Educate me on Damascus

[K33ncutter]

On Mike Norris’ damascus page he lists these steels:
My normal stainless Damascus mixture is 19c-27, 302, and D2.

The D2 is interspersed in the center of the billet so that when the billet is patterned, the D2 will be interspersed across the cutting edge, enhancing cutting ability.

The D2 is usually not included in the fireclone pattern or twist patterns, but will add it if requested.

 

[King of the Cheese]

Damascus is for looks. Don’t buy it expecting it to perform as good as it better than the non-Damascus steels the knives come in. Sure, there are people that use it and advocate for it with claims it’s outstanding but with all the available steels out there today it is simply not on equal ground with modern steels.

 

[tiguy7]

View attachment 1351805 William Henry makes SanMai blades where the center is ZDP-189 and the sides are Damascus. So you get the look of Damascus and the edge holding of a high performance steel.

 

[Boombats]

So what's the consensus on modern Wootz? I saw a Russian vendor on here whose website professes nearly magical properties to their Wootz, and their knives have prices one might expect for magical items, but I can't tell if it's jive or what.

 

[PirateSeulb]

Anyone claiming super properties of any Damascus I would say is blowing smoke

 

[King of the Cheese]

If it isn’t “damasteel”, it’s going to practically worthless as a knife steel. Damasteel is marginally useful while also being artistic.

https://damasteel.se/

 

[John_0917]

A lot of the good Chinese brands use 9cr18 As one of the components. Some good Japanese makers use VG10 in theirs as well as another steel.

Years ago there was an amusing story on the feedback forum about someone having their PayPal account flagged after they sold someone a Boker Auto in Damascus; the idiot buyer put the note as:
“Payment for Damascus Kalashnikov”...can’t imagine why that was flagged!

 

[pnsxyr]

Now that the brief history lesson is over more on to the OPs question it varies by who made the damascus is the short answer. CRK uses the Damascus made by a particularly well known maker who does disclose what steels are included. There are also other options like Damasteel which is a name brand Damascus that is made using powdered metallurgy though how exactly it is done is likely a trade secret for the company. For some knives like a Kershaw Skyline I don't know what the source is but I would expect a company such as Kershaw to be getting something to at least consider as a quality steel.

CRK uses/has used a few Damascus products. They currently use at least Chad Nichols stainless damascus and Devin Thomas stainless damascus. DT stainless damascus is AEB-L and 304...I believe the Nichols is primarily AEB-L also. At least with the DT stainless Damascus, I've observed that it's stupid tough steel and appears to be wayyyy together than the common PM stainlesses we are used to in terms of impact strength. (I might have dropped my damascus Mnandi...) I believe CRK formally used carbon damascus blades that used both O1 and 1095 at various points as well as Gary House carbon Damascus.

Thanks for all the replies. Yea I was mostly curious because if I buy one I'm going to carry and use it and I wasnt sure how people would gauge how well the blade will hold an edge, how hard it will be to sharpen, just its overall performance, having no clue what steels are even used.

I can only speak to CRK's Devin Thomas stainless damascus. Comparatively to S35VN, it is much easier to sharpen, it does not hold a good working edge nearly as long although it seems to lose the super razor edge slower than S30V/S35VN, and it seems to be insanely tough steel. I like the insingo blade much more than the drop point...if Sebs with the insingo were available in the same damascus as my Mnandi, I'd personally choose it over S35VN.