Heretic question? Benefits of damascus blades ...?

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itsafire

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Aug 18, 2022
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Hi,
excuse me if this topic has been discussed to death and back, but I could not find any threads in the first five result pages when searching for damascus. If there are threads, please just post the link and ignore this post :)

My question actually is quite simple:
Are there any real world benefits to damascus blades apart from them looking pretty?
 
Old times : Mixing low quality steel with higher quality steel to make the most of available materials?

Modern day: Maybe a sort of micro serrated edge?
 
Style, increased value, exclusivity. Same old story as many ultra premium materials. Timascus, Zircuti, bone, mammoth, meteorite, etc..

If you don't get that tickle in you gut when you look at it.. Not many practical reasons for such adornments.
 
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There is a performance increase when you talk about comparing different types of damascus steel. Ladder damascus does cut for longer.

In terms of ladder damascus lasting longer than non-damascus, generally the answer is non-damascus steels will hold an edge longer. Of course this isn’t true of all non-damascus steels, so you will have to do a bit of homework.

Generally from what I’ve seen ladder damascus can preform about as well as S35VN approaching S45VN at times.

Larrin Thomas has done some research into this, and so give a few of his articles a read, here is one.

knifesteelnerds.com

Does Damascus Outperform Super Steels? Testing Different Combinations - Knife Steel Nerds

Nearly every experiment I performed on Damascus surprised me. The behavior of two steels welded together is anything but intuitive.
knifesteelnerds.com knifesteelnerds.com




In the end, damascus does look pretty. Ladder damascus seems to last the longest. Damascus will be fine for pretty much everyone to carry, it may require more sharpening than say, Maxamet. But honestly you will probably not care too much unless you break down boxes for a living. Aesthetics are important to a knife when it comes to if you like it or not. If you like a knife and how it looks, you’ll carry it.

One thing to note is over time the damascus pattern will fade, and require re-etching to make the pattern visible again. So the pattern will not last forever without maintenance. However it will most likely last a very long time.
 
Either or will last your lifetime and your offspring too properly used and cared for....
 
So it is as my common sense suggested.

It's looking pretty and it requires a lot of work and knowledge to pull off, so it's more expensive, but it actually offers no benefit from a knife edge point of view.

Some dig it, some don't.
 
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This has nothing to with (good) Damascus type steels as such, but there is a whole lot of "Damascus" (many times just "cladding") coming out of e.g. Pakistan that is sold for inflated prices to a general public that is duped into believing those blades are somehow superior to well processed basic steels like 1.4116 for kitchen knives etc.
 
Generally layers, veins, spots, etc in a piece of steel would be considered defects. Yet somehow we are led to believe Damascus steel is superior? Lol.

Maybe back in the day, but now it is just an art. It doesn’t add to the performance
 
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jfk1110 said:
Either or will last your lifetime and your offspring too properly used and cared for....
Click to expand...
OTOH, offspring improperly used and cared for will become dull, rusty, and incapable or unwilling to deliver the desired performance…

Parker
 
I don't need a 797HP daily driver, but sometimes practical just isn't my top priority. Are there more reliable choices, sure. More monetarily responsible choices, yup...
 
Factually, the steel will perform like the steels it is made from. Most of the “quality” modern Damascus is 1095 and 15N20, both of which are just fine on their own and also fine together. As long as they don’t delaminate.

Of course, there’s also Damasteel, which performs like CPM 154.
 
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