olamic fixed blade

I haven't seen any testing on Olamic damascus, but my sense is that damascus these days is mostly for looks. The vanadium that Olamic puts into its damascus would help with grain refinement and general toughness and edge wear. But lots of steels will do better in almost any single performance category. Olamic runs its damascus at 57-58 Rc, which is a little soft, but should help with toughness (resistance to chipping and breaking).

If you like the looks and you have the money, buy it. Olamic makes a good knife. But if you're looking for a high-performance blade, regardless of the type of performance you're after, you could do better.
 
Generally getting a damascus blade is a concious decision that the knife will be put looks as top priority ahead of function.

Not that there aren't certain damascus that can be very high performance. Just generally.
 
The knives are mostly hunters (aside from fancy daggers, etc) and our high carbon vanadium damascus that goes into it does cut, and cuts well, and isn't too difficult to resharpen. A few years ago Kim Breed did a field test/write up of one of our models (same blade as the Suna) that I will try to find and scan and link for anyone interested in a neutral perspective.
 
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