The Recent Proliferation of Damascus Blades

awesome14 said:
About wootz steel. It seems to exist only by agreement between those who study it, with some help from old manuscript fragments. It's kind of like what dinosaurs really looked like. No one knows, so a bunch of people get together and make it up as best they are able.

Truth by consensus alone, devoid of experimental evidence, has a tendency to mushroom into legends, one of which is wootz steel. Damascus blades are a tiny fragment of a much larger industry encompassing layered steel. If we're only focused on that little sliver, the bigger picture is lost, and the art with it.

If anyone wants a blade that looks like Damascus, many companies coat their blades with electrostatic mask, expose it to a pattern of light of their choosing, spray electrically charged acid at the blade, which only sticks where the coating was exposed to light, rinse off the blade, and it looks like Damascus.

But if you buy 10 of them, you'll get at least 2 identical patterns. Making the patterns for the light is the difficult part, so the manufacturers use them again and again. I even sent back a Damascus folder, because the pattern in the website photo was identical to the one I received.
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Curious, what knife was it?
 
I'm not sure where you get your ideas about the science you speak of. For instance:

"Every scientific finding I uncovered is refuted by another scientific finding, and the entire movement is most likely chasing legends. One such legend is that Japanese warriors preferred their layered swords to rifles, because the swords were so tough you could sever a rifle barrel with one."

What does the myth you mention and scientific findings have literally anything to do with each other? What do you think metalluegists studying ancient knives actually do?

The science is pretty uncontroversial. Damascus, wootz, etc. were folded and forged with particular microstructures resulting from local composition of earth and processing. Particularly good steel resulted from particularly good ores that resulted in particularly well-suited alloys compared to other steels produced at the time from different ore.

The exact ores, exact processing, and full details of the microstructure aren't known, but scientists aren't chasing ghosts when they analyze old steel.
 
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awesome14 said:
The followimg is what I've been able to wade through regarding "Damascus Steel". Everything directly known about Damascus steel has been gathered from experiments done on relatively recent artifacts, simply because such artifacts do not survive for thousands of years. The defining trait of Damascus steel is layering, not the pattern.

Every scientific finding I uncovered is refuted by another scientific finding, and the entire movement is most likely chasing legends. One such legend is that Japanese warriors preferred their layered swords to rifles, because the swords were so tough you could sever a rifle barrel with one.

Damascus is a semi-recent development of layering. Layering produces steel that is vastly superior in toughness and strength to forged steel. Damascus was identifiable by the characteristic pattern, somewhat like what is achieved presently by pattern-welded steel.

But originally, it wasn't the pattern the smiths were after. It just happened to be a characteristic of the finished product, and was not nearly as pronounced as today's acid etched Damascus. Ancient Japanese swords were folded up to 4,000 times, and were highly polished as to mute the pattern as much as possible.

Even in medieval times, no one cared about the pattern on folded steel. Soldiers wanted a blade they could swing full force, again and again, to tear through armor. Actually, when the crossbow came into use, it made armor obsolete, prompting one historian to claim the crossbow would surely end all human life.

Today, Damascus steel is valued much more for the look of it. Most, if not all, Damascus blades are ground from commecially available, industrially manufactured billets, like these: https://damascussteelbillets.com/product-category/our-products/damascus-billets/

When a Damascus blade knife says 'hand made', it doesn't generally refer to hand layering the blade, only grinding it into the desired shape and other hand work done to make the knife. The link I posted has overpriced billets. You can purchase them for about 1/2 of that. I used that link, because it doesn't have anything on it but Damascus Steel billets. Also, with billets, you can order the pattern ready made.

If you want to know more, Google is your friend. Damacus steel is layered high-carbon/low-carbon, so you get the best of both worlds. Each layer blends with the adjacent layer, welding it, not like arc welding, but forging and hammering welding, does produce a tough blade that can typically be 1mm thinner for the same strength in breaking as powdered steel.

One sure way to identify real Damascus steel as it is made today, although it is not always the case, are slight blemishes on the edge. Knifemakers in India especially, leave the belemishes rather than hone them out. But not every blade will initially hone to reveal blemishes (small spots on the edge)

These are easily honed out if one finds them bothersome. I have a neighbor from Sri Lanka where the blades are actually hand layered. He was at a festival of some sort, and someone asked if he wanted these knives. Apprarently there's much haggling, but he thought of me, and got me 2 identical knives, for $60 (and undoubtedly at a tidy profit for himself. Average wage there is $1.20/hr , 440LKR Sri Lankan currecy.)

They aren't identical like a manufactured knife. They look similar to each other. And you can tell they're made with hand tools. Previous to this I was never quite sure if what I have is Damascus. But once you see it once, you'll not easily forget.

Those 2 are the first I have with a slight dip in the blade. So, I can't sharpen it on a flat stone. Any advice on the best way to get inside that slight dip. It's about 1/4"x at the deepest, and about 5"long on an arc. Thanks for all the help.
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Too many blatant falsehoods to list.

You've had your inaccuracies on this topic pointed out to you numerous times by numerous members and yet you continue this nonsense.

If willful ignorance burned, you'd be the eternal flame.
 
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