Thread: Damascus vs stainless vs carbon

Is there a difference between the steels in the shave you get if all are professionally honed and shave ready? Is Damascus worth double or more then Stainless and Carbon?

IMO: Damascus is as much, if not more so, about the look and "rarity/craftsmanship/uniqueness" of the item than performance.

A great question, I'm curious about this too ?

Scott

I have both stainless and carbon razors, and they shave in very similar ways. I can't speak for Damascus.

I can say that my Tim Zowada Damascus and an older Livi damascus both shave as well as any of my stainless or carbon straight razors.

I've only been at this a couple of years, and am no expert, but I feel that my stainless, carbon steel, and damascus razors shave equally well. Assuming razors are of equal grind, etc, having my razors professionally honed is what makes the greatest difference for me.

I don't think there is any benefit to pattern welded steel today. It's done for appearance sake.

While wikipedia is hardly the last word on such issues, after reading what they have on pattern welding, I'd say it's pretty good, so head over there for a good read.


On an aside note, back when I was working as a gunsmith, one of the books in our library documented some work done by employees at Browning. One chap in particular made a side by side damascus shotgun barrel and when you magnified the surface sufficiently, you could see the dark line actually spelled the gents name, over and over, in handwriting. The things people had time for before the advent of the Television set........

And, just a reminder for anyone who might come across a damascus barreled shotgun... it cannot be safely fired with modern smokeless powder cartridges. The barrels simply cannot withstand the high pressures and must only be used with blackpowder loads.


Regards

Christian

I have a friend who works with just about all the different types of steel out there. He personally does not like to use Damascus because it uses two different types of steel with different properties. He tells me that the differences in Rockwell causes the blade to forum a serrated edge, He just gives his knives a 1095 insert to fix this. Now in razor with how often you strop them you'll never feel this effect. Personally I've never felt it in a knife as well but it makes sense to me.

Tim Zowada puts a strip cutting edge of the harder steel in the composition on his Damascus razors.

Damascus stainless or Carbon, if they are quality steels and honed correctly then they will all deliver quality shaves, I own razors with all those steels and find them to be all good shavers and also equally as good to hone with little or no difference IMO.