Anybody Actually Use Damascus

Larrin said:
We have no evidence to suggest a “crappy” steel must be the one combined with nickel to provide an edge retention improvement.
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If I remember correctly, it has been established that serrations for high alloy/high edge retention steels are less effective at increasing edge retention than on low alloy steels. I'm simply projecting that finding onto the damascus cutting effect. Let me know if that's wrong. Perhaps I just confused the brittleness of higher hardening steels being bad for serrations with lack of effectiveness.
 
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Danke42 said:
Some people haven't watched Forged in Fire and it shows.
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Seriously. "Ok, this is a beautiful Damascus you've made here, but it ain't about what your blade will do the material, but what the material will do to your blades, so for today we're going to test your knives by beating them against the edge of this 50 gallon steel drum, and then on to this hardened/treated section of telephone pole with all my strength. If your knife can't slice baby's bottomhair after that, you'll be asked to surrender your blade and leave the forge."
 
Quiet said:
Seriously. "Ok, this is a beautiful Damascus you've made here, but it ain't about what your blade will do the material, but what the material will do to your blades, so for today we're going to test your knives by beating them against the edge of this 50 gallon steel drum, and then on to this hardened/treated section of telephone pole with all my strength. If your knife can't slice baby's bottomhair after that, you'll be asked to surrender your blade and leave the forge."
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John, you’re up! 😁

J. Doyle J. Doyle
 
Synov said:
If I remember correctly, it has been established that serrations for high alloy/high edge retention steels are less effective at increasing edge retention than on low alloy steels. I'm simply projecting that finding onto the damascus cutting effect. Let me know if that's wrong.
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I wouldn’t necessarily agree with that statement either and I definitely wouldn’t extrapolate that to mean you need a low wear resistance steel in combination with the nickel to see a benefit. CATRA shows a stronger benefit to serrations with low wear resistance steels than low wear resistance steels because the low wear resistance steels do very poorly while virtually any steel does well with serrations, with hardly any loss to sharpness over the course of the test. However, that does not mean that high alloy steels don’t benefit from serrations. A serrated edge still acts very differently with lower initial cutting ability and very little loss of sharpness. A high edge retention steel would last longer than a low edge retention steel but the tests are very long. In the case of nickel Damascus we only tested one combination thus no extrapolations can be made since we have a sample of one. Also with that case the cutting ability is still high at the start and dulling behavior is more similar to a conventional steel. It could be that a more wear resistant steel would see more of a benefit since it would dull less in comparison with the nickel and thus create more of a serration effect. So I would not accept the premise of low vs high wear resistance steels with serrations and I would not then use that to make arguments about steel/nickel Damascus.
 
Quiet said:
Seriously. "Ok, this is a beautiful Damascus you've made here, but it ain't about what your blade will do the material, but what the material will do to your blades, so for today we're going to test your knives by beating them against the edge of this 50 gallon steel drum, and then on to this hardened/treated section of telephone pole with all my strength. If your knife can't slice baby's bottomhair after that, you'll be asked to surrender your blade and leave the forge."
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This guy gets it
 
Quiet said:
Seriously. "Ok, this is a beautiful Damascus you've made here, but it ain't about what your blade will do the material, but what the material will do to your blades, so for today we're going to test your knives by beating them against the edge of this 50 gallon steel drum, and then on to this hardened/treated section of telephone pole with all my strength. If your knife can't slice baby's bottomhair after that, you'll be asked to surrender your blade and leave the forge."
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My favorite was them batoning blades into a hardened steel nut and being "surprised" at the amount of edge damage.

Flatsman007 said:
Why is this actually even a conversation?
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I'd say it's actually more of a discussion.
 
This 21 has seen enough use for most of the etching to be quite faded everywhere in front of the thumbstud, even more so on the presentation side. This pic makes it look a lot darker than it is because of the outdoor lighting.
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J. Doyle said:
I appreciate carbon steels and I like toughness because I like super thin edges that slice very well but can take a beating and some abuse without deforming or chipping.
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This is why toughness of a steel matters in folders. I keep hearing people say that toughness doesn't matter in folders since it is the "wrong tool" for the job. Not so.
 
ShaiHulud said:
Im going to ask a question because I honestly dont know --- is there any advantages to the areas of use/performance of a damanscus blade, versus a knife steel it's often compared to?
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I have only looked at it from a glance here and a fevered imagining there but :
For me it is mostly visual not so much practical .

HOWEVER
One tack , which is not even "real" damascus (but it applies to the OLD question : Why damascus ? ) . . . is . . . Clading . Make the core out of tool steel , which tends to be a bit prone to snapping off if overly hardened
.
(I like overly hardened (think file hard knife blade )).​

thennnnnn the dudes who enjoy flailing at each other with swords got the idea to put tough / less hardenable steel on each side of the "snap right off " tool steel to . . . kind of shore it up a bit .

because . . . well . . . it was a bit embarrassing when this kept happening :
1:30 into vid . . .
 
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Wowbagger said:
I have only looked at it from a glance here and a fevered imagining there but :
For me it is mostly visual not so much practical .

HOWEVER
One tack , which is not even "real" damascus (but it applies to the OLD question : Why damascus ? ) . . . is . . . Clading . Make the core out of tool steel , which tends to be a bit prone to snapping off if overly hardened
.
(I like overly hardened (think file hard knife blade )).​

thennnnnn the dudes who enjoy flailing at each other with swords got the idea to put tough / less hardenable steel on each side of the "snap right off " tool steel to . . . kind of shore it up a bit .

because . . . well . . . it was a bit embarrassing when this kept happening :
1:30 into vid . . .
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Well actually the idea of using hard steel for a core clad with softer steel or iron came about centuries ago when higher carbon steel was not as easy to make and was harder to come by. So, blade makers used the hard carbon steel for a cutting edge while using the lower carbon material for the rest of the blade. Japanese san mai or ni-mai awase blades for an example, have a hard steel hagane core with softer iron jigane on the outside.
The Japanese sword makers took a different approach, wrapping the soft iron shingane core with a hard steel kawagane exterior for strength and flexibility.
 
ChiefTJS said:
I've never owned a damascus blade but I find them attractive for sure. I had an old damascus barreled shotgun once that you couldn't use with modern ammunition so I've just always considered it weak. Does anybody actually use a damascus knife or are they pretty much just for decoration. Obviously extra points for pictures.
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Technically yes. But its suminigashi as opposed to damascus, similar but different. Damascus tends to be pattern welded and etched, where suminigashi is more folded with closer types of steel, and typically not etched. The etching creates more texture on the surface, which can lower performance by causing more friction.
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I've bought many damascus blades, but sold them due to not liking the friction in cutting. I should of kept my bronze damascus reg sebenza though, I really regret selling that one.
 
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