other kind) on request.

you can email directly:

info@classicdamascus.com)

http://www.moghalenterprises.com/

[Torbjörn Zethelius]

Have you tried them yet? How is the steel?

[lvlagneto]

I have used one of the folding knives for basic cutting open of boxes and sharpening wooden stakes (gardening), but nothing crazy. They seem to hold up! I think it would be worth working with them for custom tool making. You can pay via payPal, and the work gets done with some back and forth. Again, this is a really small team of people, so they are interested in making customers happy to promote repeat business.

[cbouts]

Hmmm i would want to hear some reports on how well the edge holds before ordering a custom gouge for rough arching... Ive been slowly replacing gouges for flatter sweeps.

[lvlagneto]

That's the point of working with Ansar, to develope whatever kind of tool you want, and useful tools for everyone here. Again, you can order steel blanks on request (for a plane blade?) and see how it goes. It should be a fun interactive process.

[violins88]

It seems that it would be very useful to have the opinion of an established violin maker on

these blades as for edge holding and sharpening ease. How about if you ask them to send a sample to David B, M. Darnton, or any of the other fine makers on Maestronet. Feedback from these makers would be useful.

Do any makers want to volunteer to test them?

[James M. Jones]

It seems that it would be very useful to have the opinion of an established violin maker on

these blades as for edge holding and sharpening ease. How about if you ask them to send a sample to David B, M. Darnton, or any of the other fine makers on Maestronet. Feedback from these makers would be useful.

Do any makers want to volunteer to test them?

Overall they look good-great ,It would be nice if the new web site talked more about the materials,process,the smiths and the quality.As it stands, they now look like any other damascuss producer. I know Pakistan is in the heartland of steel making,It's to bad that the new web site doesn't talk about that..the history of steel in Pakistan goes waaaay back.They should be proud.sooner or later a buyer is going to know where they are ,why not be up front about it?

[lvlagneto]

That's a good idea. I actually sent him a link to MDs page so that he could get an idea of the variety of tools that we use.

[lvlagneto]

Overall they look good-great ,It would be nice if the new web site talked more about the materials...

His old website actually mentioned that he started producing Damascus back in the 70s with three other smiths. I will recommend that he brings back the history, and mentions technical aspects of the steel, and photos of his shop! People often get too hung up on presenting a clean looking product, and forget about the history and craft that customers are interested in seeing.

[lvlagneto]

Here is my blog which contains the process that I went through... nothing earth shattering, but fun:

http://www.iburkard.com/blogspot.html

[violins88]

You mentioned something about "for those wanting to support a small overseas business..."

Curious to me, here in the USA, where the whole political scene is dominated by jobs, jobs, jobs. OK, I realize that there are needs much greater in many countries that the USA. Could you say a little more about why you are promoting Pakistan workers?

And more important to violin makers, what about my suggestion that these knives be placed in the hands of real violin makers to get ther feedback? Feedback about being excellent working tools as well as objet d'art?

Just because it's Damascus does not mean it has superior edge qualities. Damascus can apparently be made of various kinds of steel.

[lvlagneto]

"Curious to me, here in the USA, where the whole political scene is dominated by jobs, jobs, jobs. OK, I realize that there are needs much greater in many countries that the USA. Could you say a little more about why you are promoting Pakistan workers?" It's less about where the people are; it's all about what they are doing, their openness and passion. I support any kind of art/hand work being done in any part of the world. If Classic Damascus was located in the US, China, Japan, India, Russia, England etc I would still have used their service.

"And more important to violin makers, what about my suggestion that these knives be placed in the hands of real violin makers to get ther feedback? Feedback about being excellent working tools as well as objet d'art?"

Right now, no such product exists to test, which was the entire point of this thread. Ansar is a smart man, and could easily engineer something that is pretty and functional. I may have to do a short run of carving tools with him so that this discussion actually means something. -- My hope was that someone else would experiment/invest for fun, based on my pleasant experience.

"Just because it's Damascus does not mean it has superior edge qualities. Damascus can apparently be made of various kinds of steel."

I totally understand this point. Again, the purpose of this thread was to give people access to damascus blanks and work with Ansar to have blanks made to their specs.

[Dean_Lapinel]

I just ordered 25 Damascus folding knives from Ansar (company gifts), and the work was quite good. I actually designed a knife and he was able to hit the pattern. He runs a small team of smiths and they seem very willing to do little jobs. I know that people are often searching for unique plane blades, gouges and knives, so I think that this might be a great opportunity to have custom work done for a reasonable price, and support a small overseas business. If you're just curious about the product, he does sell square steel blanks (and any other kind) on request.

you can email directly:

info@classicdamascus.com)

http://www.moghalenterprises.com/

If you want to keep business in the US I have offered to make a custom designed knife for f-holes or whatever need someone might have. James is also a metal banger but I don't know if he has interest in making blades. I did get a request for a purfling channel chisel but I never got to it for several reasons. I am well equipped to make any shape knife out of any steel of choice. I enjoy forging more than stock reduction so I don't usually work with stainless.

If anyone is interested send me a properly sized profile and describe your preference of steel, hollow vs flat grind as well as bevel angle. I will make one at a bargain price in exchange for a maestronet review. I have a swage block that has a wide range of profiles for gouges but I can't do larger projects for a couple of months. Incidentally I will, in the near future, take trades of single piece maple backs (similar to Michael Köberling's)for more complex work (damascus, engraved guard etc...).

I heat treat the simple high carbon steels and send the more demanding steels for HT to a shop in Texas.

[bean_fidhleir]

Those photos are interesting. All the descriptions I've ever seen of the original Damascus (Syrian) work say that one should have to glance the light off the surface to see the figure, that in top-quality work it's almost imperceptible. I wonder whether this, with its bold figuring, might be easily-made "bazaar quality" like most carpets.

[James M. Jones]

Those photos are interesting. All the descriptions I've ever seen of the original Damascus (Syrian) work say that one should have to glance the light off the surface to see the figure, that in top-quality work it's almost imperceptible. I wonder whether this, with its bold figuring, might be easily-made "bazaar quality" like most carpets.

In the old stuff you are correct , the only difference in the steel of antique blades is carbon content,sometimes the forging temps get high and this will "water" the steel by passing carbon from high concentration to low ,producing even more subtle patterning to develop.. thus the variance in shade is small. With modern steels however there are many alloys such as chromium, moly, ect that vastly affect the appearance of the steel ....but overall the quality has gone up in regards to purity ,edge capacity , corrosion resistance and a host of other variables. The biggest factor by far is not what steel is used but rather how it was formed and treated ....much like a violin. The Pakistanis/ region are to steel as Cremona is to violins, I would like to hear more from these guys about the steel they use and methods,educating the public could help build a trust that has in many ways been broken by cheap trade goods ,Their hammer is the chit mon. ,

[pbelin]

If the steel is finely polished the structure is hardly visible, whatever alloy or carbon content..., the surface is usually etched with some acid, thqats where the different kinds of steels react differently, and thats how you get shades from silver to black.

Doesn't say anything about the quality.

By the way ou have amazing bladesmiths in the US who can make exactly the quality you want, whatever that is. But there you pay for what you get, top quality is not cheap.

Damascus is good for tools that take blows, for a bridge knife it doesn't bring anything by the way, see it as the plywood of steels: together it's stronger, but each layer is in no way superior to the wood (or steel) it's made of.

Hope this helped