Wendell Bryenton,

What is your trick for Damascus? I have had some things go well and others go quite poorly. Any tips or advice for cutting and restack?

Cant say it’s a “trick”. Besides the obvious cleaning the steel.  The best advice I can think of is “If you think it is hot enough, wait 10 more minutes”. I purposely do something else while waiting so I dont take it out early.  Then lightly set the welds, more flux, heat again.  I use a temp gun to make sure I am getting like 2200 degrees.

I did write up an article on my website of what I do (rightly or wrongly).  But following this method, I haven’t had any failures.  Well not quite true, when I got my 16T press, I over squished one end of a billet when setting the welds and had to cut off 2” of the end.  The extra 4T over my old press made that much of a difference until I got used to it.

See the articles page at Https://www.solarstorm.ca/article s" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Making CuMai

Part 1 is about making the Damascus Billet

Part 2 is about using that billet to make the CuMai.

A few more pictures now that I have the pants done.  I shipped it with Sharpening stones and fire steel.  The D rings on the sheath are so that it can be clipped to a pack or shoulder strap for a bauldric carry.

Wendell Bryenton,

Hey man, what kind a crazy handle material you got there?

I dont know the type of Burl, it’s just something one of the Neighbors gave me.  But a couple of years ago, I started stabilizing my own ( I told myself it was to save money lol ). At least I get to be creative with the colors…

But like anything there is risk.  I was originally going to use a nice red piece until I sanded into it and found out the red didn’t really penetrate as much as I hoped.