Tough Damascus. Dama-Tough?

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Fir Na Tine

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iirc Damascus was made to make the blade stronger and cut longer but became more about the beauty and art. If we apply modern metallurgy to Damascus, how tough can we make it? What two tough steels would make a strong Damascus? I am a novice at metallurgy but from what I gather the forging practice has to be similar for both steels. What are the two strongest steels that can be made into Damascus? S7 and ? 5160 and ?
What alchemy can make the toughest Damascus?
 
I don't know about pattern welding making anything stronger or tougher, aren't you by default making a mono steel less tough by forging it multiple times and then even more by mixing 2 alloys together that will probably respond slightly differently in each respective heat treat proto?
So you're making the steel twice as weak by even taking a pure shock steel from the S series, then forging it creating stress and potential failure points.
The way I see it all forms of lamination and pattern welding don't add any benefit when it comes to toughness, or steel matrix quality.
Didn't everyone laminate and weld steel together to save money and resources?
Using only the fine best premium steel they had for the edge, and using cheap crappy iron for the rest of the blade, not because it's superior to using pure premium steel with differential quench, but because it saved them money and precious steel.
Wouldn't straight S7 always be more durable than whatever alloy you end up with after pattern wleding it with another steel?
Everytime you heat and forge you make the steel weaker, I think all that stuff is a myth about damascus making anything better anywhere on the knife, mono steel is superior.
 
I'm NOT a damascus steel maker/forger, but from an engineering stand point, when people say that a steel is "tough", what they means is the 1.grain size is very fine and 2. there are little to none large carbides, these two elements makes it hard for cracks or micro-fractures to initiate and moves through the steel, resulting in a blade that can bend and flex without snapping

For damascus steel, you are forge welding two different types of steel together, and the weld between the layers is a perfect place for cracks to initiate:
1. the contacts layers between the two steels can cause one to lose carbon and one gains carbon, meaning that the characteristic, specifically toughness is almost impossible to predict.
2. let's say that the welds are harder that then two steel, then you'll have stress concentration point at the monosteel layers. -> crack
3. let's say that the welds are tougher and softer, then you'll also have a stress concentration point at the weld -> crack
4. if you don't seal all the seams well enough, oxygen can get in between the layers and decarb the welds -> crack. You can look that Tyrell's damascus making, before commening the forge, he soak the billet in gasoline to fill all the pockets inside.
 
Hoss, (Devin Thomas) has it right already:

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No bad welds in this piece. AEB-L and 304 as mentioned. Billet was forged int 1992 and recently gifted to me by a fellow BF memeber.
 
I currently have one Damascus blade that I bought in 1989 that is a Buck 110 512 layer Damascus that I used for hunting and field dressing deer. It has served me well in all those years and only developed a light surface rust that cleaned off wiping with some penetrating oil. As a skinning and cutting blade it is plenty tough for that application.

Several years ago I had another 512 Damascus fixed blade 4 inch drop point that was an off brand I can’t remember the name that I was trying out to see how tough it could be. I had read where a fella did a test so I put it through some similar rough treatment chopping tree limbs, driving it into wood and flexing it, batoning some fire wood and cutting to open metal drums. It did that stuff alright but it started to de-laminate near the cutting edge along the middle of the blade. I think the flexing is what caused the delamination. But I don’t know if that was just a bad piece that didn’t forge weld properly or the quinch at the time of hardening and tempering or just what. I didn’t pay a lot for it, I think it was about $50 in the mid 1990s and I lost track of it a long time ago.

I have heard of other Damascus blades de laminating in rough use and flexing so I don’t know if this is a characteristic of Damascus / pattern weld or just poor forging or maybe bad heat treatment. What ever the reason I would only recommend to use them for slicing and regular cutting tasks and not as a rough service blade.
 
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Sooooo what I am hearing is that no matter how you slide it (ha) Damascus is a weakness magnet? How can we make the toughest possible Damascus or is the AEB-L - 304 the best that can be done by a world class smith?
 
I’ve never forged Damascus but I recon your first guesses are close. I’d start with S7, 5160 or 52100 and then try to figure out what other steel would complement it the most re: heat-treatment/tempering cycles.

Final hardness of the steel has a huge impact on toughness, so you wouldn’t want one steel to temper down to, say, 55-57RC, while the OTHER steel only tempers down to 62.

I imagine if you started out with two steels that react to heat similarly, and they’re forged together by a good smith, you’ll have something tougher than most other Damascus blades, although probably weaker than if you had used any of those steels on their own. Are you thinking of trying this? The other confounding factor is that you might not get much “contrast” after etching if the steels are too closely related to each other. You might end up with a tough Damascus that looks like mono-steel.
 
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I don’t have the tools to do it…yet. I am not really into the decorations but the true purpose of Damascus to make the strongest possible steel for the time of the technology at the time but using modern steel and tools.
 
Can we make a tougher Damascus than the Japanese sword makers of old? I have seen examples of Damascus where the layers were so fine that they were almost imperceptible. So many tens of thousands of layers take away the delamination issue?
 
Fir Na Tine said:
I don’t have the tools to do it…yet. I am not really into the decorations but the true purpose of Damascus to make the strongest possible steel for the time of the technology at the time but using modern steel and tools.
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That purpose was 100% eliminated by the advent of homogenous, consistent modern steels though, and now the one and only reason to ever make damascus of any kind is for the artistic value of it.
 
Fir Na Tine said:
Can we make a tougher Damascus than the Japanese sword makers of old? I have seen examples of Damascus where the layers were so fine that they were almost imperceptible. So many tens of thousands of layers take away the delamination issue?
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I think 3V beats any kind of damascus or legacy forge-made blade steel in toughness, by a very wide margin, while also offering respectable edge retention for its class
 
NG VI said:
That purpose was 100% eliminated by the advent of homogenous, consistent modern steels though, and now the one and only reason to ever make damascus of any kind is for the artistic value of it.
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The art is modern retro.
See what the modern limits are on a traditional method giving some soul to a sterile modern steel. Art is inspired by the limitations and breaking rules. Add a limitation and break some rules to see what happens.
 
In talking about delaminating, is this something that could occur in laminated steels like HAP40/SUS410?
 
kobold said:
IDK much, just that I think Chad Nichols and Devin Thomas damascus in CRK folders is AEB-L and 304. AEB-L is tough. About 304: https://www.thomasnet.com/articles/...about-304-steel-properties-strength-and-uses/
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304? Popular in saltwater enviornments. I had acomplete set of 304 kitchenware on a V.I. Charter Boat, years ago.
Most, if not all the staimess steel used in the rigging, winches (drums, base, and handles), life line poles, cleats, hinges, latches, and other hardwear, were 304

I'm not sure if it can be hardened though. From what I remember, it couldn't be.

Memory is correct! According to the linked artical, Quote:
"304 steels are not readily hardened by thermal treatment, but can be annealed to increase workability and cold worked to increase strength."
 
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