Thread: Damascus blade

Wrong, modern wootz is made in small quantities by some people. Brisa.fi were selling some for a while.

There are a few custom razor makers.

Put the two together and you have a wootz razor.

They're making something they *think* is *similar* to the old damascus steel. Until some professor somewhere comes up with another theory...

No, they're producing something that has been tested and compared to old crucible steel and is extremely similar. And they've worked out how to keep the carbides in layers so they produce pretty patterns. That is reproduction damascus. I prefer to call it wootz because most people mean pattern welded steel when they say damascus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wootz_steel

http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM...even-9809.html

http://materials.iisc.ernet.in/~woot...tage/WOOTZ.htm

My scepticism is due to there having been multiple flavors of steel over the years that have been tested and found to be similar to genuine damascus. Then some professor comes out with another theory that changes the requirements for being "similar to genuine damascus".

At first it was just the layers of high and low carbon steel, so pattern-welded steel was judged to be "similar to genuine damascus". Then it was the discovery of a new crystalline structure that allowed extremely high carbon content without brittleness and that when produced under primitive conditions and worked at low temperatures tended to produce the damascus pattern. Then it was trace amounts of vanadium or whatever from the played-out mines in India that was important. Recently some new professor has written a paper claiming that the secret to genuine damascus are the carbon nanotubes embedded in it as determined by electron microscopy.

Is there any real value to "layered"/folded steel? I think I read somewhere that this method was used because the steel they were working with was low quality with impurities and they used this layering/folding method to help produce a higher grade final product.


Justin

No functional difference eh? I would ask Mr Blue if he has ever shaved with a TI damascus or honed one or even handled one or has he just seen pictures of them. I guess I'm just a sucker for buying one then but I'll tell you this from my experience and I have 60 razors including carbon and stainless and all the well known brands and the TI is like nothing else out there. It doesn't shave like it, it doesn't hone like it and I think lynn will agree with me.

However its made it's different.

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

No functional difference eh? I would ask Mr Blue if he has ever shaved with a TI damascus or honed one or even handled one or has he just seen pictures of them. I guess I'm just a sucker for buying one then but I'll tell you this from my experience and I have 60 razors including carbon and stainless and all the well known brands and the TI is like nothing else out there. It doesn't shave like it, it doesn't hone like it and I think lynn will agree with me.
However its made it's different.

No functional difference given the conditions I specified. You certainly have a right to question. My creds go a lot deeper than looking at pictures and talking religion about razors.

I do have TI razors (more than one) here at home. They are used in regular rotation and shave very well thank you. I hone my own, well enough to know a good shave from a bad one. I don't need to handle a TI damascus, the tale was right there to be seen in the pictures.

I have no need for a TI "damascus" razor because I have about 400 lbs of pattern welded steel on my bench in various states of folding and finish. It's what I've been quite good at for the last 22 years or so. If I want a pattern welded razor, I'll make my own. Ask Randy, he's been to my shop.

Maybe I'll even sell you one just so you can complain about my prices.

I have all the requisite equipment to manufacture my own steel, from start to finish, either as the Japanese do with their sword steels, or in crucibles, including all the correct chemistry to make wootz according to the Pendray/Verhoeven recipes. Not only that, I've made knives from wootz billets made by Mr. Pendray and by Ric Furrer who routinely makes his own wootz. I still have some samples of each of those fellow's material saved up for a rainy day.

Dennis H., who owns Brisa in Finland, is a good friend of mine as well. I'm sure that he's buying wootz made by Roselli, because they are the big dog on the European block when it comes to wootz material.

There is nothing magical or mysterious about wootz from a crucible or pattern welded materials in layers. The secret, which I gladly gave away, is in the heat treatment. TI does have a good operating HT process and I think I alluded to that previously as well. I have a lot of respect for folks who do things right. Enough so that despite the fact that I could make my own, I use one of Thiers (I love it when a good play on words comes together!)

The pattern won't give the edge any better performance, despite continuing mythology to the contrary. A polished/honed edge is just that, polished and honed. It'll look the same on a patterned blade or a monosteel blade.

The fact that TI knows how to make a good grind and set up the razor for good performance initially, has good to better heat treatment, those are the items that will make the difference. The pattern is merely an appearance factor on the parts of the blade that don't contribute to the shave.

But let's, keep the experiment fair and scientific. The comparison you want should be made between a TI damascus razor and a plain carbon steel TI razor of similar qualities among all variables. The difference will not be the pattern alone.

Why not contact TI and ask them about this debate? I'd prefer you ask the grinders and heat treaters and not the marketing department. I've read all that hype. There's much more worth knowing from their published photos than anything marketing could say to convince me of anything.

Wanna put some money on their answer?

Originally Posted by jaegerhund

Is there any real value to "layered"/folded steel? I think I read somewhere that this method was used because the steel they were working with was low quality with impurities and they used this layering/folding method to help produce a higher grade final product. Justin

Justin, in the "old days" when steel was the most valuable product, the smiths tried to make a little go a long ways. It's the reason for a high carbon steel bit welded into the cutting edge of an axe with the rest of the axe body being wrought or plain iron. Save the good steel for the place where it will do the most good.

In the manufacture of a Japanese sword, the bloom steel is so filled with holes, slags, glasses, impurities from the smelting process that folding is required to best reduce the impurities and flaws in the material. The repetitive hammering and folding do just that. It's a cleaning process, nothing more.

Higher grade? Maybe in the eye of the beholder. When you take a good high carbon steel and weld it in layers with a low carbon steel, carbon averaging takes place over the first four heats/welds. So if you started with a 1.0% carbon steel and welded it to a 0.10% carbon steel, eventually you wind up with a 0.55% carbon steel. You've made one good steel worse and improved the other.

Good questions you have there.

Thanks Mike. So I guess I was right about the folding method being a process to remove impurities -- just would like to know how they can justify the cost of some of the products produced by this method ----is it al about mystique and "old world craftsmanship" or does it produce some quantifiably superior metal.

Again thanks for the feedback.


Justin

Originally Posted by mparker762

Recently some new professor has written a paper claiming that the secret to genuine damascus are the carbon nanotubes embedded in it as determined by electron microscopy.

Just found this thread via a search so forgive me if I'm a bit OT or late to the game, but I thought I'd share this link from 2006 that I just came across: Carbon nanotubes: Saladin's secret weapon

Peter Paufler and colleagues at Dresden's Technical University discovered carbon nanotubes in the microstructure of a 17th century Damascus sabre. Intriguingly, the nanotubes could have encapsulated iron-carbide nanowires that might give clues to the mechanical strength and sharpness of these swords.

Pretty darned cool, if you ask me!