There's so much more to this craft than I thought going into it. Like many new knifemakers, I saw the 'Forged in Fire' show and thought hammering a piece of hot steel in a garage was for me. But there's a lot more to it than that, it's a tremendous amount of work. A labor of love, but it's worth every second, even when I've worked on creating a knife for days and have to toss it due to mistake I make, or a million other fails that have got me to where I am with my knife making skills.
I think one of the main things that's unknown to non-makers is just what goes into the forging of damascus, or pattern welded steel. The pattern runs all the way through the blade, it is not just a surface ornamentation.
First, different alloys of steel are stacked, which later create the texture, depth, and patterns on the knife blade. Then, through a multi staged process, the steels are heated and solidified into one homogenous piece. Throughout several more laborious and sweaty stages, the glowing hot steel in manipulated, hammered, pounded, and folded over and over again to achieve the damascus patterns. Each pattern is 100% unique, this is what sets apart hand made damascus knives from anything coming out of factories. Creating damascus steel through hand forging often takes several days. The final pattern is revealed by submerging the steel into an acid and the different alloys react differently to the acids.
After the metal is ready, the knife needs to be ground into shape, heat treated for edge retention, then the bevel is final ground. After all of these processes are completed and the blade is tested, a rectangular block of handle material, sometimes multiple for for aesthetics, is fixed to the tang. Then the handle is hand shaped and finished for beauty, comfort, ergonomics, and ease of use. The longer I've been making knives, the more I've been able to refine the fit and finish.
One of the biggest questions that comes up is why is it so expensive? And that's a great question. It's shocking unless you know what goes into every knife. I'd say on average around $75 goes into just materials alone. That's steel, handle material, and consumables (sand paper, so much sand paper, grinding belts, propane, fasteners, finishing products, epoxy, etc...). And then you add the overhead of the tools and power consumption of heavy machinery and kiln electric bills. Then depending on complexity of a knife it takes between 10-30+ hours to make.
At the end you get a one of a kind knife. Literally handmade in every sense possible. My hand holds the knife and tool every step of the way.