I personally don't like 5160 in my damascus at all, my opinion, I am certain there are others. O1 and L6 can be a pain in the @$$ in the welding and the working, it does harden
veryeasily but requires better temperature control to get the most out of the hardening operation. I am still searching for a mix that will top it in the properties I look for in a blade, when it is done right. But I think much of the differences are not worth the effort if you are not set up to do it, so I do have some other recommendations.
1095, 1084, 1080 or W2, any of these mixed with 15n20 make a great mix that can come darned close to my favorite. If they made 15n20 in man sized thicknesses instead of those dainty little wafers you would see such mixes used a lot more in my stuff. I really love the mix; it welds like a dream and forges really nice, and can handle heat treatments done with basic equipment. The patterning is quite bold as well. When I need to really push the steel to the limits in the forging operation for odd manipulations or shapes, I will lean towards this mix and not worry about anything coming apart.
The 8670M Admiral was selling as L6 welds up very nice with their 1080/1070. The contrast isn't as bold but it is nowhere near as blah as your O1 and 5160.
Heck while we are at it why not tackle some of the drivel out there about damascus and peeve everybody off:jerkit:
Mild steel plays no real role in damascus other than to water down the carbon content; if that 1095 has too much carbon you can do the math and add enough 1018 to make 1084 out of it. Hard/soft layers giving strength +ductility at the same time is nonsense, unless you go to extra lengths to make soft layers and then, I have found, it makes some rather undesirable qualities.
Carbon migration (diffusion is the actual term) is always referred to as a bad thing to be avoided or overcome, when it is in fact the one thing that has saved a lot of smiths butts when they dumped all kinds of things they shouldn't have into their mix. Carbon migration happens, and if it does it means there highly disproportional carbon levels and we should embrace it, it is our friend.
Damascus is not a single steel mix, it is not a word, it is a process! Statements like "damascus steel requires a faster quench drive me nuts, as they are based upon self imposed ignorance. One bad mix that a person could have used may not have properly hardened, but what about the infinite number of other combinations out there?
The previous point goes hand in hand with the idea that damascus doesn't get as hard as regular steel or it cannot be accurately rockwelled. The stuff is still steel, if it doesn't harden completely or cannot be rockwelled, the maker screwed up! My O1 and L6 mix (as well as the 10XX and 15n20) consistently hardens to 64.5 HRC with less than .5 deviations anywhere on the sample.
Due to myths and misconceptions, and the infinite number of things that can go wrong, I would be willing to say that the majority of damascus blades are not as good as their single-steel counterparts, however there is percentage out there that are just as good, and in some specialized areas of cutting even more aggressive. So while the chances of a buyer getting a good knife go down when they go exclusively forged blades, those numbers get narrowed to a much higher degree with damascus, if they don't find smiths that really know what they are doing.
An excellent guide for deciding your mix is to try to stick with materials that will make excellent blades all by themselves. Most of the problems come about from improper planning of final carbon content. This can be done quickly with a very simple formula. If your billet is going to be made of 2 steels you first determine the percentage of each. Say you are going to use 1095 and 15n20 in a 50/50 mix you then divide the carbon percentage of each by the percentage they will ad to the billet- 50% 15n20 = .75C divided by 2, 50% 1095= .95%C divided by 2. The results would be .375% and .475%. Add the two together and you will get a carbon percentage of .85% carbon for the final product (ideally, since other factors like decarb can come into play).
Now lets do the same for an old favorite, at one time 1/3 O1 and 2/3 1018 was all the rage in order to make tough steel. .90%C divided by 1/3 = .30, .18%C divided by 2/3 =.12, adding the two results together gives a total carbon content of .42%. I have no doubt that the mix would be tough, but do you see where the idea that damascus doesnt get as hard came from? (those folks who are mathematically inclined would be helping if they double check my numbers as I am the first to admit that I am mathematical retard
)
Finally, I know there are readers of this that are just dying to correct me on calling pattern welding "damascus" when only wootz can be called damascus, well this is a situation where folks like to feel sophisticated by showing how they know the proper terminology, which is unfortunately based upon popular concepts and not necessarily on fact. Dozens of words were used to describe both crystalline and welded damascus, both in ancient times and today. The city in Syria being the sole source of materials, and hence the name, has now been largely discredited and attributed to legend. There were differing crucible steels from various regions of the east as well as welded patterns in the ancient world. Over time "damask", "damascene", "damascus" have all been applied to any number of materials that have a pattern worked into them. how many centuries must past before we accept a word and its definition into our lexicon? I feel that pattern welding has been called "damascus" by our culture long enough that we can let go of this erroneous outdated concept of one city being the one source of one material giving one definition. The majority of consumers understand damascus to be pattern welding; it is a whole lot easier to go with that then to give a history/archeo-metallurgy lesson every time one mentions the material.
. This would be easier if folks would realize that one can't have their own unique facts. I am not at odds with the popular ideas in knifemaking, those ideas are at odds with basic physics and the way things actually work. When I abandoned the concept that it must be right if "he" said it or "they" all do it, and tried applying actual metallurgical facts, my work broke free of the plateau it had reached and suddenly everything made sense and worked in a consistent manner. Understanding how things worked allowed me the freedom to go in almost any direction that I wished... gee, imagine that
