Recommendation? Where to buy Damascus?

JTknives said:
A little advise from someone that heat treats. I would look at other steel besides alabama Damascus. I have been less then impressed with the blades that I have received that are made from that alloy. I have seen exposed cold shuts, voids and slag inclusions. Some times that heat treat straight and other times thy bow and twist. Their heat treating data page is at best a passable joke.

For a low budget damascus I guess it’s ok but for the work required to really make Damascus pop I would look at something a bit nicer. My buddy Salem sometimes lists billet drops on his IG account but those sell faster then snacks and a pot convention. Geoff makes some nice stuff as well but he is in the process of getting set up at his new shop.
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I actually heard the same thing about Alabama Damascus recently on a Facebook knife group. I was kind of surprised, as I always thought they had a good reputation. But then other people started to chime in, echoing the same thing. Complaints of delaminations, cold shuts, etc.. It’s too bad.
 
I hate for this thread to turn into an Alabama Damascus rant for people. I loved it for years, had some issues when they ramped up production, and now use a much higher grade material, so I don't have any recent knowledge of how it is. I can say that they back up every sale with a 100% guarantee. Just let them know the problem with photos and description of the issue and they will replace the billet. I have not heard of any problems with the pre-cut blanks and pre-finished blades.
 
Ramping up production on any product can cause problems - sometimes very much unpredicted and hard to detect. Echoing stacy - i would suggest (with any source) the best thing to do is to let them know of the issues seen, and give them a chance to make it right and to correct their process. If they care, and work to correct things, give them the benefit of the doubt. If they dont care and dont move to correct things ... well consider moving on. No production process is perfect ... ive learned that the hard way over the years.

i personally am watching this thread closely, as there are some projects i am considering doing in damascus...
 
Alabama Damascus has been around for years and years, and at knife shows they always had a giant pile of steel. When did they “ramp up” production?
 
I was keying in on stacys comment. I take it any ramp up was a while ago and not recent?
 
When Brad started (gosh, was it back around 2000?) he was set up behind me at Blade. He brought a trailer load of these weird giant billets with uneven edges and round ends. He wondered if anyone would buy them. He sold out before the Friday session closed and had to drive back and get every scrap they had lest at the foundry. He had a partner, and then later Lacy joined with him ( I don't think Lacy was the original partner). They soon had to ramp up production and make even bigger billets, more of them, and do it faster. There were delam spots, inclusions, and other issues. You couldn't see them until you ground into the billet. They replaced any bad billets with no questions. When they started producing blades, they had worked out 95% of the issues. There will always be issues, but they do their best to spot them and sell only good steel.

I remember Brad calling me up after a big hurricane many years ago to see how I was doing. Power was out for a week or more in much of our area. He was going to drive up from Alabama with a generator to loan me. I already had one going, so it wasn't needed, but that just shows the kind of fellow he is. Lacy has always been a straight shooter with me, too.
 
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