Case damascus

H

huugh

Joined
Jul 16, 2005
Messages
1,772
Hi there,
what do you think of Case damascus? Is it worth the price? (BTW do you happen to know what HRC is it?)
 
Early Case Damascus was made by Fain Edwards in a renovated cotton gin behind what was the Parker-Edwards factory in Jacksonville, Alabama. It was made using a six-ton air hammer, using random patterns. Brad Vice is producing Alabama Damascus in the same location and produces a lot of the Damascus used by Bear & Son.

Most recent Damascus from Case is made by Devin Thomas, who is an absolute master of making Damascus.

Not sure if that answered your question--but I don't know anyone that actually uses Damascus knives anyway.

Most of it will rust in a heartbeat so be sure you keep it oiled.

Bruce Voyles
 
Thanks for the info.

I'm surprised there is not much user experience with it. :(
 
Nothing Case has made recently has been worth a damn. They make a good looking knife, but it's only for the collector market. If you want a good USING knife that will also be a great collectible one day, check out Great Eastern Cutlery or Queen. Best traditional folders on the market, IMO.
 
Warden - pardon my ignorance, but would you mind explaining in detail? I'm not interested in "collectibility", but if there are quality (or other?) issues, I'd like to know.
 
I only have one Case Damascus knive, a peanut. I carry it as part of the rotation. As far as rust it no worse than CV which quite a few of us covet. That said it feels softer than CV and I much prefer CV for a working edge. I do buy a few Case knives, but I do not believe that they are that collectable (will not increase in value), but they are nice and I use them.
 
warden41272 said:
Nothing Case has made recently has been worth a damn. They make a good looking knife, but it's only for the collector market. If you want a good USING knife that will also be a great collectible one day, check out Great Eastern Cutlery or Queen. Best traditional folders on the market, IMO.
Click to expand...

Warden,

Let's watch the hyperbole and keep it reasonable. If you have facts or experience you wish to share that's fine but let's stay away from gross generalizations that are either unfounded (or unsupported) or give the appearance of trolling.

There are many users of Case and other brand knives here who have a great deal of experience. Let's not let this descend into a useless and fruitless argument.
 
I've carried and used some of the older Case Damascus folders (from 1989- using the older steel). I have no experience with the newer ones with steel from Devin Thomas though.

These older blades do indeed seem rather soft. Have had a lot of issues with edge rolling and damage that did not harm some of my other harder blades with similar edge geometry.

Also, I used to own probably around 20 Case damascus bladed folders, and of those, almost half the blades had blue edges at the tip- evidence they were really overheated during factory sharpening. This was really evident one time when I dropped my stockman tip first in the dirt. The tip got totally mangled; it looked like I'd used it as a screwdriver or something.

My above comment about softness though pertains to the whole blade, even after enough sharpening that the tips have changed shape somewhat. For example, a while back I was doing some whittling on a hedge stick (osage orange, which is very hard). I had to keep the stone handy to retouch the edge as I worked, and it does work on the stones like fairly soft steel. Finally I just gave up and used a different knife, which lasted the rest of the job just fine.
 
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