What makes a Damascus desirable?

Patrice Lemée

Patrice Lemée

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Aug 13, 2002
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Or one better than another?
From both the maker's and the collector's perspective.
I never made any (yet) and even just recently started using it. I just know what I like visually and I realize that I need to know more to make a proper choice.
 
I've been wondering this myself. I think Patrice is asking about the visual aspect specifically, but if I could add a very related question for the sake of discussion: Does the maker of the damascus (I'm thinking of those of us who buy it) affect the value of the knife when completed? Excluding the Pakistani stuff (the answer is obvious there), does the use any particular producer's pattern welded product devalue a knife? Do any add extra value simply because of who made it?
 
I find most damascus too busy for my personal taste but do love a smooth flowing dragons breath etc. Im more of a nice san mai with dark etched edge myself.
 
It's the unicorn pee and ground rainbow dust...very desirable.

;)


I've made a fair amount of PW material.
My personal preference is toward the more difficult historic patterns, but anything well-executed is fine, IMO.

What's undesirable, IMO: ....

... anything intended for use as a blade that has been adulterated with non-hardenable materials for no reason other than aesthetics.
This includes using pure nickel or mild steel for 'color.'
Yes, it can be used in such a way that it doesn't badly damage the blades performance (such as near the center of an art dagger), but that pretty much excludes using it anywhere near an edge. When it comes to knives made for actually cutting stuff, I don't get why you'd willfully diminish your material with non-hardening or carbon-deficient materials...a little extra 'color' just isn't that important, IMO.

Another thing that's undesirable is a billet made up of steels that are incompatible with respect to heat treating protocol. Just because it can be welded together doesn't mean it should be welded together.
There are plenty of combinations that simply can never result in optimum HTed condition for all the constituents at the same time. This becomes abundantly clear when you break out an Atlas of Isothermal Transformation and start comparing TTT charts -- and/or when you're doing thin European-style medieval swords that HAVE to be both hard and flexible and give good with edge retention (against deformation on very thin sections). All the constituent alloys HAVE to perform or you'll notice it pretty much immediately.
 
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I’m partial to damascus knives and in my opinion pattern welded steel gives the knife another dimension of interest and beauty while giving the maker another opportunity to display his/her artistic talent.
It’s an extremely old and amazing process enabling the maker to create an infinite number of patterns and effects. In fact, even though there’s processes and techniques utilized by the maker to achieve certain patterns such as ladder, wolf’s tooth, raindrop and feather to name a few, there’s still NO two damascus blades just alike. It’s almost like the finger print of a knife.

Additional benefits of damascus include corrosion resistance and performance.
 
Kevin makes all excellent points. I would add from the working/performance aspect of things, that Damascus, if properly made and patterned and heat treated, can inhance the cutting ability of the blade. Also important is that I believe Damascus is easier to maintain in a field use knife. The fact that the blade is already half oxidized on purpose makes cleaning one up really easy.
As for your question of value, I can't think of any circumstance that would cause Damascus to actually decrease the value of a knife.(barring the above mentioned Pakistani garbage). As for increasing the value, it is like many other forms of art, or product. The skill of the artist, and the choice in materials, and the popularity/brand of the maker have everything to do with the value above and beyond the material value of the item. For instance, a Frank Lloyd Wright house has a value above the material value of the building.
Hope this helps.

Adam.
 
JCaswell said:
... anything intended for use as a blade that has been adulterated with non-hardenable materials for no reason other than aesthetics.
This includes using pure nickel or mild steel for 'color.'
Yes, it can be used in such a way that it doesn't badly damage the blades performance (such as near the center of an art dagger), but that pretty much excludes using it anywhere near an edge. When it comes to knives made for actually cutting stuff, I don't get why you'd willfully diminish your material with non-hardening or carbon-deficient materials...a little extra 'color' just isn't that important, IMO.

Another thing that's undesirable is a billet made up of steels that are incompatible with respect to heat treating protocol. Just because it can be welded together doesn't mean it should be welded together.
There are plenty of combinations that simply can never result in optimum HTed condition for all the constituents at the same time. This becomes abundantly clear when you break out an Atlas of Isothermal Transformation and start comparing TTT charts -- and/or when you're doing thin European-style medieval swords that HAVE to be both hard and flexible and give good with edge retention (against deformation on very thin sections). All the constituent alloys HAVE to perform or you'll notice it pretty much immediately.
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all good points.
Adam's suggestion that pattern welded steel doesn't show use much is, in my limited experience, true.
damascus does add more cost to the equation, and rightly so. Just make sure it's worth it, considering all other aspects of design.
sometimes knives just have too much going on visually, and a pattern welded blade can bring an otherwise decent design to it knees.
I feel that the best looking damascus knives are the ones designed with a specific pattern weld in mind. Although I'm sure that there are some happy mistakes out there:)
 
Lorien said:
all good points.
Adam's suggestion that pattern welded steel doesn't show use much is, in my limited experience, true.
damascus does add more cost to the equation, and rightly so. Just make sure it's worth it, considering all other aspects of design.
sometimes knives just have too much going on visually, and a pattern welded blade can bring an otherwise decent design to it knees.
I feel that the best looking damascus knives are the ones designed with a specific pattern weld in mind. Although I'm sure that there are some happy mistakes out there:)
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I couldn't agree more. Sometimes the right pattern of Damascus will compliment and sometimes it will hurt your eyes to look upon such a tragedy.

I'm a fan of ladder and random.

Performance wise. I like carbon over stainless Damascus, any day of the week.
 
Robert Carter said:
I couldn't agree more. Sometimes the right pattern of Damascus will compliment and sometimes it will hurt your eyes to look upon such a tragedy.

I'm a fan of ladder and random.

Performance wise. I like carbon over stainless Damascus, any day of the week.
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I feel a Damascus pattern needs to go along or enhance an overall knife design just as any other embellishment. If Damascus fittings are used along with a Damascus blade they both need to complement one another as well. Some makers are better at this than others. Stainless Damascus doesn't interest me much.
 
I Love pattern welded steel and I don't have a favorite pattern. It depends on the knife. Sometimes I look at a knife and feel that it would look better with a different pattern and sometimes I think the steel used is the perfect choice for that particular knife.

My personal preference is for choose steels made by the maker of the knife. I don't own any knives that have pattern welded steel made by any of the famous makers of Damascus, but I would imagine a steel made by them would add more value to a knife that a steel made by someone lesser known.
 
I am not sure that I can explain what it is that makes certain Damascus blades more appealing than others, but I certainly know it when I see it. It would be easier if we were sitting over a beer thumbing through one of David Darom's books for me to show you what I like and why.

However, I can give some clues.

Patterns that are "loose" or are not uniform from guard to tip are generally unappealing to me. As an example of tight, uniform patterns, just about every Damascus blade I have seen from Kyle Royer is very tight and uniform, following precisely the shape of the blade. It shows a very high attention to detail that is almost certainly going to be reflected in the rest of the knife as well.

I like it when the etched pattern extends all the way to the very edge of the blade. IMO too many makers do not show the Damascus pattern at the edge, and I generally do not like this.

There are so many makers of Damascus patterns that I consider to be outstanding that I would not want to try to name them all for fear of leaving someone out.

I have no definite general preference between "carbon" damascus and stainless Damascus. I have seen lots of each that I liked . . . and a lot more that i did not like. But the stainless does seem to be less maintenance.

I am sure that the fame/notoriety/respect that certain makers of Damascus have earned has an impact on the value of knives made with their steel. That just seems like common sense to me.
 
I love looking at damascus. I like Kevins point comparing it to a finger print. Sometimes you see two knives that were built exactly the same, but you can tell them apart by eye balling the steel patterns.

I have found that damascus gets such a thin edge that it cuts better then most stainless blades I have used. Also when you scratch it, it doesn't seem to show as much.

Also as mentioned- sometimes damascus parts clash (visually) so its up to the maker/artist to pick the right pieces to compliment eachother. In my own opinion I find that sole authorship makers do that best. I've seen many folding knives with damascus that the maker purchased from a forger which had very badly matching blade and bolsters. It can get very tacky.

No problem with stainless damascus, except I haven't seen as fine an edge as with carbon damascus. Again- this is just from my experience and I am no expert. While I prefer carbon, I like very much how some stainless damascus looks- for example Mike Norris' Ladder and Hornets Nest patterns. I have a knife with Devin Thomas Sharks Tooth which is nice as well.
 
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DesRosiers said:
Kevin makes all excellent points. I would add from the working/performance aspect of things, that Damascus, if properly made and patterned and heat treated, can inhance the cutting ability of the blade. Also important is that I believe Damascus is easier to maintain in a field use knife. The fact that the blade is already half oxidized on purpose makes cleaning one up really easy.
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I agree with the second part, but as for the first, unless you are talking about a VERY slight increase in toughness from the nickel in the 15N20 or L6 when comapred to the "base" 1084, )1 or what have you, I don't really think that any damscus is going to be any better than the sum of its component steels. I think that it is pretty well established that if the "damascus cutting effect" may exist, it only shows up with when you use steels with very different levels of carbon and even then, current wisdom says that the carbon migrates and the damascus ends up being pretty much a monosteel after a few bouts of forge welding. Any other time, you are probably talking about carbide banding in something like wootz/bulat, not modern pattern welding using high carbon steel. You might see some of that effect say on cable damascus where you pattern is caused by decarb on the outside of the individual wires.
 
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jdm61 said:
... I don't really think that any damscus is going to be any better than the sum of its component steels ...
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Yup, that.


If you don't screw up the steel (burn it, decarb, contaminate welds, etc)--AND you have two or more alloys well matched so the HT protocol is optimal for all, your damascus will perform to the potential of it's constituent alloys.
 
I personally like high contrast, precise, well defined patterns and it's usually harder to find that in tight patterns. That's why I seem to like looser ones.

Thanks for the great feedback guys, much appreciated. Some very interesting info. :thumbup:
 
I would have to strongly disagree with any suggestion that damascus generally does not perform well. Assuming all the other properties which impact performance are in place (heat treatment, blade geometry, edge geometry etc.) it can and will perform exceptionally well. One of my most-used knives is a damascus hunter by Burt Foster. I don't know that any more could be asked of a knife in terms of performance.

As for patterns - what I like about damsacus is the near infinite variety. I love the tight control of ladder or multi-bar twist. But I also love the shear, well, randomness of random damascus - it can give the steel an flowing, almost liquid quality.
 
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