hso -- Jim is correct. Moran is recognized for redeveloping damascus steel. Bill didn't do it in a vacuum, but among the 3 other guys bouncing the idea back and forth he's the one that was successful and reproducible.
Now, who's recognized as having revived bladesmithing? There's one individual commonly seen as the the modern father of knife forging.
As much as I like A.G. and do value his knowledge it bothers me that it was rediscovered in America but has never been misplaced in Africa, South America or the Orient...I travelled those areas quite a bit and there were local smiths, pounding on two different hardness steel blanks, some two, some three, some even five layers to start with, folded, re-pounded etc to make their pangas or machetes or parangs or goloks although the only thing they didn't do was acid etch the blades to make the pattern come out...Isn't that what Damascus steel is?
I go back to this statement
"Who was it? or them? Was this directed at the American market or worldwide? I also didn't know it was "missing"
You mean the hand forging, fire and hammer method? Do you mean by an independent, single, metal pounder or by a factory type operation? Do you mean before the need of them during WW2 and Korea or before the proliferation of bladesmiths in the 1960s--that was anybody who had a belt grinder and a piece of steel, seemed like! Do you mean in America because I have to refer back to my statement above, it never has been out of favour in the "backwards", third world nations--just not to the level of sophistication that the ABS, PKA or KMG members produce...
So I'm going to stick my guess to Bo Randall...
I am not America bashing here--more first vs. third world nation pounding where something that has never been stopped in the lesser countries is suddenly "discovered" by some traveller and it now becomes all the rage...
When I was growing up, every town and a lot of villages had a blacksmith and/or a farrier and bigger towns even two or three...I think there are about 40 blacksmiths around here, in my province, today and all they do is decorative iron work...
I doubt there was a store bought blade in any of my grandparents' or great uncles' kitchens and the only ones I ever saw were their pocket knives because the smiths either couldn't be bothered making one, didn't have the time and of course didn't know how to...I remember getting my first "knife", sixth birthday, a four inch piece of steel that had an edge and a slab of local oak for the handle in a leather sheath from a heifer my uncle butchered...The most beautiful thing I ever laid eyes on and remember getting for my ninth birthday my first "store bought" folder, a mid sized (3") trapper pattern...
About ten years ago, one of my daughters mentioned getting a knife for a Chanukah present in her 2nd grade school room and we got a visitation by Child Protection Services who freaked out when she showed them here target air pistol and rifle and her rimfire hunting rifle...The bitches called the police on us, who came out and told the namby pamby, POS, do-gooders to stop wasting their time as did the judge when it escalated...but I digress...
