The steel
(Much of the technical stuff that follows might be my misunderstanding, as I’m not a technical expert in anything and I was relying on my wife’s translation based on 2 years as a teenager in Italy more than 20 years ago. Anyone who knows any better please chime right in as I’d like as accurate as possible an understanding of my straight.)

I had written asking for Damascus steel in full hollow 7/8 roundpoint, the kind with the circular pattern in the blade as opposed to the straighter-lined kind. The Mastro had replied saying this would not be possible for what he called Damascus Rose. If I wanted the Rose variety I’d have to live with 5/8. Alternatively, I could have 7/8 in Blue Tonge (with straighter lines). I then made a bad decision: I said Rose was an important aesthetic in the piece, so 5/8 it would have to be. I then spent the next 2 months agonising over whether the rest of the design would look too crammed and busy on a 5/8 blade. If I got it wrong, there would be no changing it. But here I was, staring at what was clearly 7/8 (I own 4/8, 5/8 and 6/8, and this looked bigger than any blade I own). So what was going on here?

The Mastro had received my response to the choice he gave me… and decided to ignore it. The man had thought about my theme and the reason, and he clearly had understood that this would be a working piece as well as a work of art with huge sentimental value. And he didn’t want me to have to compromise. He went ahead and created a 7/8 blade for me in Rose Damascus (so, aesthetic and sentiment successfully delivered). But this left a very practical problem – delivery of the “working piece” part. In order to create 7/8 in Rose, he had to create a blade with a spine which was way too thin (I’m no master forger, so I have no idea why. If anyone does, I’d love to know!). “So what?” some might say. Well, the spine was so thin it would never hold a bevel at the angle it would create on a hone.

So the Mastro concocted a workaround, brilliantly simple and low-tech as hell. He created a steel cuff which would slip over onto the spine, like a sheath. This would do two things: protect the non-steel elements from the hone (i.e. the mother of pearl inlay) as well as raise the angle of the blade to the hone to precisely the right level. The Mastro explained this was the first such thing he had created for a blade and that, as far as he knew, it was unique.





I felt so humbled and a little embarrassed. The Mastro had taken to heart what I asked and created a simple innovation to a problem which until now he had either never encountered or had dismissed as not worth doing. I don’t know how long he spent thinking about the problem, but if it was no more than 5 minutes I’d still feel just as humble for someone to have taken the trouble.

He went onto explain that the steels used in the forging were ATS-34 (the lighter-coloured bands in the blade) and 440 (the darker bands). He was concerned that because the bevel ran through the middle of circular bands that the shave might feel somewhat rough or coarse since the steels would hone differently. The dark and light bands would lose metal at different rates, in theory. He suggested that extended stropping would help. (It was a misplaced concern I think, because it feels %^*&ing awesome to shave with!)

[Note: another thread from Mason (Ruckeriii) about Livi Damascus blades raises the issue of microchipping. I wonder if this explanation from the Mastro has anoything to do with that? Here's the thread.]