Damascas Blades: Pretty Good or just Pretty?

[Rod]

Hi All,

Have seen some Damascas blades on the Brisa site. Other than looking rather groovy are they any good. Do they keep an edge / what are they like to sharpen? Are they any good for bushcraft?

Anyone with any experience of them - your help appreciated
regards

 

[Josey Wales]

I am afraid I have never purchased a damascus blade because not only (from what I understand) does it not change the Quality of steel, but I have allways thought it would begin to look ugly as and when you sharpen it.
Being a Lumberjack kind of guy I also think that it does not look all that masculine and dosen't realy do the job for me althogh I do suppose that the blade is probably more protected in this manner,

Cheers

 

[Wolvan]

Damascus steel is very good will strike spark with a flint, well the indian stuff i use will, holds a edge well and in this age where everyone seems to have the same knife, a bit more individual

 

[eraaij]

As with 'normal' steels, the Damascus steel quality/usability is a result of the specific composition and the hardening process. So you cannot really say that damascus is good/better than a regular steel.

I would be interested to know wich Damascus alloys are good and which you could at best avoid in a bushcraft blade. It sure looks pretty.

-Emile

 

[Rebel]

I've been wondering about this steel too. Expensive knives like Chris Reeves' knives use it often. Because of this I'd presumed it was an expensive high quality metal but I recently saw it on "cheap and nasty" knives being sold on ebay.

Are there different grades of Damascus? And how are we, the consumer, to know which is best?

I'm not sure if I like it or not but it is interesting. What I do like is the bead blast finish on a lot of blades nowadays. I think the matt finish makes the knife look more people friendly in our modern knife-shy times and it stops bright sunlight reflecting off it when you are in the open.

 

[mojofilter]

I've been wondering about this steel too. Expensive knives like Chris Reeves' knives use it often. Because of this I'd presumed it was an expensive high quality metal but I recently saw it on "cheap and nasty" knives being sold on ebay.

Are there different grades of Damascus? And how are we, the consumer, to know which is best?

There are indeed different grades of damascus, although I dont know very much about it. A good damascus could perhaps be forged from layers of O1 and 1095 for example, whereas the cheap stuff is probably simple carbon steel and mild steel or something.

 

[ChrisKavanaugh]

http://damascus.free.fr Contemorary 'Damascus' is simply a real pretty laminate with the advantages of same and a premium price. Would I like one? yes. Could my feather sticks tell the difference? no

 

[Wolvan]

in my thread I was being a bit simplistic, Damascus steel varies a lot from very expensive to reasonable and also quality and hardness is dependant on manufacture methods. I brought a cheap and nasty knife made in India, removed handle, reshaped it retempered it and made a new handle and sheath, original blade was £40 I have spent a considerable time on it and I am very happy with it.

 

[The General]

Damascus steel can be very very good, also very very bad.

To get the contrasting shades, one must acid etch the blade. This means for a high contrast you often have a high carbon steel like L6 or 1095 and wait for it... Nickle. Now it does not take a genius to work out that Nickle sucks as a material at the edge of a knife. Thus poor performance.

However, where steels like L6 and 1075 are used, you get very good performance and good contrast. Damascus steel blades often have an almost serrated cutting power, but tend to make poorer shavers. This again depends on the number of layers of steel.

I am getting a 5" bushcraft knife made by Trond and Steen soon... its Scandi with Damasteel. Damasteel is a combo of powdered 154CM and 12C27. Gives better toughness than 154CM on its own and better edge holding than 12c27 gives on its own. Damasteel gives reasonable contrast, but is a very well regarded material.

Its all a bit academic nowerdays with modern steels like S90V and S30V, not to mention CPM-3V. Damascus steel was a very good way to "average" the qualities of steel in the days where complex heat treats and steel purity were not possible.

Look at the consistancy and quality of the best steels made less than 100 years ago! The steel used in Titanic for example would fail almost every requirement based upon modern standards in ship building steel. It was however the very best of its day and fact is a quality mono steel can outperform most any Damascus.

Now if you are talking about modern Wootz steel...

 

[Rod]

Many thanks all

 

[scruff]

Thought i could help out.

Its a bit long winded i kno but its friday (i'm sticking to the 5% rule) and it might just save you from spending your (thousands of) pennies on the wrong thing.

Basically you can get "true" Damascus (or more correctly) Wootz (coming form the Hindi word for steel) or "Damascenised" steel which has undergone a modern process in order to produce the wattered steel effect. (NB. Damascus is a region in Syria in which Wootz steel was commonly found - blame the Crusades for this confusion!).

In traditional Wootz steel; wrought iron, wood and carbonaceous material are heated in a current of hot air until the metal became red hot and plastic. This is then allowed to cool over 24 or so hours in which time it absorbed the fixed amount of carbon it has been heated with. The amount of carbon is usually in the region of 1.2-1.8% (typically most steel contain less than 1%).

Once forged, this high carbon content produced carbide precipitates or lines in the blade, giving a watered-silk appearance, described by a 6th century Arab poet "as if it were the trail of small black ants that had trekkled over the steel while it was still soft".

High carbon blades as i'm sure you know are easier to sharpen and have greater edge retention properties. Even when sharpened the pattenation should still appear.

Modern so called Damascus is merely a product of a "Damascening" process, in which the effect of Damascus was a result of pattern welding. This too is an old process (middle ages), in which steel and wrought iron are welded together, repeatedly drawing out the steel and folding back on itself. This creates layers in the metal which when treated with acid ((alledgedly) traditionally lemon juice and arsenic) cause the steel areas of the metal to darken thus giving the "appearance" of Wootz steel's carbide precipitates.

(NB. You can see a similar darkening/ blueing if you chop anything acidic with a high carbon knife. Rhubarb as, i've recently discovered, is particularly "good" at this! hmpf!!)

This modern steel does not neccesarily have the same high carbon content as traditional wootz steel, and therefore may lack in some of the edge retention properties etc. Although saying this a higher carbon steel could quite probably have been used in the blade manufacture (its worth while checking).

You should be able to restore some of the watered appearance after sharpening by using something acidic, such as lemon juice, on the blade. Don't blame me if it looks poop tho!

 

[AJB]

Hi Scruff,

Fancinating!