Thread: How can you tell if it's Damascus

Firstly appoligies - I attempted to search the Help Files as I'm sure there will be something in there to assist me but the link is bust at the moment ..

Just a quick question about Damascus steel ?
From the razors I've seen that have been advertised as being Damascus they appear to be slightly differnt in colour from the normal carbon /stainless ones .
The reason I ask ( yeah there had to be some other reason ) is I bought a 'Geneva Cutlery ' Razor a while ago off ebay - I liked the snake engraving on the blade , between the two snakes is the word Damascus - I never thought for a second it was Damascus steel , so over the easter weekend I made a feeble attempt to hone it up and at first I thought the usual thoughts " I'm still ******ng useless at this honing game "
ok I'll cut to the chase - I went back to the razor the following day tried honing again , not much difference - then the following day same again then
behold oooooofft an pretty respectable edge .
Have I finally stumbled upon a great buy from ebay ? perhaps maybe I'm just starting to get the hang of this honing malarky .. could find much info on the web regarding "Geneva Cutlery " to see if they did produce a Damascus steel razor .

I'm gonna go out on a limb, here. I actually think that Geneva got their steel or had some razors made in India which is is the place linked to true damascus steel. I think they were just taking advantage of a name.

If you wanted to know for sure if your blade is real damascus, you could go to Radio Shack and get some of their liquid circuit board etcher. It kinda looks like iodine. Can't remember the name... ferric chloride, I think. Dilute it 1:1 with hot water. Set the entire blade in the solution for about 5 minutes. Pull it out and rinse it off. If you see a pattern of any kind on the blade, it is damascus.

If it is damascus, one of the steels will etch deeper than the other, so keep an eye on the bath. Keep rinsing with water to neutralize the effects. Don't know what the etch will do to celluloid yet... haven't tried it.

I doubt that the razor is true damascus.

Here is some info on damascus steel...

http://tinyurl.com/ekmz8

Thank ye kindly :-) while your here Bill muhahaha .... the blue substance on your restoration video used for bluing, does that have a industry standard name . I sure would like to get some of that here in the UK . I've finally found the equiv of the polish here it's called wait for this " keen " . ...
I've also resided to the fact I'm gonna have to get me one of those dremil's trying to do things by hand just doesn't cut the mustard .. thanks again for the Damascus info and the CD .

Well the damascus blades of old were known for shearing off the opponents blade, though I wouldn't recommend sparring with str8s.

Originally Posted by urleebird

Can't remember the name... ferric chloride, I think.

That's the stuff. I love it. You can turn pennies into powder.