Is it normal for a high end knife maker to ship out knives with cold shuts?

J

Jonathan Dupree

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Dec 28, 2017
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I noticed what appeared to be a small crack in the blade of my new knife. I don’t know a lot about Damascus Steel but this is the reply from the knife maker. Does it make sense to any of you knife guys? I’ve attached a blown up picture of the spot on the knife. I’ve decided not to name the maker yet
Photo%20Dec%2027%2C%208%2003%2028%20PM.jpg


Click here to see photo https://www.dropbox.com/s/34bpid1af9v66xk/Photo Dec 27, 8 03 28 PM.jpg?dl=0

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Hi Jonathan,


Thanks for reaching out! What you have there is what's known as a "cold shut", which occurs pretty often in Damascus, in fact it's a good way of knowing that what you have is genuine Damascus and not Damasteel or some other faux Damascus. It's usually just a place in the steel where there was maybe a little bit larger deposit of nickel that flaked away during the grinding process. It has been clear Cerakoted over and please rest assured it is not a crack or de-lamination and will not weaken your blade in anyway.


We want you to love your knife, so if you would prefer to exchange it we would be glad to do that for you. You would be looking at probably around the end of March for turnaround time. Let me know!


Sincerely,
 
I wont comment on what ever that blemish is and if it will comprimise the integrity of the knife, but I will say I feel like the maker made a reasonable offer to exchange it for you. If it was me, ide probably exchange it only because I am a perfectionist.
 
A cold shut is a forging defect and is not normal for high-end makers. Or rather, it's a forging defect that isn't infrequent in homebrew damascus, although an experienced damascus maker should see substantially less of it, but no reputable maker should be allowing such obviously flawed work out of his shop. If there is a cold shut in the damascus billet, it should be rectified, not sent to the customer that way. Good grief.

Also I smell a rat. Damasteel isn't 'faux damascus.'
 
madcap_magician said:
A cold shut is a forging defect and is not normal for high-end makers. Or rather, it's a forging defect that isn't infrequent in homebrew damascus, although an experienced damascus maker should see substantially less of it, but no reputable maker should be allowing such obviously flawed work out of his shop. If there is a cold shut in the damascus billet, it should be rectified, not sent to the customer that way. Good grief.

Also I smell a rat. Damasteel isn't 'faux damascus.'
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Thanks for the reply. I spent quite a bit of money on this knife. They made it sound like this was how I knew I had a true Damascus knife. That’s when I felt like they were full of bs.
 
I thought it was a fair response to your question. They explained what happened and offered to exchange it. I have no issues with that.

As far as the blade, I'd exchange it a heart beat as it's ugly as hell. I hope they return it to you quickly and I hope it looks perfect for you.
 
I regularly send Eggerling Damascus to makers to use in knives.

Just had a maker return a blank to me that had a welding error like that, saying it was unusable for a blade. Sent him another and got a beautiful knife.

The problem was found after the blank had been surface ground.

Here is a picture of the steel...

IMG_20171228_185501.jpg
 
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That looks terrible and they should not have let it out of the shop like that. I would return it (and it sounds like you have).
 
They made it right. I believe they were a bit embarrassed but at the end of the day it’s all good.

Thanks for the replies. I wasn’t sure if what they were telling me in the beginning was correct or not, that’s why I reached out here.

Thank you all again.
 
Glenn Goodlett said:
Damasteel is a completely different process and even looks a little different.
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That's true for a certain value, but Damasteel doesn't sell their product as damascus steel, they sell it as damascus-pattern powder metallurgy steel. So to say that Damasteel is 'faux damascus' when Damasteel makes no claim that their steel is damascus is just pure ignorance or ignorant braggadocio on the part of the OP's maker, especially given that Damasteel is a very high-performance steel and is in no way an inferior product. I'm real curious which 'well known' maker has such an attitude.

Any maker can get a bad weld in a damascus billet, but very curious which one let this out of his shop.
 
Glenn Goodlett said:
Damasteel is a completely different process and even looks a little different.
Click to expand...
Besides using powder steel, it's made by "forging, texturing and rolling". If that doesn't qualify for you as damascus, I'd like to hear why. I don't think David Thompson's wasn't real damascus just because he didn't fold it, or that Devin Thomas's isn't real damascus just cause he includes powder components. All the variations in the damascus process have looked a little different.
 
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The Damasteel discussion notwithstanding, IMHO that's just bad quality control.

I would request a new blade. If you're paying custom prices then you should get the custom (and quality controlled for) product. The alternative would be to get some crappy chinese knockoff or, even better, get a production damascus blade (spyderco did a nice job on these.)
 
Not to justify anything for the maker but it is a blown out image, meaning the issue may far not be as huge as shown in the picture. A picture of the entire knife could be more telling.

Plus, the maker is willing to make it right. So what is the point of the OP?
 
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