Thread: damascus steel

I was wondering about straight razors made with damascus steel. According to history, the real damascus steel was produced in India and Syria between 1100 and 1750 and the pattern is unique due to the ores and the forging process, and that anything used today is damascusized steel made to look like genuine damascus through pattern welding. They where talking about it on tv so I decided to look it up on the net. Any ideas. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus

I don't think that anyone truly knows what the real damascus stuff was. They know how it was made and there are people who make it but the original ore for the forging came from a mine lost to History. I've seen people weld two dissimilar metals together and then start softening hammering and folding over and over again to produce it. Thats probably as close as your ever going to get to the original stuff. Supposedly the TI damascus is made in a similar fashion and is not just pattern stuff. They call it wootz steel. I don't know how many times its folded over though.