If you're interested in ancient iron (and steel) this series covers ore mining through actual manufacture:<p>Mining
<a href="https://acoup.blog/2020/09/18/collections-iron-how-did-they-make-it-part-i-mining/" rel="nofollow">https://acoup.blog/2020/09/18/collections-iron-how-did-they-...</a><p>Smelting & Charcoal Making
<a href="https://acoup.blog/2020/09/25/collections-iron-how-did-they-make-it-part-ii-trees-for-blooms/" rel="nofollow">https://acoup.blog/2020/09/25/collections-iron-how-did-they-...</a><p>Blacksmithing
<a href="https://acoup.blog/2020/10/02/collections-iron-how-did-they-make-it-part-iii-hammer-time/" rel="nofollow">https://acoup.blog/2020/10/02/collections-iron-how-did-they-...</a>
Damascus: its hard to make and expensive. My son has a shop, and makes it by his own process (surface polishing, forge welding, custom 50-ton press, cut and repeat) and provides it to boutique knife makers. He can create blanks as necessary. And sometimes do a deal where he takes a cut of the knife sale, to enable smaller makers to use this premium quality product.
Is it true that Japanese sword makers were forced to do their famous process (bend and work the metal again and again) because of some other deficiency in their process (either source material or knowledge), and Europeans swords were just as good, but much faster to make because of superior starting materials/knowledge? So in a sense, the superiority of Katana swords is a myth?
I have a benchmade made of ATS-34 from Hitachi. Soon after, they seemed to switch to US steels (S30V and 154CM). I always wondered if it was due to changes in import tariffs.
I've started collecting Spyderccos over the past year and have really enjoyed trying out different steels. So far I have knifes in S30V, S35VN, Cruwear, 52100, M390, and 20CV. Realistically S30V/S35VN is great for almost all everyday users; on the other hand power users may want to look at higher end steels like M390. If you've never carried a knife recommend starting with a Spyderco PM2.
I’ve used eurotechni a lot for many various steel: from super cheap ultra common XC75 to my most loved one: VG10 (and lots of them in between).<p>It’s great to be able so easily to forge or material removal shaping of many blades. A lot of thanks to all these merchants.
Kershaw (previously a premium brand, now available at walmart) is one of my favorite knife brands. The steel can take a razor edge and sharpens easily.<p>Anyone happen to know where they're sourced from?