Thread: Pakistan Damascus Blades Any Good?

Found this little Paskistan damascus blade on Ebay. Cheap. Should I run like heck or maybe purchase? Been straight shaving less than a year.

Larry

I would avoid anything made in pakistan. I'm pretty sure these won't take an edge.

Damascus and cheap aren't exactly something you find together in the same sentence...

I would stay away from anything razor related from Pakistan.
There might be good ones to find, but most will be junk.
There are so many better options out there, like in the classifieds here at SRP.

I can't speak for them all, but I have one (the seller was kind enough to send it free of charge for testing), and it would take a bevel, but just the attempt to shave arm hair would totally destroy that bevel, and it would have to be reset. In other words, it would not hold even a 1k edge.

After the amount of time I sunk into removing the frown, honing through uneven grinding, taping to achieve a proper bevel angle, etc etc, I have totally abandoned any hopes of an inexpensive "damascus" razor being anything other than a razor shaped object.

Simple Terms : Shefield/Good
Soligen/Good

Pakistan/Bad.........................Any Questions?? [re-read previous statement]


tinkersd
While there may be exseptions, good geraral rule.

" I have totally abandoned any hopes of an inexpensive "damascus" razor being anything other than a razor shaped object. " NICE.

Originally Posted by Harvitz81

I would avoid anything made in pakistan. I'm pretty sure these won't take an edge.

Damascus and cheap aren't exactly something you find together in the same sentence...

I agree!

I have seen the words "damascus" and "cheap" in the same sentence, but they were with other words. Namely "good" and "isn't"!

In the early days of cutlery steel it was difficult to make a steel that wasn'[t either low-carbon and good for nothing harder than a spring, or hard steels which would be brittle. That was what put a great deal of point into the skilled work of laminating, Norse pattern-welding, inserted edges, etc. Emphasising the contrast with acod was usually anathema too, I've seen Iranian daggers where the aim seems to have been to make the lamination as imperceptible as possible..

Nowadays, in knives, it s just a technical tour de force, which has very little purpose. It is certainly no better that any number of homogeneous knife steels, and I would be sceptical of its being as good. The direction of the grain gas likewise become far less important. I doubt if there is any practical difference between a blade made lengthwise from a bar of 154CM, or cut crosswise from a very large one. With trip-hammers and gas or electric furnaces, the damascus process has been greatly cheapened, too.

I think all the above goes doubly for a damascus razor.

Thats not entirely true, the Pak damascus blade i just bought off of ebay for a display piece was razor sharp and heavy duty. I was actually very surprised on how sharp it was, shaved my arm hairs clean, and the quality of the blade. The question I am wandering is will it hold the edge and for how long, whats the durability of the knife? I think in the end you get what you pay for and luck, I paid over 100.00 because I wanted a good looking "damascus" type knife to hang in my "war room" for display. I think If I would have only paid 25.00 then it would not have been such a nice knife...

Why Bother,,,