Stainless Damascus Spork / Spoon Project
Custom made Sporks and Spoons in stainless damascus steel. Date this project went public: 01/25/09

FIRST RUN OF 12 SPOONS / SPORKS ALREADY SPOKEN FOR - THANKS FOR THE INTEREST!
Sign-in for this Project is CLOSED - All 12 spoons / sporks are now reserved. Thanks again for your incredible interest in my work!

Fully stainless high-contrast damascus sporks or spoons to your specs.

They will be 100% custom made to your specs, and even in the event of similar orders, the finished pieces will still be unique, due to my working methods and damascus patterns.

They are $280 plus shipping (currently $40 for EMS, $65 for DHL). (CONUS/Canada addresses - Other destinations will be a tad higher)

Delivery will start approximately in May 2011. As always, there's no need for a deposit or down payment.

This first run is limited to 10 sporks / spoons to make sure I'll be able to keep a reasonable waiting time.

If people ordering would like to associate with others and have me ship several items to one person so then he can ship the other spoons/sporks in the US/Europe, I'd be OK with it. I can ship several non-knife items per package, and of course I would just charge one shipping charge for the total order. We can make those arrangements when the time comes.

You can subscribe to my Newsletter to be informed about this Damascus Spork / Spoon Project, as well as the latest info on AES Custom Knives.

You can choose if you'd like a:

- Spork or Spoon,
- Lanyard hole.
- Overall lenght of it (up to 10")


If you're interested in other options not listed here, please email me for a quote.

After the spoon is shaped, I grind the inner part of the head with a spherical grinding stone, mounted on a bench drill. (Picture 26)

For the outter part I use regular sanding belts, mounted on a rubber adaptor on my bench grinder. (Picture 27)

And then polish the inner part with sand paper, manually. (Pictures 28 and 29)

After I get a mirror polish, I etch it in acid just like I do with all my damascus pieces. Process is shown in this other Tutorial: Etching a Maker's Mark

There are some concepts of forging and welding stainless steels that I'd like to talk about for a second.
Stainless steels melt at temperatures a tad lower than regular carbon steels, however, the forging temperature is substantially higher.

Stainless steels can be hot forged just like carbon steels, but since they have intrinsic characteristics and properties, in addition of the mentioned higher temperature, it's imperative that you take some particular and important meassures to achive a successful forging.

Stainless steels' thermal conductivity is lower than carbon steels'. At higher temperatures, stainless steels are harder and less plastic than carbon steels. They require about 40% more hits to achieve the same deformation.

This lack of plasticity causes the need for more heating cycles, and, as they have a "slow" thermal conductivity, these cycles should be done very slowly, to achieve a uniform temperature in the entire piece to forge.

It's better not to heat it to the direct flame, as this causes the steel to get oxidized. For this reason, as I still haven't finished my induction oven, is that I leave it thicker than needed and then I get rid of a good 1mm on each side, by grinding it off, after the piece cooled off.

It's also very important to properly measure the temperature in the oven while you're heating for forging, as if it goes lower than 900C, this can cause fissures on the steel.

Because of all of this precautions that I have to take into consideration when forging stainless steels, as well as the extra cost of the materials involved, is that I consider the cost of making this type of stainless damascus to be about as twice as making regular carbon damascus.

Order List