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Ask a Knifemaker: The Truth About Damascus Steel

thetruthaboutknives.com

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Re: Ask a Knifemaker: The Truth About Damascus Steel

#61

Post by nytopop »

grzm wrote: post #57
sagebird wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we arrange all possible combinations of letters into strings, then we can have all the books which burned in Alexandria. But if you had to walk along an isle in the library of the superset of all possible books, you would die before you came across one that existed. And if you could live forever, there would be uncountable minor varations variations of imposter books before the actual one.

If this isn't already the plot to a Borges short story, it should be.

It is - The Library of Babel.

Re: Ask a Knifemaker: The Truth About Damascus Steel

#65

Post by int_19h »

vvanders wrote: post #59
int_19h wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some examples would be CPM S30V, S35VN, S90V, and S110V; CPM 3V, 9V, 10V, 15V; A2, D2, O1 and S7; VG-10. Some of these are arguably "more Damascus than Damascus", in a sense that they're also mixes, but on a much finer level. For example, S30V - a relatively affordable "super steel" - is one of those known as "powder steels" due to the way they're made, achieving extreme uniformity and purity of the alloy even at mic…

Really big fan of S30V, it's a pretty decent blend of edge retention without being an absolute pain to resharpen. There's some really interesting specialty metals out there like Boye Dendritic Cobalt[1]. I've got one of their sheepsfoot folders and it's a pretty neat for a specialty knife. [1] https://www.boyeknives.com/pages/new-dendritic-cobalt

I actually find even S30V to be a bit overkill as far as resharpening goes, and prefer softer steels that are easier to keep sharp with little effort and basic tools, even if you need to do it more often - such as 14C28N and VG-10.

But it's all very subjective. I have some S30V and S35VN folders, too, and large 3V choppers (got a couple Fehrmans back in the day on a whim). They're all great blades, and if it comes to a zombie apocalypse, I'm definitely swinging a Fehrman. But until then... ~

Re: Ask a Knifemaker: The Truth About Damascus Steel

#66

Post by colechristensen »

n1000 wrote: post #45
hprotagonist wrote: post #6

pattern welding is, effectively, a solution to a problem we don't have any more. When steel quality varied widely between batches, you needed a reliable way to mix it up so that the overall properties of the resulting object were predictable. This evolved into a more sophisticated technique that gave you not only predictability but differential properties (harder steel at the edge, more ductile in the spine) and a pr…

To my understanding Damascus was indeed not needed anymore as sword fighting came out of fashion. For swords it was very useful to have flexible yet sharp blades. Or has Damascus steel been traditionally used for knives too?

The idea is that Damascus steel was a technology from before there was much metallurgy knowledge.

These days we have a molecular knowledge of steel and can control and test the microstructure at that scale. If you really want the best knife you look to metallurgists not artisans. Whatever you could do with Damascus steel you could do better with modern alloys and science.

There's nothing wrong with the old ways, but there is a lot of magical thinking about knives and swords that doesn't have much basis in reality. Buying in to the mythology can be fun as long as you don't get too attached to the myth and start confusing it with actual utility.

In other words, nobody owns a Rolex because they think it'll do a better job at letting them know the time.

Re: Ask a Knifemaker: The Truth About Damascus Steel

#67

Post by vvanders »

int_19h wrote: post #65
vvanders wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really big fan of S30V, it's a pretty decent blend of edge retention without being an absolute pain to resharpen. There's some really interesting specialty metals out there like Boye Dendritic Cobalt[1]. I've got one of their sheepsfoot folders and it's a pretty neat for a specialty knife. [1] https://www.boyeknives.com/pages/new-dendritic-cobalt

I actually find even S30V to be a bit overkill as far as resharpening goes, and prefer softer steels that are easier to keep sharp with little effort and basic tools, even if you need to do it more often - such as 14C28N and VG-10. But it's all very subjective. I have some S30V and S35VN folders, too, and large 3V choppers (got a couple Fehrmans back in the day on a whim). They're all great blades, and if it comes to…

Yeah, I've got a Benchmade Anthem which is easily one of my favorites(aside from the fact that the incredibly smooth action may qualify it as a gravity knife in some overly zealous jurisdictions), however the CPM-20SV is pretty hard to resharpen if you let it go too far.

I probably just need to spend some proper time to learn it as almost all my other stuff is either 30SV or 154CM.

Re: Ask a Knifemaker: The Truth About Damascus Steel

#68

Post by DannyBee »

frostburg wrote: post #18
Blackthorn wrote: post #16

> Unfortunately, the technique for making both Damascus and Wootz steel has been lost to the centuries. I've watched the artists on Man at Arms Reforged make wootz steel in a kiln from pig iron and wrought iron when recreating a Viking-era sword. It certainly isn't lost. edit: video here if anyone is interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EG34YoRHs8

Nobody knows if the modern approach is the same, even if using historically appropriate tools and materials.

This is true, but we know the result is the same:

" J.D Verhoeven and Alfred Pendray reconstructed methods of production, proved the role of impurities of ore in the pattern creation, and reproduced Wootz steel with patterns microscopically and visually identical to one of the ancient blade patterns. Reibold et al's analyses spoke of the presence of carbon nanotubes enclosing nanowires of cementite, with the trace elements/impurities of vanadium, molybdenum, chromium etc contributing to their creation, in cycles of heating/cooling/forging. This resulted in a hard high carbon steel that remained malleable [25]

There are other smiths who are now consistently producing Wootz steel blades visually identical to the old patterns.[26]"

I'm not sure what more you would want :)

IE the article claims " Anyone claiming to be making authentic Wootz/Damascus these days is delusional".

Regardless of technique, this is almost certainly wrong. The end result is almost certainly authentic wootz/damascus, even if the technique is different.

and the technique may not be different anyway. The point of that research in the first sentence was basically "it's unclear they did anything that special, it seems to mostly be due to local impurities" (A short summary is here: http://www.thetruthaboutknives.com/2017/06/knifemaking-legen...)

In particular, a very low percent of vanadium impurity produces the pattern (see https://insa.nic.in/writereaddata/UpLoadedFiles/IJHS/Vol42_4...) and the other properties are due to other historical impurities that would have been found in the area it was produced.

Re: Ask a Knifemaker: The Truth About Damascus Steel

#70

Post by Caillebotte »

Back in my high school days, I made a beautiful damascus blade from 5160 leaf springs and 1095. After having worked in the labs at https://www.scotforge.com/, it is apparent damascus has very little large scale use due to weak tensile strengths(which of course depends on the forging process). However, in personal, small scale use, I've noticed my damascus blade has withstood much more than say, a pure 1095 blade could endure. Essentially, the higher the carbon the more brittle the blade despite the heat treatment process. Damascus in a small blade seemed to yield properties of each steel involved without using a costly alloy. It is very difficult to combine high carbon steels with stainless steels due to the large difference in heat treatment processes, as stainless steels are very often air hardened, and carbon steels are hardened in a brine or oil solution.
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