PROTECTOR II knife handmade by studio master Pavlo Honcharenko, Steel - Damascus 250 layers (ХВГ+У10А) 59-60 HRC

SPECIFICATIONS:

The name of the knife - DEFENDER II handmade knife by studio master Pavlo Honcharenko, order to buy in Ukraine (Steel - high-carbon Damascus 250 layers (ХВГ+У10А)
Knife type: Fixed blade
Brand: Pavlo Honcharenko's Handmade Knives Studio

Blade material: High-carbon Damascus blade 250 layers (ХВГ+У10А) from @Vanya Bogovich
Steel sheet: One-piece cast, through-mounting on screed and resin
Blade Sharpening Angle: 35 Degree Pointed
Descents: Straight
Taper: 0.2mm
Blade hardness: Cutting edge hardness 59-60 HRC
Total length: 280 mm
Blade length: 160 mm
Blade width: 35 mm
Blade thickness: 4.5 mm
Length of the handle: 140 mm
Handle thickness: 25 mm
Grinding of the blade: Finish - mosaic damask
Bolster Material: Bronze
Grip: Bronze, 7.62 gauge stabilized maple cap hybrid, mosaic butt tube. A lanyard made of paracord with bronze beads and a 9 mm caliber sleeve
Lanyard: Lanyard made of paracord with bronze beads and a 9 mm sleeve.
Handle color: Dark brown
Impregnation of the handle: Yes
Handle cover: Yes
Hole for a shoelace (for a lanyard): Yes
Scabbard: Tinted Oak, Wood Carving, Italian Vegetal Tanned Calf Leather, Hand Stitched with Waxed Thread, Finished with Water Resistant Finish, Impregnated with Protective Solutions, Stitched with Waxed Thread. Suspension is removable, free. Bronze insert, bronze beads.
Knife condition: New
Price:  Listed with scabbard.

Model: DEFENDER II handmade knife by studio master Pavlo Honcharenko, order to buy in Ukraine (Steel - high-carbon Damascus 250 layers (ХВГ+У10А)
Model number: 076
Country of birth: Ukraine
Craftsman: Master Pavlo Honcharenko, Ivankiv, Ukraine Pavlo Honcharenko's Handmade Knives Studio

Best use: Hunting, cutting, cutting
Knife condition: new
The price is indicated together with the scabbard.

A sharpened knife is not a cold weapon.

Our knives are very sharp, so be very careful when opening and handling them. We are not responsible for any injuries resulting from the use of our knives.
Our products are intended for legal use only by responsible buyers. We will not sell our products to anyone under the age of 18.

Availability changes regularly, after confirming your order we will notify you of availability or when the item is ready. The product may differ slightly from the one shown in the photo.

​

 "Damascus" and "damask steel" what are these tacos and how do they differ?
What is Damascus steel?
Damascus is called steel, which has a clear, well-marked surface pattern, which is a consequence of its heterogeneous, layered internal structure. The drawing stands out in the form of light steel lines on a gray or black background. Especially well it becomes noticeable after etching the product with a weak acid. But sometimes it happens that the pattern appears after the polishing process.
For a long time, exceptional qualities were attributed to swords with such a pattern: high sharpness, flexibility and strength. Sometimes (especially against the background of products of imperfect medieval technologies) it was so. Why exactly "sometimes" will be discussed below.

In the photo: Knife "Enchanting Damascus" (Damascus).

Why is Damascus steel needed and why is it so?
As you know, real iron is actually usually an alloy of iron itself with carbon.

• If the carbon in the alloy is less than 0.3%, the metal will be soft, ductile and refractory. His something is usually called actually "iron". The quality and properties of this alloy can be judged by evaluating the mechanical properties of an ordinary nail.
• With a carbon content of more than 0.3%, but less than 1.7%, steel comes out. Ordinary steel is very similar in its properties to iron. But it has one important difference: it can be hardened. That is, when heated, and then, sharply cooled, the steel acquires greater rigidity. Unfortunately, along with this, it becomes fragile. In ancient times, when the technologies for producing steel and its hardening were still well developed, many products made from it (sometimes even swords and armor) did not differ much in quality from, for example, a Soviet-made file. Such a file is strong and hard, but try to drop it on the floor or hit it, and it will most likely break.
• Well, if the carbon content in the metal rises above 1.7%, you get cast iron. Cast iron melts easily and is well suited for casting, but is hard, brittle and cannot be forged. A fallen cast-iron pipe, even from a small height, shatters into smithereens.

As a result, we see that iron gives plasticity to the alloy and increases its melting point. An increase in the carbon content in the metal gives rigidity, up to brittleness, and makes the material more fusible.

Blacksmiths and metallurgists have always sought to combine these two contradictory qualities in their products - plasticity and hardness so that they complement, rather than refute each other. In addition, elasticity was considered an extremely important property, which initially none of these alloys possessed.

In the old days, tools made of pure iron turned out to be too soft, and those made of overheated steel of that time were very fragile.

We do not know what genius came up with the idea to combine these two alloys into a kind of "sandwich" and thus combine the properties of different materials in one product. But it was definitely a genius similar to the inventor of the wheel or the fire.

Thus, in the manufacture of the blade, a layer of hard steel was laid between two layers of soft iron and forged. As a result, a product was obtained, which, thanks to such a “layered” structure, was stronger purely iron and ductile than hard, but brittle due to unsuccessful hardening, steel of those years.

Tools and tools made of pure iron were too soft, and those made of pure steel were too brittle. Therefore, in order to make, for example, a sword, it was necessary to make a sandwich from two iron plates, between which a steel plate was laid.

Such steel was called welded.

In the photo: Hunting knife "Sea drop". The blade is made of mosaic Damascus.

Damascus is a further development of this technology. It occurred to someone (most likely in India) that if the product had more alternating layers, it would become even more flexible and durable.

The method of obtaining such steel was quite laborious - the iron billet was forged in length, folded in half, then forged again and folded again. This action was repeated sometimes dozens of times. Thirty or forty repetitions would surprise no one. Although hardly anyone would share such subtleties of technology. For a long time, the masters kept it in the strictest confidence.

In the future, other, somewhat (quite a bit) less time-consuming methods were invented. But the principle of operation has always remained approximately the same.

The result was a workpiece in which many of the thinnest high and low carbon layers created an amazing structure with new properties. The very mixing of layers gives rise to that beautiful pattern that distinguishes Damascus steel. It is the structure and the peculiarity of the arrangement of the layers that determine the qualities of the blade. Determine the connection in it strength and flexibility.

By the way, for a trained eye, the drawing began to say a lot. Thus, Al-Kindi, a well-known medieval Arab weapon connoisseur, wrote: "Looking at patterned steel, you see it both outside and inside." And, perhaps, one of the best European connoisseurs of damask and Damascus steels P.P. Anosov argued that "... an experienced Asian will not make a mistake in choosing a blade and one at a time 

vision will determine whether the tie is damask steel or fragile, hard or soft, elastic or weak.

It is interesting that modern experts often say the exact opposite, they say, "the quality of steel has nothing to do with the pattern on it." Most likely, this interesting curiosity is due to the fact that the methods of chemical and mechanical application of a Damascus pattern to the surface of any piece of steel, even an ordinary piece of iron, have long been known, which never lay next to a blacksmith miner. Of course, nowadays such fakes have become extremely common.

In addition, from under the hammer of the “master”, who does not know all the features of production, blanks with a pattern, like a real Damascus, may well come out, but not rising in their characteristics above quite ordinary steel. And here, in order to figure it out, one should already be a real connoisseur, no worse than Anosov or Al-Kindi.

So, firstly, from all that has been said, we can conclude that Damascus steel can be of different quality, and this depends on the internal structure of the layers and, of course, the skill of the blacksmith.

And secondly, we note that along with the word "Damascus" the word "bulat" is also used. This, perhaps, is worth talking about separately.

In the photo: Hunting knife "Mosaic Damascus"

What is "bulat" and how does it differ from "damascus"?

There was no single terminology in the old days, but there were many diverse local traditions. In addition, the means of transmission were very imperfect. For this reason, words and concepts were constantly changed and distorted, giving rise to a variety that was unthinkable in its complexity and illogicality.

We, accustomed to the unambiguity of terms, should constantly remember this when we are dealing with different concepts and ideas of our ancestors.

Expensive and high-quality steel in different countries and different times was called differently. "Damascus", "bulat", "wootz", "kharalug", "taban", "khorashan", "sham" - these names cannot be counted.

Yes, for a long time the highest quality steel in general on the territory of the Russian Empire was called “damask steel” (damask steel). And, apparently, they didn’t think at all that this word came from the Iranian “pulad”, which meant  cast steel.

As V. N. Khoreev writes in the book “Weapons from Damascus and Bulat”: “Damask steel is steel with an abnormally high (about 2% or more) carbon content, which has a set of properties that are incompatible in ordinary metal, namely, the maximum possible hardness and density combined with an equally high ductility. Natural damask steel is obtained by smelting, when a small finished ingot comes out of the furnace, initially carrying a magical internal structure.

In the photo: Hunting knife "RIS 3" (Damascus).

The word "damascus", possibly (but not exactly) comes from another Arabic "damask", mastering "wavy", "jet". It is not ruled out that this name comes from all sorts of associations with the East and the colorful pattern of the famous Damascus fabrics. As usual in such cases, no one can say for sure.

The main thing that we see is that damask steel and Damascus steel are obtained using completely different technologies. Since they did not know how to melt iron in most regions of our planet for a long time, damask steel was even rarer than welded patterned steel.

For this reason, the use of the term "damask steel" to "Damascus" is a clear result of confusion and, most likely, a consequence of the fact that very few people saw real damask steel on the territory of the Russian Empire.

By the way, the drawing on cast damask steel can also be beautiful and pleasing to the eye. It is believed that it was laid during the crystallization of the ingot. This happened because iron and carbon, as we already wrote, have different melting points. In the future, during forging, this pattern could turn out one way or another. But, by the way, some experts argue that it was the fine-grained, patternless varieties of cast wutz (as the Indians themselves called it) that were the best.

Unfortunately, in the place of the invention of damask steel - in India, the secrets of its production were buried so diligently that in the end they were completely lost. A. Vasilenko in his article "Damask Steel" claims that: "By the end of the 12th century, blades made of cast damask steel of the highest quality ... could not be made either in India, or in Syria, or in Persia."

At the end of the 18th century, Indian metallurgists were ruined by the import of cheap iron from England, and all hopes of restoring the lost tradition to her homeland completely evaporated.

Since then, the metallurgists of many countries have been looking for the secret of obtaining "the same damask steel". From time to time, a joyful statement was heard that the secret of the legendary "woot" was unraveled. But is it really the same alloy, no one will tell you.

However, even at present, some manufacturers produce limited series of knives, the blades of which are declared as damask. It rarely happens, knives are so very expensive. One of these manufacturers is, for example, Herbertz Limited Edition.

In the photo: Knife "DEER" (Damascus).
 

Are knives currently made from boiled Damascus?

Yes, they do. It is forged Damascus, due to its beauty and surrounding legends, that is still very popular. In addition, the method of its production has long been no secret.

Some knives made of real forged Damascus can be seen and bought in the Grand Way online store, and relatively inexpensively. For a very reasonable amount, you can become the owner of a knife, for which in ancient times you would have given a small herd of horses or an outstanding piece of land.

We have a separate category for Damascus knives.

What is Damascus?
Working with Damascus, it is possible to obtain many different patterns. There is almost no fantasy between the master here. Blacksmiths who work with Damascus steel usually do not stop in experimentation, looking for new forms of pattern and methods for obtaining them.

Different types of Damascus are distinguished primarily by the features of the pattern. Yes, there are striped, mesh and wavy damask.

Quite rare, and therefore very valuable in the old days, was considered a cranked pattern across the entire width of the blade. In the East, the taban (“brilliant”) and khorasan (“sunrise”) varieties were more distinguished. These were very high-quality damasks, with a surprisingly beautiful pattern: on a dark background with a golden tint, there were clearly visible, clear light lines that formed a large cranked or mesh pattern.

In general, a whole tree of variants and forms diverges from these basic types. Masters do not stop experiments and searches, so the variety of drawings is only growing.

In the photo: The blade of the BEAR LAPA knife (Damascus) is an excellent example of the so-called banded Damascus.

Does Damascus steel have disadvantages?

Of course, everyone in this world has flaws. There are no exceptions.

The main disadvantage of Damascus at all times was the laboriousness of manufacturing and the high consumption of material. It is believed that in the course of repeated dozens of forgings, the workpieces lost up to 85% of their weight until they finally turned into Damascus.

Due to such a significant consumption of material, time and effort, products made from such steel have always been very expensive. In addition, the secrecy of technologies, the limited number of craftsmen capable of producing such swords, also influenced the price increase.

The second drawback is the extraordinary tendency of Damascus to corrosion. The reason for this sad fact is the high carbon content and the almost complete absence of alloying elements in these steel grades.

Therefore, Damascus swords, like expensive stallions, have always needed especially careful care.

After use, they should be wiped dry well. Keep away from moisture. And in case of rust, immediately remove it with available means (kerosene, sandpaper, etc.)

Are there any better than damascus and damask in our time?

Perhaps more obviously, the secret of damask steel was revealed by modern civilization by the same Anosov in 1830. Many understandings of Europe fought over this problem, but only Anosov had Tagil magnetite at hand for experiments.

However, soon after this discovery, more advanced, manufacturable and cheap methods for producing steels were developed, combining strength and elastic properties. These grades of steel may not always have been better than cast damask steel in all respects, but they certainly made it a more convenient alternative in production.

Progress does not stand still. The technologies of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, as well as the deep knowledge of modern scientists in physics and chemistry, gave us steels and alloys that are simply incredible and unthinkable for ancient blacksmiths. Moreover, they made products made from these steels available not only to kings and chess players, but to practically almost all of humanity.

For example, in the Grand Way store, you can find many models of knives that are not inferior in quality to many blades from ancient legends and tales.

For example, the blade of the CH Knives CH 3510 folding knife is made of 154CM, an excellent high-carbon American steel. This steel grade was originally developed for the production of turbines. But the combination of its characteristics turned out to be so attractive to fakers that this steel is now firmly entrenched in the knife industry. 154CM is used by knife brands and individual craftsmen around the world.

In the photo: The blade of the CH 3510 folding knife from CH Knives is made of 154CM steel.

The fact is that the structure and chemical composition of this steel grade allows it to be hardened to high hardness rates (usually about 60HRC) without loss of toughness. The steel does not become brittle. This means that such a blade can be made very sharp, but it will still perfectly resist both painting and mechanical stress.

Of course, 154CM, like all higher carbon steels, can rust when exposed to water or aggressive environments for a long time. But with proper care, one hundred and fifty-fourth shows itself from the best side.

The blade made of 154CM steel allows the CH3510 knife to rightfully take its place in the list of really top, premium models sold in the  knife.net.ua online store.  It should be noted that the quality level of the collection of this knife is also adequate to its high status.

No less interesting in this regard than the S3 puukko flipper from Real Steel. His sword is crafted from Böhler M390 premium martensitic chromium powder steel. This steel has a high strength-to-toughness ratio, maintains a sharp cutting edge well and resists mechanical stress. And most importantly, at the same time - it perfectly resists corrosion!

Böhler M390 is a premium steel. Knives from it are produced in a limited edition (according to Real Steel knives USA, the S3 puukko flipper series is 600 pieces). Therefore, a personal serial number is applied to the butt of each copy, which is also inscribed in the passport attached to the knife.

Does Damascus retain its significance in our time?

Yes and no. Moreover, the romantic "yes" is clearly dominated by the dry practical "no".
Of course, getting Damascus forged is no longer the only affordable way to get quality blade steel.
But what went nowhere is the aesthetic and cultural significance of this steel. The Damascus sword knife is still a very good thing. A desirable addition to the collection and a prestigious, valuable gift.
The legends surrounding Damascus steel swords only give them exclusivity and significance in the eyes of people. After all, buying such a knife, you get not just a high-quality cutting tool, you buy a part of the legend, a small piece of the glorious history of mankind, a reminder of the times of brilliant blacksmiths, great kings and glorious heroes.
Such values ​​\u200b\u200bare eternal and they probably cannot be counted in money.
Steel knife CPM-S90V

Steel knife CPM-S90V

Thus, the exclusive handmade knife.net.ua knives are highly durable and can withstand fairly large loads and at the same time perfectly maintain their sharpness. They have excellent anti-corrosion properties and do not react with most alkalis and acids, which means that these knives do not require special care, which makes them a huge plus when used in nature, hunting, fishing and / or in extreme conditions *. Perhaps the only disadvantage of knives made of M398 steel is their cost, which is quite high and you need to be prepared for this.

It should be remembered that when using the knife for its intended purpose and careful handling, this will serve you for a very, very long time.

You can buy knives on our website knife.net.ua or by contacting us by phone +380961711010

Happy shopping! We will be glad to see you among our customers!

maple burl

Cap is a growth on the trunk of a tree, it has a much denser structure with a completely unique cut pattern.

The cap is highly durable, the wood of the cap does not burn well, is well processed and polished.

The dimensions of the blanks are approximately 135-45-30 mm.

Stabilized wood blocks are great for creating standard through-mount and countersunk knife handles.
Also, stabilized maple sap is excellent for carving, creating miniatures, jewelry, as well as various pendants, amulets, toys and crafts.
It is convenient to work with a stabilized maple cap for both experienced craftsmen and beginners.
Stabilized wood of any color is straight, even bars of real wood - kapa maple impregnated with a special composition.
The wood stabilizer completely fills all small pores, thanks to which all the air and moisture come out of the wood, turning it into a polymerized bar of stabilized Karelian birch, only with improved properties.

Stabilized wood is many times heavier and much denser. It is not exposed to moisture, does not change its color under sunlight, remaining a much stronger and more reliable material.
All this makes stabilization an ideal material for creating objects that are exposed to all physical and climatic stresses - knife handles, cutters and various tools.

Stabilized maple sap is perfectly sanded, giving a surface as smooth as glass or stone. Without a coating in dry form, the stabilized bars have a faded appearance, but under the finishing compositions their bright deep texture is revealed.

For its unique beauty, the cap is called wooden malachite!

In general, the smaller the pattern and the larger the size of the cap, the more expensive it is.

The value of this unique material is told by a historical fact given in the book "Kapov Skrynka" (author Nadiya Perminova): "... in 1837, up to fifty rubles were paid for a cap growth of twenty pounds (a little more than 8 kg)... the same amount was estimated thoroughbred bull at an agricultural exhibition.

Today, on the world market, the price of veneered wood (solid and veneer) is several times higher than the price of any other, including: oak, elm, walnut, mahogany and any exotic species.

The unique combination of material properties, limited stocks and the uniqueness of the cap pattern in each product ultimately determined the universally recognized, high aesthetic value and corresponding consumer price of products made of this wood, which is used in the decoration of the most luxurious interiors.