Hey guys!  I had the idea to start a blog and I wanted to talk about some of my favorite pastimes and the basis of my business: Blacksmithing and Knives!   Now I may mix in other topics here and there such as covering projects I’m working on or a history of knives or blacksmithing. But in general I want to discuss certain blacksmithing techniques or styles, guides on how to do certain processes and a general discussion on all things blacksmithing.  I really hope everyone enjoys and comes back to read the next installments as i hope to upload weekly.  I encourage everyone to have discussions in the comment section or just comment your general thoughts on the topic or my blogging skills or lack thereof.  I can answer any questions anyone may have (or at least hope I can!) and if I can’t, I will do my best to ask some of my colleagues who have been in the business for much longer than I.

Today’s Topic: A brief history on knife material!

Around 2.5 millions years ago, the first humans to make knives used stone.  The first human beings learned how to chip stone, usually flint if available, to make knives, arrowheads, scrapers, axes, and most other tools they needed to survive.  They would use rocks to remove large pieces of stone until they has the basic shape they wanted.  They would then use pieces of antler or bone to chip off small pieces along the edge to make the blade.  A leather pad was lain across the knee to protect the skin from the small chips of razor sharp stone flakes.  These primitive knives often were left without handles; however, sometimes the handles were made of leather wrapped around the unsharpened end of the blade.

It is debated when the stone age ended and the bronze age began, but most experts agree that is was sometime around 3000-2000 BC.  The bronze age was the first step in what was to become modern day blacksmithing.  It involved hammering and sometimes heating bronze to forge into tools or weaponry.  Bronze however is much softer than iron and steel causing the bronze tools and weapons to break or bend with relative ease.  In order to make better and stronger knives, humans began using iron.  The iron age began around 1000 BC and made vast improvements on the bronze weapons of their past. Worked in a very similar way, iron is a ferrous mineral that could be hardened to form an edge that would be more resistant to chipping or breaking.  Long after the discovery of iron, steel came into the picture.  Steel is like iron only it has a much higher carbon content.  This means it can be hardened to a significantly higher degree.  Steel is still used today by every blacksmith and bladesmith there is.

So there you have it, a brief history on knife materials.  I apologize as i did not go into nearly as much detail about iron and steel blades.  The reason for this is so i still have content for future blogs as this will be the main topic of discussion for my page.  Also the dates that most of the ages began and ended are widely debated and happened at different times across the world.  I tried my best to choose a happy medium but i know they are not completely accurate to every source.  I want to thank everyone for reading and please feel free to comment!  May you’re hammers swing swiftly and your burns heal quickly.