Thread: What's the deal with these Damascus blades??

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

This is a valiant effort Dylan. All of this work when you know that chances are, considering the problems with the grind and the geometry that Randy mentioned, the steel is sub standard in tempering and heat treat, if not in quality. I take my hat off to you. I wouldn't have the patience to have gone this far. You've done a service for us RADdicts that have been following the thread. I'd really be surprised if once honed to shave ready it will hold the edge. The dream of the damascus on the cheap is just that.

X2

However this razor turns out, you have done a service for all of us, by buying and evaluating it. A side bonus for you will be to make you better at correcting gnarly bevel and spine issues, although this job looks way too tedious and tiring for me. I do hope that you end up with a useable razor, after all your hard work! Thank you.

I've seen a lot of comments about the possibility of the steel being too soft and therefore won't hold much of an edge.

I'm wondering if since it's this much of a PITA to hone, that the steel may actually be pretty hard, in which case it will hopefully hold an edge once it has one. ???

Originally Posted by HNSB

I've seen a lot of comments about the possibility of the steel being too soft and therefore won't hold much of an edge.

I'm wondering if since it's this much of a PITA to hone, that the steel may actually be pretty hard, in which case it will hopefully hold an edge once it has one. ???

I would suspect that most of the difficulty is due to the very wide bevels. That is a lot of steel to remove using fine grit razor hones.

Originally Posted by holli4pirating

Hoggie also mentioned the 3.5 ratio. Maybe I'll throw some more tape on to try to hit it. Will probably get me to the bevel faster as well...

Agreed, try 3 layers of tape.

And, new results?

Sorry, recently I've been working with razors that I know will take good edges. I may work on this one a bit early next week - I'm visiting family for the weekend.

Still curious...

Yea, I've also got a few PM's and emails. I'm busy with real razors and real life. I'll get to it when I get to it.

Today I got a DMTEF or whatever the 1kish one is, so I went to work. I stepped up to three layers of tape and got the bevel set. Off of either my Norton 1k or the DMTEF, I can get the razor to shave arm hairs. Then I move up to the Naniwa 5k. I tried my normal circles with pressure, circles with no pressure, X's pattern and the razor would no longer cut arm hair. I tried circles with no pressure and X's with no pressure and the razor would not cut arm hair. I tried just X's with no pressure and the razor would not cut arm hairs. (In between each attepmt, I reset the bevel so that it would cut arm hairs.)

When I look closely at the edge with my naked eye under a lamp after trying to cut arm hair off the 5k, I can see where the edge is crumbling.

I don't really see any point in trying anything else - the edge is not failing because it's building a bur or microchipping or anything - the steel simply will not hold a fine edge.

My verdict is that this razor is not suitable for shaving.