Quality of edged weapons (101)?

driftwould · 11th September 2014, 01:28 AM

Blue Lander and AG, thanks for the replies. Thanks to everyone for helping, the input I got from this discussion has given me a LOT of good places to start learning! Quality of handle materials, quality and type of steels, fit and finish, and on a side note, I've been looking into damascus. Two questions for the general public:

1) I'd still like to hear more thoughts on what you would take into consideration when judging the quality of steel in a modern-made, traditional knife. What standards should we hold something like that to, and would the seemingly obvious idea that they would be different from place to place (say, tribal Africa vs. tribal Taiwan (good access to modern materials, the modern world in general)) be correct? For that matter, what about an old one?

2) In keeping with the "101" theme, and hoping this will be useful for other beginners in the future (as well as myself), are there any other areas of general knowledge you can recommend I look into to build the broad knowledge base I need, given that I will - very regrettably - never have the time available to become a professional knife smith myself and learn by that route?

11th September 2014, 01:28 AM	#20
driftwould Member Join Date: May 2012 Location: Currently, Taiwan. Previously China for 6 years. Speak and read 中文 well. Posts: 34	(possibly?) wrapping things up here... Blue Lander and AG, thanks for the replies. Thanks to everyone for helping, the input I got from this discussion has given me a LOT of good places to start learning! Quality of handle materials, quality and type of steels, fit and finish, and on a side note, I've been looking into damascus. Two questions for the general public: 1) I'd still like to hear more thoughts on what you would take into consideration when judging the quality of steel in a modern-made, traditional knife. What standards should we hold something like that to, and would the seemingly obvious idea that they would be different from place to place (say, tribal Africa vs. tribal Taiwan (good access to modern materials, the modern world in general)) be correct? For that matter, what about an old one? 2) In keeping with the "101" theme, and hoping this will be useful for other beginners in the future (as well as myself), are there any other areas of general knowledge you can recommend I look into to build the broad knowledge base I need, given that I will - very regrettably - never have the time available to become a professional knife smith myself and learn by that route?