The short answer, IMO (and I'm sure you'll get many long answers) is:
The main advantage of damascus blades are that they are very pretty.
Damascus blades can perform very well, or very badly, depending on two important factors:
1. Which materials were used in the mix. Nickel makes a prettier damascus, but a bad using knife. Other materials can be used that won't be as pretty as nickel, but can result in a blade that has the potential to perform very well.
2. How skilled the forger is. Aside from the usual important criteria such as heat treat, damascus also has a new variable: the forger is welding different steels together. This is yet another twist to the process that will allow a small mistake to result in a damascus that doesn't perform so well.
If you're looking at a damascus blade and want it to perform well, start off by asking the maker what types of metals are used in the mix, and his objectives for the steel (performance, aesthetics, or both).
There are damascus steels that test really well, as well as the constituent steels. And, given that the forger really is ending up with a completely new steel, who is to say that the resulting damascus doesn't perform better than the sum of its parts (as Don Fogg says)?
Joe
