Thread: Pakistan Damascus Blades Any Good?

The link does not work for me, but...

I'd bet dollars to donuts that it is not Damascus but rather pattern welded steel that looks neat.

And looking neat is the ONLY thing that stuff coming out of Pakistan is good for (unless they changed something MAJOR in the last couple weeks).

There is a BIG market for pattern welded steels in all things cutlery right now. Some "Collectors" are fine with pieces they can stick in a shadow box and hang on the wall. Most users (and guys on this site) would not accept a so much as a letter opener made from this sort of steel.

True Damascus, and High Grade pattern welded steel can be fantastic stuff...but there are endless arguments as to weather it is worth the cost from a pure performance aspect compared to modern offerings.

Originally Posted by unit

...that it is not Damascus but rather pattern welded steel that looks neat.

I wish we could dispense with the confusion about the word "damascus". PW steel is the most proper term for laminated steels that show patterns. Wootz, a specific cast crucible steel, is the most proper term to substitute for "real damascus steel", or fulad or bulat or ukku.

Originally Posted by unit

And looking neat is the ONLY thing that stuff coming out of Pakistan is good for (unless they changed something MAJOR in the last couple weeks).

Over the last few years, the Pakistani smiths have proven themselves very adaptable to feedback about their products. There have been significant improvements in both the steels used in making their version of pattern welded material and the heat treatment of said steels. I would suspect that in not very long an interval, because of this thread, one of them or their representatives will show up on this site advertising a razor for sale and then doing a very good job of accepting the challenges offered to produce/test a razor. All that respond will do a fine job of teaching them about razors and their products will take another evolutionary leap.

If anyone is interested, I will PM a link to another forum where this activity went on for several weeks.

The steel mixtures in their PW have improved, the blades functioned much better than the accepted knowledge of the day and the product improved as the thread developed. The good in all that was that everyone learned something. The bad is that now there are good steels out there that will undercut anyone's ability to make the material at a fair price on their own home turf. And you still have the chance of buying from someone a world away you don't know very well with quality control that dissipates as the new knowledge passes from the first guy to his brother-in-law or cousin who may leave out one of the critical steps.

Caveat emptor.

Originally Posted by Mike Blue

The bad is that now there are good steels out there that will undercut anyone's ability to make the material at a fair price on their own home turf. And you still have the chance of buying from someone a world away you don't know very well with quality control that dissipates as the new knowledge passes from the first guy to his brother-in-law or cousin who may leave out one of the critical steps.

Caveat emptor.

IOW, it is like shooting dice .... you pays your money and you takes your chances. Better than it used to be. Back then it was a sure thing. A box cutter if you were lucky.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

IOW, it is like shooting dice .... you pays your money and you takes your chances. Better than it used to be. Back then it was a sure thing. A box cutter if you were lucky.

I know little about Straights other than what I have learned here. That said, I am pretty plugged into the world of blade steels and knife making.

This is a forum and a place to share opinions...so here is mine.

I sort of dig the appearance of PW steels, but generally value performance above all else (thus the stuff I make is not the prettiest, but it strives to make up for the appearance in performance). That said, I would much rather spend the money on rather mundane looking steel that performs VERY well, over spending the same for a better looking steel that performs almost as well.

I am sort of like the race car driver that views shiny bits in the engine bay as money that should have been invested in going faster

Ihave had 3 of these cross my desk in recent months, the steel is good and hard, maybe too hard or a bad alloy, but the edge will crumble somewhere up the progression.

Why Bother

Glen, I don't think that's any form of rant, but a reasonable request for a tool to work as expected. A razor, or knife, is a tool first. The criteria for objective performance are defined by the expected function of the tool. Those are almost always defined by the end user of the tool.

Then the maker spends the rest of their life, if they choose, learning to make the tool look better, or attempting other materials, and having the right to up the price for their work, or make crappy work and so what? OTOH, an industrial company can come along and pump out thousands by the hour and not expect to get paid for the custom side of the work and only meet the minimum acceptable working criteria. In the end, the buyer chooses and places like this one are where the education is found to both buy better and make better.

On the Pakistani Damascus .... PWS razors .... I've never touched one. Dylan (holli4pirating) had a vendor send him the best he had and it was unusable for a shaving razor. The steel wouldn't take an edge on that particular blade.

On pattern welded steel from known quality craftsman. .... I've got 'em by Robert Williams and Mastro Livi. I've had them made by Joe Chandler and Tim Zowada. (sold them) and they were as good as any high carbon blade I've had. So it depends on who is wielding the hammer AFAIC.

Originally Posted by gssixgun

... if you guys leave it at "You take your chances" or "You get what you pay for", you are opening the door for some very smart and unscrupulous vendors on e-bay, esty, & woot to up their price on the same crapola blades...

Wow, that is so sad but true.

I cannot tell you how many people suddenly become interested in an item because it is MORE expensive (in other hobbies). What a crazy but tire phenomena!

I don't know if it depends on who is wielding the hammer so much as what they choose to get the pattern. I saw blades being sold not that long ago that were PW and one steel was 1095, the other was mild steel. The mild steel will not harden and it becomes mission impossible to put a finished edge on it.

Anyway who has ever flattened a chisel or iron that has an improperly hardened area on it will know what I mean. The hardened steel will polish and everything and anything will mar up and scratch deeply into the improperly hardened area.

In order for a pattern welded blade to harden properly, the steels will have to be something that hardens at a similar temperature. As to how they get the two steels to look so different, presume there is some sort of etching going on? That would make the difference even more stark, and the low carbon material would probably erode faster and give the surface a slight texture.

Anyway, you can't have a razor that has any mild steel on the edge, it won't work, and you can't even have two steels if their hardening schedule is extremely different. One will be proper hardness, and the other won't.