How many don't care for the looks of Damascus?

megalobyte,

i think you are talking about the third picture which clearly shows a multibar damascus blade, but i am refering to the fourth picture between the bradshaw multibar blade kinfe and the dunn knife. the gaps - if there are any - are very small and parallel to and between the welded layers. the single gap that is on the blade of my damascus knife can be felt with the fingernail very clearly.

thanks!
brightred
 
See Ari, it's not only ugly, but broken too. Better send me that knife while I'll still accept it for free. ;)

Brightred, for what it's worth, on just about ALL multi-bar blades I have seen, you can see where one bar was welded to the next. Can't say I've ever felt an actual gap, though. Now, are you talking about feeling a gap where two bars meet, or feeling "roughness" between the different steels that were used to make the damascus itself? Certainly, on knives that are deeply etched, the blade surface will not be smooth and you will be able to feel some texture with your fingernail. Depends on how the smith chose to finish the blade.

On that fourth pic - the Bradshaw damascus fixed blade - what you are seeing is not a gap nor a weld seam, but the "temper line" resulting from the differential heat-treatment of the blade.


Cheers,

Roger
 
brightred said:
megalobyte,

i think you are talking about the third picture which clearly shows a multibar damascus blade, but i am refering to the fourth picture between the bradshaw multibar blade kinfe and the dunn knife. the gaps - if there are any - are very small and parallel to and between the welded layers. the single gap that is on the blade of my damascus knife can be felt with the fingernail very clearly.

thanks!
brightred
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I think possibly brightred, and correct me if I'm wrong, may be referring to these spots I have circled in "red" where the contrasting layers at these points give off an optical illusion that looks like that the steel has slightly seperated.
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roger and megalobyte (ari?),

sorry for bothering you! this is my last attempt... i know about etching and grinding and temper lines. what i mean: when two billets of steel (same type or different types as for damascus) are welded together and there is too much of iron oxide on the billets then the two layers are not welded together properly. when the damascus billet is finished some iron oxide will be between the layers. after grinding and etching there will appear small holes filled with iron oxide ore steel particles and dirt. these holes are parallel to and between the layers (or bars...). when the blade is not well cleaned after grinding and etching you won't be able to see the holes but when you clean it the iron oxide will be removed from the holes and now you can see the holes (maybe "gap" was the wrong word).

anyway, sorry for confusing you! don't need to answer! beautiful knives nevertheless! i should not have started this... still love the dunn knife :)!


thanks!
brightred
 
RWS said:
I think possibly brightred, and correct me if I'm wrong, may be referring to these spots I have circled in "red" where the contrasting layers at these points give off an optical illusion that looks like that the steel has slightly seperated.
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oops, i was too slow! thank you rws! yes, that is exactly what i was talking about!

regards
brightred
 
Before reading RWS' post, I made my own picture indicating the spots you might be referring to, I think they are, but I dont believe these are gaps, or flaws, at each of these spots, it looks to me like it is a result of the diff temper and etch, but, I could be wrong, it'll be interesting to see what Bailey says, oh Bailey... :)
 

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OK, I'll admit it...I think damascus almost always looks like crap. Just like stag and mammoth ivory.
 
Damascus, stag and mammoth ivory are pretty much the opposite of phenolics, carbon fiber and stock steel.

Natural "character" versus homogeneity.

I personally like both kinds of materials, but find that knives that combine damascus blades, damascus bolsters or guards (often of a different type) and stag or mammoth ivory scales or handles can be a little "overstimulating" - a veritable riot of texture and color. Pretty hard to pull off well.
 
Quiet Storm said:
OK, I'll admit it...I think damascus almost always looks like crap. Just like stag and mammoth ivory.
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For some reason this was the first post ever to make me laugh out loud. Oh wait, to stay cool I have to say lol. :) I'm always slow on picking up sarcasm, for some reason this time I wasn't. Oh darn, now I'm getting off topic.
 
RWS,
I'd like to know what those areas you circled in red indicate also. I have seen that in other damascus knives ... appearing like tiny isolated black cracks that go deeper and appear to be a small separations in the steel. Can someone say what this is, what causes it? Is it expected? (depending on how the damascus is made)
David
 
I believe these areas are caused from the etch. For one reason or another some of the weld lines will etch deeper than other areas and look like a flaw but it's not and it usualy shows up when the blade is rubbed out after the etch were as if it were left dark you would not see it. I've also noticed these to really stand out on close ups with a digital camera , they seem to be enhanced by the camera. If they were flaws the maker would see them before the etch and would not likely finish the knife.

Don Hanson lll
 
2knife said:
RWS,
I'd like to know what those areas you circled in red indicate also. I have seen that in other damascus knives ... appearing like tiny isolated black cracks that go deeper and appear to be a small separations in the steel. Can someone say what this is, what causes it? Is it expected? (depending on how the damascus is made)
David
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It may be nothing more than an optical illusion in the picture giving the appearance of seperation.
even if it's not, it just might be the nature of Damascus.

I'm just not knowledgeable enough to know what all would be considered imperfections in Damascus by bladesmiths.

I think we'll have to wait for an answer from Bailey on what he thinks.
 
sunfishman said:
I believe these areas are caused from the etch. For one reason or another some of the weld lines will etch deeper than other areas and look like a flaw but it's not and it usualy shows up when the blade is rubbed out after the etch were as if it were left dark you would not see it. I've also noticed these to really stand out on close ups with a digital camera , they seem to be enhanced by the camera. If they were flaws the maker would see them before the etch and would not likely finish the knife.

Don Hanson lll
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A digital camera has an unfair advantage for seeing things most eyes can't.

I agree that a closeup of anything with a digital camera will show stuff that the naked eye cannot pick up and will reveal all kinds of things that if they were large enough to pick up with the naked eye might be considered imperfections.
It's almost like using a microscope which is quite unnecessary to make a knife, IMO.

My attitude is for F&F, if the naked eye can't see it then it probably doesn't matter.
 
Boy...... those darn digital cameras....


As Don said, the little spots that appear, and sometimes as lines, only show after rubbing out an etched blade. I think they are little deposits of iron, or significantly lower carbon steel from the welding process. When steel is brought to a welding heat, the surface decarburizes, and the result is scale. During welding, the two surfaces have lost carbon at the surface of the steel, and you have a VERY thin layer of low carbon steel. During the rest of the forging process, carbon migration re-carburizes most of these weld areas, but not 100% of them. Low carbon steel will etch faster than high carbon steel, and you end up with these little spots. Sometimes they show up as lines on a random or ladder patern billet. DIfferent patterns produce different effects. If you look at them under a microscope (as I do many of my blades, including this one as I engraved it), you can see they are just deeper etched spots.

If it were a bad weld, you would be able to see it VERY clearly on such a photo. Especially after rubbing out the blade.

One of the real buggers in making damascus is when you get a deposit of "iron-flux". It is actually a spot where some flux was trapped inside the weld, and although it was a good weld, the flux is not steel, and had nowhere to go. Most of the time these spots don't show up when sanding the blade before the etch becasue the flux is mixed with the steel that was molten on the weld surface. After the etch they look like a cold shunt on an otherwise well forged billet.
 
Sometimes damascus is nice, but a lot of the time I find that it interferes with the flow of the blade.
 
Hi everyone,

Just checked this thread again recently. Thanks for those who replied to my post with such flattering compliments (too flattering for a young amateur student of swords). I really ought to proofread my posts a bit more carefully, though - I think I used the word "beautiful" 100 times too many. ;)

Also, allow me to say that of everything I have enthusiastically studied during the time I have been interested in swords, wootz is pretty low down on the list. I don't want anyone to think that my word on any of this is definitive - I'm just relating the nature of things as I have come to understand them through my (very amateur) studies. For instance, as far as I know, the layering pattern in wootz blades was apparently caused by carbides segregating themselves due to the interesting effects of alloying elements such as Vanadium - but I have also seen evidence of deliberately induced patterns, so I'm not exactly sure of the forging process. Then again, wootz in general was kind of mysticized and enigmatic and remains one of the least comprehensively understood materials to this day - so maybe my uncertaintly is justified. ;)

Also, my opening comments regarding "damascus" steel sounded fairly harsh in retrospect - and although I believe I adequately expressed my views on the subject by the end of that post, allow me to reiterate that some damascus I really, really like. :)

Funny thing about the term "damascus..." It basically doesn't mean anything directly. Today it's used to describe pattern-welded blades (a distinctly migration-era European technology, although it has examples from many cultures and time periods). Originally it described wootz blades obtained from trade with the Middle East -through the trading city of Damascus. Yet wootz technology did not originate in Damascus, nor was Damascus a center of swordsmithing in and of itself - the technique is an Indo-Persian one. Not only this, but famed "Toledo" steel gained its fame *in part* from the occupation of that Spanish city - meaning that it was respected for blades whose construction methods originated as far away as India. Crazy, no?

Ach, there I go again. I apologize if you've all heard these before - it's just that coming from a interest in historical research to a forum widely concerned with modern knives leaves me eager to share some of the more interesting anecdotes pertaining to swordcraft. Please feel free to stop me if I'm preaching to the choir here, as I am sure I will be to some (many?) of you.

And I still need a dang pocket folder... :rolleyes:
 
Great thread. Nice to see so many different opinions,and pionts of veiw.

Gabe, Thanks for the interesting posts. It's great to have someone so knowedgeable, and obviously so passionate about Japanese swords, sharing some of their veiws.
Doug
 
Just curious, do those small separations affect performance in any way?

Personally, I like subtle Damascus :cool:. If the blade looks like a color-blind acid trip, no thanks.
 
S2nd said:
Just curious, do those small separations affect performance in any way?
Click to expand...

I don't believe they are "separations" - see Bailey's and Don's posts above.

Cheers,

Roger
 
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