Blade Of Glory

The razor edge and trademark swirls of a Damascus-steel knife tell a timeless tale of craftsmanship.

- T. Edward Nickens

FOOT-LONG ORANGE flames lick from the doors of the forge. “That’s called the dragon’s breath,” Scott McGhee says. “That tells me I’ve burned just about all the oxygen out of the forge, and that’s what I want. Oxygen will rust the steel faster than I can put it together. Let’s go.”

I hoist a stack of 29 metal plates, each the width of a paint-stirring stick and half as long, welded to a 4-foot metal rod. Earlier, I’d arranged them to McGhee’s specifications: plates of 1095 high-carbon steel and 15n20 nickel steel stacked like a deck of cards in a carefully considered pattern.

The stacked steel slides into the forge like a pizza into an oven. McGhee nods his assent. He is lean and tall, with a scruff of gray hair. He wears a heavy canvas kilt and Danner hunting boots. The forge is running at 2,315 degrees, and it doesn’t take long for the edges of the metal to brighten and glow. In five minutes the entire stack of steel is a brilliant block of radiant orange.

“There it is,” McGhee says. “That’s how Damascus steel is born.”

METAL HEADS