blade holding edge

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leroyk3

Joined
Feb 16, 2009
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Question? under normal conditions, which blade will hold the better edge,Damascus or other good carbon steel blade? I do not mean doing the rope thing, just for skinnig and boning out larger game such as deer and elk. In the past i have always felt that damascus would out cut regular carbon steel blades.
Thanks for any input, Leroy
 
Damascus can be as good or as bad as the materials used to make it. Who made the damascus, their methods and the final heat treat, all come into play as well. Just saying, "Damascus" means little, in regards to your question.
 
the damascus i am talking about is my own and the only steels i use anymore are 15n20, 1080 and 1095 and sometimes a little L6, leroy
 
test one of your knives and see how much it can cut before getting dull. i made a knife that i can chop down an 8" tree with and still have it shave hair and push cut newspaper. beat the crap out of the edge and see what happens. i never pry with a blade but i do see how much abuse it can take beating it on some hard wood.
 
Well Leroy,

Here is a little something about damascus that I have observed over the years:

Let's say that you have damascus a blade made from 15n20 and 1095. When it is heat treated, if done properly, it is heat treated as though it were 1095 alone since 1095 probably has the most blade potential.

Now let's say you have a 1095 only blade that was heat treated the same way. Let's also assume that the blade thickness, length, and geometry are exactly the same.........

Which will out cut the other?????? With damascus, and especially high layer damascus (let's just say 500 layers) , you tend to get a micro-saw-blade effect due to the differences in the final hardness/and shall we say/toughness. This may lead folks to say that it is superior, however, I feel it depends on the intended purpose of the blade.

I make damascus from time-to-time and if everything comes out right it looks really cool. That's about it........ it looks really cool.

I am sure that others will disagree and be ready to jump on my case. Maybe there is something that I don't know and I would appreciate any additional light shined through my ear and into my acorn sized brain.

Robert
 
If all is done right the Damascus Blade will perform as well a the parent material. Since most damascus these days are made from all high carbon steels and carbon migration will be complete on most all billets the hard soft layer effect is not as important as he toughness of the layers. You might see a slight micro serration enhancement but I have not seen it perform significantly better than the original materials started with. Now I have made many damascus knives and they have all performed very well. I do testing in shop but for me the real test comes when the customer uses it for their intended purpose. I have had many great reports of my damascus performing as I expected. When you can dress out a moose without re-sharpening I am very happy. Now it is up to you as to which way to go. I like the damascus as it gives life to the steel, like painting with layers.
 
Centuries ago, pattern-welded steel was an efficient way to blend raw, impure iron with fairly good steel to make more reasonably good steel. (this is a heavily-simplified explanation, but yeah.)

In a modern context, "damascus" is pretty. That's it's only advantage.
 
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All other things being equal, the mono steel will out perform damacus.
 
Thanks Robert and Chuck for your thoughts on this subject. Also to the others who came thru with out any scarisim.In 20 years of knife making of which about 150 were damascus and 300 were of carbon steel, I have yet to receive a complaint about edge holding abillity of any of my blades. I am not bragging, just stating a fact. I do my own harding with a torch and use oil for quench. I do a double draw back.
first one at 350 degrees, one hour and then at 400 degrees one hour When i harden I use a new fill to test, if it touches th blade, I rehardenl
Thanks again, Leroy
 
I make damascus and use it for a large percentage of the knives I make. I dont see any reason that it will perform better than a mono steel blade. Actually there is a chance that it will not perform as well due to potential weld flaws and inclusions in the steel that are not visible because they are not on the surface of the blade.

Damscus looks pretty. However above that, it showcases the mastery of processes and the ability of the smith to acheive specific looks in the steel.
 
Just built several Fillet knives for some guys that went out to Lake Michigan Salmon fishing, they were able to fillet there entire catch (65 fish) with ONE knife and they words were that they were still able to shave arm hair with it after all that, steel was CPM 3v from AKS and heat treated by Peters Heat treat, needless to say they were very happy with performance. I stressed the fact of a little mineral oil on the blade after each use and there was no rusting sitting in wet sheaths.
 
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