In memory of Mark Kovalsky
Mark, our founder and bladesmith, has passed away. He started Black Mamba Knives in 2009 with a coal forge and a secondhand anvil, and he was at the fire nearly every day after that.
The shop he built carries on, held to the standards he set. Our thoughts are with his family, and we are grateful to everyone who has shared a kind word about him.
Mark Kovalsky
Founder and Bladesmith — Black Mamba Knives, Memphis, Tennessee
Mark founded Black Mamba Knives in 2009 and spent the rest of his working life at the forge in Memphis. He forge welded his own Damascus from 1095 and 15N20 rather than buying in patterned bar stock, because he held that a forged pattern goes all the way through the steel and a printed one only sits on the surface. Customers who asked him the difference tended to get the long answer.
He worked almost everything to 58–60 HRC, and he was firm about why: harder steel chips when it meets bone, softer steel rolls, and a working knife belongs in between. He would rather a knife came back for sharpening than came back broken. That standard, and the rule that anything not right comes back to the shop, have not changed since 2009 and will not.
Mark was not precious about credit. He said often that a billet passes through several pairs of hands before it becomes a knife — stacking and welding, drawing and folding, grinding, handle fitting, heat treat, etching, sharpening, inspection, engraving — and that when a knife has taken a week, it is because a week of somebody’s hands went into it. The people he taught are still doing that work.
At work in the Memphis shop
