Rietveld Knives - Shaya Damascus

Shaya Forge Damascus

Bertie made his first successful piece of Damascus by hand in 1991. After that first success things started changing rapidly, and as one of the first Damascus makers in South Africa at the time, soon Bertie was producing Damascus steel for the local knifemakers hungry to use this new blade material.

As time went by he acquired and built better equipment, and refined the techniques of making laminated steel Damascus.

A bit of a milestone was when he acquired Shaya, a 500pd Massey self contained pneumatic power hammer. It took 8 years of toil to get the hammer rebuilt and get it mounted in its own building, as the knifemaking workshop was not ideal for such a large beast. This hammer has proved invaluable in making Damascus of very high quality, and to be honest, if a piece of steel has met the wrath of Shaya, there are no flaws or delaminations, just a perfect weld!

In 2000 Bertie started developing his signature Dragonskin Damascus. Over the years, many, many improvements were introduced to make the steel better, and systems developed that improves quality, but it still remains hugely labour intensive and expensive to make. It is offered for sale in modest quantities, and it takes a fair amount of time to make orders, but at least we can share this beautiful material with other knifemakers. Some of the best knives made in the world today are being made from Shaya Forge Dragonskin Damascus.

Dragonskin blade and Nebula bolsters

In 2010 Bertie developed Nebula Damascus, another very unique steel that has its own charm and is a little less time consuming to make and therefore a little more affordable.

Nebula Damascus blade

When ordering, please mail Bertie at bertie@rietveldknives.com with the size you require (length, width and thickness) and he will provide a quote.

Please be patient as Bertie is also a knifemaker and does several shows every year, so he has to juggle making steel with making knives. He usually also has some bars of steel available on his table at the knifeshows he attends.

Every bar of Dragonskin or Nebula comes standard with a factsheet that provides detailed instructions on heat treatment and colouring.

Keep an eye on the Instagram page as we do online steel sales of Dragonskin and Nebula from time to time.

First Forge Damascus steel

With the popularity of Forged in Fire a lot of forgers are playing at home with a forge and anvil to shape blades, now I am offering blocks of First Forge Damascus steel that consists of 300 layers High carbon steel with Nickel separating the layers for a good definition. You can now use the First Forge Damascus block and forge it out for your own Damascus blade without going through the slog and possibility of failure of making your own Damascus. The block is perfectly forged on Shaya my 500lb power hammer, so the weld is perfect. For all the forgers out there that does not have the facilities to make Damascus steel, here is an affordable way for you to forge some Damascus.

South Africa (local) orders: 500g block @ R966.00 ea incl VAT Whatsap me on 083 232 8766 or E-mail to order.
International: 450g blocks (to stay within the 500g limit for DHL) $95.00 inclusive of delivery to your door via DHL.

Fracture Damascus

This unique Damascus is a champion in the cutting department, can be finished in black, but if you want colour best to go with Dragonskin

Fracture blade and Nebula bolsters
(Nebula makes excellent bolsters!)