Thread: ats34 or Damascus

Yesterday was the best day to find another something to do...

Damascus was the best steel going when the steel had to be forge welded from small ingots but today can hardly be considered the finest steel, although it's certainly the most work-intensive and beautiful. Some of the makers of damascus - or more appropriately - pattern-welded steel, do simply amazing work from an artistic perspective.

ATS-34 would be a better steel for a razor, in my opinion. Most Damascus steel is hard pressed to top 55 HRC because of the decarburization and addition of nickel alloy frequently used in Damascus.

I also have a razor made from CPM-154 and it is an excellent shaving razor.

Lynn

I was almost convinced that the ats34 was the steel for me... but now I encounter this thread. I have 3 great razors and decided that the last one I buy for now (2008 well see), is a GREAT one... But what to think of this thread in comparison with the Damascus:

I made this about 6 months ago and still haven't finished honing it .
Bill warned me that ATS34 at 63 RC will be hard and as such will take a little extra on the stones,well Bill you certainly wasn`t lying . I`m getting close now ,probably another couple of months , at this rate my norton will look like Lynn`s
Kind regards Peter
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#2 12-15-2006, 10:08 AM
FiReSTaRT
Moderator Join Date: Jun 2005

Location: Etobicoke, ON
Posts: 3,943



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Still a nice grinding effort, Peter. I have a solution for you. Ship it off to Lynn for honing with this msg:

Quote:
Hi Lynn,
I don't have enough spare time to hone up this baby, so I'm sending it to you. Don't worry, it's as soft as mother's milk. Looking forward to getting it shave ready.

Kind regards Peter

If you don't want to be THAT cruel to the founder of our movement, I wouldn't mind introducing this one to my Norton and sharing your frustration
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Ilija Milicevic

Yesterday was the best day to find another something to do

Thanks urleebird,
Can you please explain to me more about ATS 34? What is it (as far as I understood it's some sort of new and excellend steel for shaving). And furthermore I was thinking ATS 34 was one sort of steel (ATS 55 might be something different). But now you point me that my preconceptions were all wrong. There seems to be differences inside the ATS 34 nomenclature...
Can you explain? Clarify? Or do you know a website where I can find correct info?

thanks a lot,
michel

ATS-34 essentially equal to 154-CM but by different manufacturers. ATS-34 is a Hitachi product. Normally hardened to around 60 Rc, it holds an edge very well and is tough enough even at that high hardness. Not quite as rust resistant as the 400 series of stain resistant steels.

ATS-55 Similar to ATS-34, but with the molybdenum removed and some other elements added. Not much is known about this steel yet, but it looks like the intent was to get ATS-34 edge-holding with increased toughness. Since moly is an expensive element useful for high-speed steels, removing the moly hopefully drastically decreases the price of the steel while at least retaining ATS-34's performance.

For stainless steels, those two aren't that bad. They were the whole world for a while. Now that Crucible is making particle metallurgy steels (CPM) stuff, they are taking over. Look to something called S30V. There is no better modern material for edge holding.

Now that lecture over, I can rant a bit. I disagree that pattern welded steels are limited to Rc scale in the mid 50's. Given the right materials and the correct heat treatment for those materials, a PW steel can perform as an equal to any monosteel. Plus they have the advantage of the aesthetic difference.

I can routinely produce a PW steel that will hit 62 on the Rc scale. I don't normally want one that hard. But, if I stick to my normal mix of materials (1095/1075 w/2% nickel) high hardness is no problem. Now that means using good tool steels to begin with. Some folks still insist that PW steels have to be hard and soft and it just ain't so anymore. Time to let go of some myths.

I hope this helps more than it hurts.

You have the last word Mike... I'm flabbergasted... but convinced that ATS or Damascus won;t differ that much when it comes to shaving and maintaining an edge.
thanks,
michel

Originally Posted by urleebird

Yesterday was the best day to find another something to do...

The majority of the last 50 or so posts from Bill are like this.
Did something go wrong?