Damascus vs monosteel advantages

I think any perceived advantages that somebody finds in a pattern welded blade, are due more to the maker than the steel itself. Obviously the performance of either can vary with the experience of the maker, from "wtf is this thing?" to "do you accept first born children as payment?", but all things being equal (maker skill, geometry, optimization of heat treat, sharpening, etc...) would a pattern welded 1095/15n20 blade outperform an "identical" monosteel 1095 blade? I don't see why it would.
 
Dom, IIRC the article that i saw was published in like spring of 1977. about a year after the ABS was formed. As for the $10 per inch, you can buy Us made steel for that today. But then again, you can buy a small forged fighter with a nice wood handle for the same money or less than the $350 that I paid Joe Flournoy for one at the Guild Show in Orlando in 1992. :eek: Custom knife makers are the victims of their own success and popularity.
Don Hanson III said:
$100 per inch was all the rage in the 80s' & maybe the late 70's. At $10 per inch extra, it would not have been worth making it. :D
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MoSmith said:
Hello all
I've been lurking and learning and practicing making knives and marveling at some of the beautiful damascus blades on here. The artistry is amazing. One of the things I've been wondering is are there any practical advantages to damascus. Can it take a sharper edge? Does it hold that edge longer? More shock resistant? Does damascus have any practical advantages at all or is it just for the beauty? I was wondering whether anyone has actually tested this. Knowledgeable opinions are nice but have there been any actual tests that someone could point me to?
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Hundreds of years ago, yes, because steel had a lot of impurities and folding it over and over again gave some advantage. I think true Damascus steel, the original stuff, is impossible to replicate by today bladesmiths, but I may be wrong here! Nowadays, it makes a gorgeous knife but has zero advantages over mono steel blades. Otherwise, Haakonsen, Landes, Busse and bladesports competitors would be using pattern welded steel blades (“Damascus”) instead of mono steels, and they aren’t.
 
hugofeynman said:
Hundreds of years ago, yes, because steel had a lot of impurities and folding it over and over again gave some advantage. I think true Damascus steel, the original stuff, is impossible to replicate by today bladesmiths, but I may be wrong here! Nowadays, it makes a gorgeous knife but has zero advantages over mono steel blades. Otherwise, Haakonsen, Landes, Busse and bladesports competitors would be using pattern welded steel blades (“Damascus”) instead of mono steels, and they aren’t.
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Thanks for this reply, it confirms pretty much what I suspected. It also brings up a related issue I'm very interested in but unfortunately know little about. If I understand correctly, what we call damascus today would technically be called pattern-welded. The original damascus was a different thing and I understood that a metallurgist and a knife-maker had collaborated to recreate the process. Back in the '90s sometime. I read the paper on this and it had a lot of info on, I believe, vanadium carbides forming in the steel due to some impurities in the ore when it was smelted. The carbides gave it a much higher performance than the standard carbon steel of the time. I would think that back then some vanadium carbide in the edge would make a darn near magical blade compared to most others. I know this is kind of off-topic for my original question but it's interesting.
 
hugofeynman said:
Hundreds of years ago, yes, because steel had a lot of impurities and folding it over and over again gave some advantage. I think true Damascus steel, the original stuff, is impossible to replicate by today bladesmiths, but I may be wrong here! Nowadays, it makes a gorgeous knife but has zero advantages over mono steel blades. Otherwise, Haakonsen, Landes, Busse and bladesports competitors would be using pattern welded steel blades (“Damascus”) instead of mono steels, and they aren’t.
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Hugo
OK, the article I referenced is http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/9809/Verhoeven-9809.html and dates back to 1998. It's an interesting article but they don't actually make a blade and test it.
 
Wootz, bulat, etc. were never lost. They made it for a long time until higher carbon steels made it have no real purpose. Even thenh, they still were made by some folks. Orbach, Pendray, Krymlin, and others made lots of it it in modern times. I seem to recal reading an article on it in Scientific American back in the 70's or 80's.

It is a process of cycling the crucible at specific temperatures and long times repeatedly as dendritic carbides form. If the alloying is right the matrix left is pretty much ferrite.

Bill Moran's pattern welded steel was not a first either. It has been made for a good thousand years. He just decided to figure it out for himself and since no one had seen it at the Guild shows he was credited for creating it. I remember him telling me, "I tried 100 ways of making damascus ... 99 didnt work. Things would have been a lot easier if I had tried the last way first."
 
knife to a gunfight said:
I think any perceived advantages that somebody finds in a pattern welded blade, are due more to the maker than the steel itself. Obviously the performance of either can vary with the experience of the maker, from "wtf is this thing?" to "do you accept first born children as payment?", but all things being equal (maker skill, geometry, optimization of heat treat, sharpening, etc...) would a pattern welded 1095/15n20 blade outperform an "identical" monosteel 1095 blade? I don't see why it would.
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I would say without a doubt that 1095/15n20 would out preform Stright 1095. If for no other reason then 15n20 being an amazing steel.
 
In disagree. There will be weld junctions, decarb layers, and weld bariers that grains can't cross. As much as it would be nice, the layered steel will not surpass the mono-steel. Obviosly this is only true when comparing apples to apples. If comparing a knife made from a bar of 1030 to a knife from 1084 and 15N20 damascus, the damascus will cut better. But if the knife is 1095 and properly HTed, it will be a better knife. How much better depends on the skill of the smith. Regardless of the skiil level you can't make 99 add up to more than 100.
 
JTknives said:
I would say without a doubt that 1095/15n20 would out preform Stright 1095. If for no other reason then 15n20 being an amazing steel.
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Well then lets change the comparison to 1095/15n20 vs just 15n20. Eitherway, there's nothing I can think of that would inherently make the welded knife "better", just by virtue of being pattern welded steel.

Unless, of course, you count the compression of the molecules from the forging process, which as we all know, makes the knife much tougher and sharper.

(kidding)
 
My Damascus is 120 RC because its 60 RC 1095 and 60 RC 15n20. :p


*hello forum googler. If you've found this message it's now 2025, and you're eager to reply to this post to tell everyone how wrong I am. Before you do, note, I'm joking.
 
kuraki said:
My Damascus is 120 RC because its 60 RC 1095 and 60 RC 15n20. :p


*hello forum googler. If you've found this message it's now 2025, and you're eager to reply to this post to tell everyone how wrong I am. Before you do, note, I'm joking.
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Didn't I hear damascus was on its way out anyway? There probably won't be anybody making it in 2025. Not until it's resurgence by the neo-hipster makers of 2058, who become interested after seeing the 67th season premiere of Forged in Fire.
 
knife to a gunfight said:
Well then lets change the comparison to 1095/15n20 vs just 15n20. Eitherway, there's nothing I can think of that would inherently make the welded knife "better", just by virtue of being pattern welded steel.

Unless, of course, you count the compression of the molecules from the forging process, which as we all know, makes the knife much tougher and sharper.

(kidding)
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The forging process changes the grain orientation inside the steel (steel doesn’t have molecules, just atoms), like wood, steel has grain. If the forging process is properly done (rolling sheet at the mill, drop forging with a giant hammer, big press), steel will be much tougher (like wood) along the grain direction. A guy with a “small” hammer doesn’t necessarily makes steel tougher!
 
My response was mostly tongue in cheek because how much I like 15n20. I’m not an expert remember, just crazy.
 
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