A BLADE IN THE CAN

Editor’s note: Mike Crenshaw was the impetus for this short modern history of canister steel. He got the ball rolling by gathering information on the early days of canister steel, information that included the contributions of ABS master smith Steve Schwarzer, Daryl Meier, Gary Runyon and others, including ABS master smith Hank Knickmeyer.

Firing the forge and melding metals into a cohesive alloy is a methodology that stretches back millennia. Blade steel was one of the methodology’s primary products, even as the process evolved to include the most primitive of mosaic patterns and images emerging from the steel itself.

One significant milestone occurred in the 1700s when Frenchman Jean Francois Clouet produced the word “Liberté”— French for Liberty—on the face of a blade. The word was not etched on the blade, it was in the steel itself. From there, gunsmiths of the era produced intricately ornate barrels of steel decorated with assorted images in them.

Today, the modern magicians of mosaic damascus have continued to push the creative envelope. Steve Schwarzer, Daryl