Thread: Question about damascus steel blades

In Damascus style steel blades, are the edges made from the damascus, or is the damascus laminated with another steel that takes the actual edge?

Thanks!

Damascus steel is a misnomer.

It is actually forge welded steel or laminated steel. What is done is the smith will take various usually 3 metals and bang them together, folding and banging until the proper amount of folds is achieved.

The Japanese use a white paper or blue paper core with carbon on the outside in different layers to get a desired cutting and hardness.

It creates a better steel with different abilities than the original steel.

My apologies, I use the term Damascus "style" to be politically correct. I've found that on other knife sites, if I used the term laminated steel, or pattern welding, it would get blank stares. So I reluctantly switched to calling it Damascus style to keep my soul content, and to let everyone know what I'm talking about!

I get confused because on some kitchen knives, the pattern welded steel is used as a skin, not as the cutting edge (another definitionof laminated). I am under the impression that the black lines in the steel are the weld lines, and therefore are unfit for taking an edge.

This is why I asked. Please send lots of info - I'm thirsty!

Thanks!

Yep, thats true. The kitchen knives should have the hard material at the edge, hence some of them have a kernel of that harder material and the layers with a different kind of steel only near the spine.

Reminds me of this sales pitch from Boker:

Boker Damascus Straight Razor
The long tradition of high class Damascus knives is continued with this edition of the straight razor. At the same time, Boker is setting a new technical standard. Thus far, almost no one has dared to produce a Damascus straight razor with more than 180 layers. In the standard forging process, there is a great risk that different layers of steel are exposed at the very fine edge of the blade, thus creating a "micro saw" on the cutting edge. Boker's Damascus forgers have solved this problem and are forging the Boker Damascus blades with more than 300 layers of high quality carbon steels. The layers in the center are paralleled for precisely built cutting edge, which gives a perfect shaving result. The blade steel guarantees a very high hardness without the danger of chipping. The handle scales are the original Boker handles from the 1930's. It is a special synthetic material with an ivory structure, which is both flexible and waterproof. The classic Boker Tree logo inlay adorns the handle. The Boker Damascus Straight Razor is limited to just 500 pieces worldwide. Delivered with maintenance instructions and a certificate of authenticity in a wooden collectors case. Blade size 5/8"

Boker Straight Razor 5/8" 180 Layer Damascus Blade - Knifecenter.com

Tom, and all,

It is better to call it pattern welded or laminated steel. This refers correctly to the process of making the material. You shouldn't have gotten blank stares off of knife sites. As long as you know what you mean, whomever you talk with should figure it out, or they are the ones with something to learn.

The Boker advertising is, well, advertising. The Japanese, the Koreans before them and likely the Chinese before them had been making steels with layer counts into the multiple tens of thousands since the process began. To ignore history is somewhat shameful, but when you're in the business of selling an otherwise very fine piece of cutlery, some latitude can be allowed.

Given two comparable steels with only enough alloying difference to "color" the pattern, any alleged micro-serrations will occur only as a result of the size of the grit abrading the surface, not from any particular quality of the steel or the layer count. I think that the conversations here on SRP with supporting microscopic evidence has been the most helpful at dispelling such claims.

For all intents, pattern welded steels are not necessarily better than a mono steel of similar carbon content if both are heat treated correctly. The difference is only aesthetic.