Damascus scales?

S

Shann

Joined
Sep 2, 2004
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I've never had a knife with a damascus blade, but always admired their looks. I was just scrolling through some pictures of beautiful custom folders with damascus blades and noticed that none of them had damascus scales. I did a quick google search and the only damascus scaled folders I came across appeared to be relative cheapies.

This is idle curiousity as I'm not looking to actually buy one but do they exist and is there a reason (cost? workability? just looks too busy?) that there aren't more out there?

Thanks.
 
I am not an expert at all, but your question was an interesting one. What follows is my non-expert opinion.

I would assume it is a combination of factors.

Weight - you don't see a lot of stainless steel scales for the same reason. TI, Cf and G10 are significantly lighter.

Cost - in order to match the blade, it would need to be the same Damascus. Preferably from the same billet. Can you imagine the cost if you made your steel scales out of some super steel in order to match the blade? M390 scales....🤔

Aesthetics - I'm not going to say that it couldn't be done in some tasteful and eye appealing way, but I've never seen one. The only ones I have ever seen where hideous. Too much of not a great thing. (Mediocre patterns). Too busy coupled with bad design.

I think the reason you only see damascus scales on cheap knives is that all the Damascus scaled knives that I have come across have been made in China. I find much of the Chinese Damascus suspect. Often times if you read the fine print it will mention laser etching or something similar so it looks like Damascus but it isn't made with two different steels folded together. They never seem to state what the the two steels are so you have no idea the quality of the blade.

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more likely the Damascus eas made in Pakistan and the knife assembled in China.
 
I think a likely reason is the tendency to rust, at least in real Damascus. There is stainless Damascus and mokume and the titanium variation that is popular lately. These can be found as accents on more expensive folders.
 
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