Been looking at knife kits for something to build and play with.

I see lots of blade kits that are Damascus steel.

Are they truly folded Damascus steel or are they some form of etching to give them that Damascus steel look?

Some are hard to tell.look where they taper to the sharp edge and see if the grain follows. I bought a couple from Tim Zowada thirty years ago. They were about $150 an inch way back then. And he was just about the only Damascus steel maker. He was not trying to over charge either. Others on the market were priced about the same.  Now I see “Damascus” knives for under a $100. It’s hard to believe they are real.

Technically, no one has made any Damascus steel for at least a century. The technique has been lost to history.

If people were completely honest, modern attempts at reproductions would be called "pattern-welded" steel or something.

It hasn’t been lost it’s just a type of crucible steel. Man at arms reforged has done traditional Damascus steel. Modern steels are just better and modern pattern-welded steels are more predictable and homogenous. Nowadays they are more for aesthetics than for any actual functionality. They also take some skill and thus show off a smiths ability.

Almost true, they have figured it out but it’s still very difficult to make. I know this video is long but it’s worth it.

Anything touted as Damascus steel today just isn’t.

That's been my understanding as well and I also believe that the source material for true Damascus Steel is no longer available.

Damned if I know for sure though.

Al Pendray made a traditional Wootz Damascus. It was probably the closest to the real thing and was not made like the pattern welded steel most of us use today.  I believe he even had a patent on the process.

I just got a very nice Damascus tobacco pipe tool made by a blacksmith/knife maker.

If I look close I can see the layers. Real or not it’s 1 of only 10 in the world that exist and were made years ago

Attached File

True Damascus steel is not only a method, it's also a type of ore only found in one region of the world. Trying to reproduce it without that ore, and without the tools and techniques of the time won't give you a true Damascus steel.

But does the knife buyer who's looking for blade with a layered pattern really care? Buy a quality pattern welded "damascus" made by a known quality smith and be happy. Leave the rest for the autists.

Not if its that cheap-O Pakistan made crap.
Save your money.
That crap is hammered out of a fender and acid etched. It isn't layered steel.

Damasteel does NOT = Damascus steel.

I would only believe a blade is true Damascus steel if it came wrapped in a Corinthian leather scabbard.

Read in the voice of Ricardo Montalbán.

unless it's grown and harvested in Damascus, it's not the real thing.  kinda like champagne

And quenched by being thrust into the bodies of Nubian slaves?

That won't work. A body won't bring the temp of the steel down quick enough to allow proper hardening to take place.

Well, these days they differentiate between Wootz/Bulat and pattern welded damascus. Pattern welded damascus has become fairly common, and really isn't that difficult to make. Granted, that's for the lower layer counts that are most common (eg. ~3-6 dozen layer range). The high layer counts (100s to 1000s of layers) take more time, but are still being made.

When you take 4 pieces each of 2 different steels to make pattern welded damascus, it doesn't take very many folds. From 8 to 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 5096, 10192... after a point, the steel is practically homogeneous, so don't buy the 'Authentic Japanes katana with 5 million layers' BS. The steel would be pretty much homogeneous at that point, and you wouldn't see any pattern.

As mentioned above, they figured out the method to reproduce Wootz/Bulat, so the technique WAS lost for a few centuries, but they can make it now.

Technically you can make "damascus" out of any old steel, hardness/toughness be damned.

@Tobysi
@carguym
@kabota3430

Check out the video in the post right above yours. Al Pendray figured it out.

He's produced Wootz Damascus that not only has the patterns of the antique stuff, but matches the microscopic structure of antique Wootz.

The ore from the mine near Damascus is still obtainable with the right connections, but upon inspection of the impurities, they discovered that one part of the key, is Vanadium in the 0.05 - 0.1% range (the ore from the Alqoun mine tested 0.08% Vanadium if I recall the commentary in the video correctly).

The process is a lot more involved than just the ore's composition though. That video is worth the time for anyone genuinely interested.

Without getting pedantic about what's called Damascus today, yes, those are real pattern welded blades of 2 or more alloys that resist etching at different rates.

However, anything under $100 is almost guaranteed to be Pakistani or Indian (oh the irony) of unknown chemistry and quality.

Mighty cold.

Interesting video.

No,  Rodent is right.  Wootz Damascus process has been lost.  There is an hour long U-tube vid on it.

The question remains, are the $100 pattern Damascus blades at least folded welded steels or just cheap repro etchings?

Depends. Provenance of the source. If they ship it with pattern, it's suspect, as your final steps in finishing is to etch it, not them. Grinding new flats etc and then etching it to see it has disappeared will get some negative comments on the boards. It's the benchmakers perogative to do the final etch, and the blank should ship appearing like plain steel because of it. The description should be quite open about it. "Blanks are shipped ground to shape but not etched" to keep the buyer reassured he's not getting ripped off. Strangely enough, not a lot of new knife guys know it.

As for modern damascus being all that, you are getting something often not well described in terms of carbon, vanadium, manganese, chrome (one layer typically might have more of it to resist the etching.) You are basically buying layers of stainless steel mixed with stainmore steel, as a way of saying it. 420 and D2? your guess is as good as mine. I doubt it's S30V and M2. Not for $100. You're buying the labor to weld it repeatedly, not the alloys to make it virtually ungrindable, which is exactly what high alloy steel is - more abrasion resistant than some other.

I watched an episode of 'forged in fire', so I feel qualified to tell you that ________________

People do make it as well as wootz steel but usually for educational purposes.

The question is...does it matter?

Wootz/Damascus and tamahagane were the "magic sword steels" of their time periods because everything else sucked ass.  Just look up how the smiths made tamahagane some time. It's not a very good process.

But the smiths were geniuses and skilled craftsmen. They figured out how to make something superb (compared to everything else) out of the raw sewage they had available. Bloomery iron just doesn't cut it in comparison, so to speak. And when everyone else was using shitty bloomery iron, if you had the secret of Crom...er, crucible steel, your shit was magic, i.e. Ulfberht.

Today, however, any decent factory made steel is far superior to what they had in history. A monolithic piece of good tool steel, produced in a modern foundry without any defects, then machined into profile (not hammered), and differentially hardened, quenched, and tempered to exacting temperatures is better than anything produced by any smith in history.

So, when you are buying a hand forged item, you are settling for an inherently inferior product. What you are doing is celebrating the skill of the smith, the beauty of the work, and the entire amazing process, which is fantastic and should be encouraged. And it's very likely that your blade will do anything and everything you actually need it to do.

If I had to actually go out and kill people and defend my life with it though, I'm going to skip the pretty stuff and go with the modern made things. Pretty sure places like Albion produce blades like I described.

Since that will never be the case, and to address the original question, if you are buying a modern Damascus blade, just shop around a bit. Usually, you get what you pay for. Buy cheap, get garbage. If you find something you want to buy, a quick web search usually turns up reviews, praise, problems, etc on multiple blade forums, so you can be better informed before spending money.

In all likelihood, unless you are a Tier 1 commando warrior or out playing in some live steel group, whatever you buy will do what you want it to do, which is look pretty and cut open your boxes or deer bellies.

Just some opinions I'm sure will get attacked by any smiths on the boards who are convinced they make the best magic blades in the world.

Most of what is described as Damascus are what’s called laminated or watered steel.

Someone posted that video a while back. It is very interesting and seems to lay out what, exactly, true Damascus steel actually is. Amazingly difficult to make consistently. Pretty much an artform.

Just stay the fuck away from pakimascus.

I know, and it's fantastic that you can! I hope the art of being a smith never dies out. I was just pointing out a few things, myths I hear repeated a lot about historic blades, or modern hand forged ones.

But I love the fact that you CAN still get a magnificent hand forged blade. If you have the cash.

This.

Maybe that is why there a so few remaining examples from antiquity.

As much as tamahagane may "suck" compared to a nice modern steel; doesn't lessen my desire to have a custom made Katana from a skilled smith and polisher (not that I would know how to use it effectively once obtained).  

I don't know but I've been told...................

That's even worse, their high body fat % makes it act more like an oil quench.

I know I'm late, but I did laugh.

Jay

I really enjoyed that video. Learned a lot.

Obviously...damasteel is not damascus steel. It comes in various patterns and compositions.
 For aesthetics. Modern super steels are so good using hoary old techniques to make a blade seem
retarded to me (actual genuine Damascus).  Elmax, M4, M390(20CV, 204P), Maxamet, S90V, S110V, K390, etc all have incredible
edge holding and some are very stainless.

I am happy with S30V in my EDC and also have M390 which is epic.
I would rather pay more for a super steel than a pretty pattern. But everyone has different tastes....
Modern Damasteel makes for eye catching blades. And people buy the heck out of it.

That kind of construction is rather rare anymore. 2% nickle hypereutectoid steel like 15n20 has made it obsolete. The vast majority of pattern welded blades made these days are through hardened.
Damasteel is a name brand of pattern welded stainless steel alloys.

Making pattern welded steel (modern Damascus)  though not technically difficult does require a steep learning curve.  Yes a new smith can make pattern welded steel.  But it is readily apparent when seen.  Just like the paki and indi Damascus. I can tell one from across the room.  Problem with the paki/indi steel is you have zero idea what it's made of.  They all advertise, 1095-15n20.  But it could be mild steel and some sort of nickel steel.

Is it folded?  Well many of my blades are not folded but have a layer count of 20+.  My billets normally start with 15-25 layers.  Depending on what I want to do will determine if I need to fold/re-stack.

It comes down to how do you want your knife to perform?  If you want a knife you can depend on pay the price and buy from a reputable smith.  If you just want a pretty (sometimes) or blade with lines in it, then get a cheap one and toss the dice.

As far as what is real Damascus?   That discussion is still going on between all the knifesmiths of the world.  No one really knows.  A general consensus is Al Pendray got the closest.  However there are many who have duplicated his results.  Japanese Smiths have maintained their craft.
Even the tatare smelters are still in operation,  at least one anyway.  The tahamegane is in very limited supply and not widely available to western Smith's.  There are several here in the states that make a similar product a few times a year.  But you will pay dearly for the privilege of owning one of their blades.  I could go on for many pages discussing the advantages and disadvantages of the forged blade vs modern stock removal blades.  The minutiae does not really matter.

Bottom line is buy what you like for whatever reason you choose.  Then be happy with your choice.

these days, pattern welding of any sort is a cosmetic fetish that weakens a blade.

The best pattern welded Damascus that I've seen come out in decades is made by Julian Antunes out of Brazil. This young man is quite the artist.

Julian Antunes Instagram

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