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

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.