Thread: Damascus questions

Damascus does not come in ingots. It's not cast.
Pieces of stock are hammered and folded into a bigger piece of stock.

I had Gabor Buddel make a Damascus straight for me a little while ago. His turn around time was excellent (about 8-12 weeks from memory) and his price was pretty good.

Here's a link to his site, with my razor in the Gallery

Fine Razors - 6/8 Buddel Damast Rasiermesser mit Mammutelfenbein

Originally Posted by Bruno

Damascus does not come in ingots. It's not cast.
Pieces of stock are hammered and folded into a bigger piece of stock.

If you watch the Livi video of him making one of his razors he clearly uses an ingot of damasteel and cuts the blank from that. There is no hammering and folding. As to how they make the ingot, that I don't know.

Damasteel is a sintered powder metallurgy (aka crucible particle metallurgical = CPM) product. The "layers" are slightly different colored alloys of stain resistant materials, sprayed into a crucible. They do not start out as individual bars of material.

Using a hot isostatic press with atmosphere controls the material is pressed into a bar form. Because the term crucible is applied, it is permitted to think of the bar as an ingot, but the material is not poured into ingot form.

I can't get this link to produce the best pictures to view, but it covers the basic processes. enlarged p.1

Perhaps this is better: :: Damasteel AB :: Production

Once sintered, it acts just like any bar of steel, can be ground, forged or otherwise. This process provides precise control over the alloying mixture and the grain size of the final product. Damasteel is just fine for blades and will make a razor equal to its individual component steels and better than some monosteel stainless stuff.

Despite being a mostly hard core carbon steel smith, I have a blade of Damasteel that has seen daily service for most of fifteen years. I got no complaints about the steel.