Damascus vs monosteel advantages

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May 28, 2017
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Hello all
I've been lurking and learning and practicing making knives and marveling at some of the beautiful damascus blades on here. The artistry is amazing. One of the things I've been wondering is are there any practical advantages to damascus. Can it take a sharper edge? Does it hold that edge longer? More shock resistant? Does damascus have any practical advantages at all or is it just for the beauty? I was wondering whether anyone has actually tested this. Knowledgeable opinions are nice but have there been any actual tests that someone could point me to?
 
Hello all
I've been lurking and learning and practicing making knives and marveling at some of the beautiful damascus blades on here. The artistry is amazing. One of the things I've been wondering is are there any practical advantages to damascus. Can it take a sharper edge? Does it hold that edge longer? More shock resistant? Does damascus have any practical advantages at all or is it just for the beauty? I was wondering whether anyone has actually tested this. Knowledgeable opinions are nice but have there been any actual tests that someone could point me to?
Nowdays, patternwelds are primarily for bragging rights and artistic endeavor. There can be an element of better flexibility too, similar to a laminated blade.
As far as sharper, no, and holding sharpness longer,, debatable.
If laminations extend into the sharp edge, different steels naturally have different, albeit possibly minor edge holding properties.
 
Pattern welded steel is worse than monosteel. When done ideally, the difference may well be so minor as not to be unnoticeable in any practical use scenario. And it looks great. But you would really struggle to come up with a use case (that is agnostic to aesthetics) that would make a pattern welded (or laminated) knife the ideal solution.
 
Advantage? You can charge more albeit not nearly as much more as you could in the old days. IIRC, in 1977-78, the first time that I read a semi-comprehensive magazine article on the steel and the custom forged knife biz, random damascus from guys like Bill Moran and Bill Bagwell commanded a minimum premium of like $10 per blade inch over and above the regular cost of the knife. You can get bargain US made steel for that much or less in 2018. :( The one type of knife where you still appear to be able to ask significantly more for damascus is a large kitchen knife.
 
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Mine don't as far as I can tell.

I can tell that blades I've laminated with a soft or non-hardening exterior like wrought iron will bend much further than a similar monosteel blade of the same hardness. However they stay bent.

With modern materials and heat treating techniques my opinion is there's no practical purpose for pattern welding. I do it because it's fun and it looks cool and people like them.
 
My old school 1095 with vanadium and 15N20 Damascus knives are the best performing knives out of my shop. They might be a debatable tie with DH III W2.
I am not saying pattern welded steel knives suck. It may be true (though I haven't directly observed or tested this) that damascus edges may gain microserrations as they wear. This potentially may improve slicing performance in some applications. I am not opposed to damascus, but I generally doubt any claims that a well selected monosteel, with proper geometry and HT wouldn't perform on par with or exceed the performance of a pattern welded blade. Aesthetics are a big part of hand crafted work, and I find that to be the most important reason to use pattern welded or laminated blades.

A laminated blade may have a bit more to recommend it in certain scenarios (stainless cladding on a carbon steel core), but even then, I find it hard to believe that you couldn't find a monosteel stainless alloy that performed just as well.

I laminate most of my chisels, some knives, and many other tools (axe heads). I partially do this because it is a lot more pleasant to forge mild steel. It also saves a bit of scratch and is a more traditional method of construction. I also like the look. Would I argue that a chisel I make with a simple steel edge and a mild steel body would outperform one made entirely of a purpose built tool steel or any other appropriate alloy? Nope. But I doubt the user could tell a difference (I sure as heck can't see a performance difference after grinding, they all seem to hold an edge for a good amount of time and resharpen easily enough).
 
Advantage? You can charge more albeit not nearly as much more as you could in the old days. IIRC, in 1977-78, the first time that I read a semi-comprehensive magazine article on the steel and the custom forged knife biz, random damascus from guys like Bill Moran and Bill Bagwell commanded a minimum premium of like $10 per blade inch over and above the regular cost of the knife. You can get bargain US made steel for that much or less in 2018. :( The one type of knife where you still appear to be able to ask significantly more for damascus is a large kitchen knife.
Joe, I think it was $100 per blade inch.
 
I am not saying pattern welded steel knives suck. It may be true (though I haven't directly observed or tested this) that damascus edges may gain microserrations as they wear. This potentially may improve slicing performance in some applications. I am not opposed to damascus, but I generally doubt any claims that a well selected monosteel, with proper geometry and HT wouldn't perform on par with or exceed the performance of a pattern welded blade. Aesthetics are a big part of hand crafted work, and I find that to be the most important reason to use pattern welded or laminated blades.

A laminated blade may have a bit more to recommend it in certain scenarios (stainless cladding on a carbon steel core), but even then, I find it hard to believe that you couldn't find a monosteel stainless alloy that performed just as well.

I laminate most of my chisels, some knives, and many other tools (axe heads). I partially do this because it is a lot more pleasant to forge mild steel. It also saves a bit of scratch and is a more traditional method of construction. I also like the look. Would I argue that a chisel I make with a simple steel edge and a mild steel body would outperform one made entirely of a purpose built tool steel or any other appropriate alloy? Nope. But I doubt the user could tell a difference (I sure as heck can't see a performance difference after grinding, they all seem to hold an edge for a good amount of time and resharpen easily enough).
On the micro-serrations claims: You would have to have layers so fine they would be pretty much indecernable from one another to the naked eye in order to create "micro-serrations". Even the highest of layer count damascus we see
MIGHT get you something akin to regular serrations, IF you etched the crap out of it, but who wants serrations?
 
On the micro-serrations claims: You would have to have layers so fine they would be pretty much indecernable from one another to the naked eye in order to create "micro-serrations". Even the highest of layer count damascus we see
MIGHT get you something akin to regular serrations, IF you etched the crap out of it, but who wants serrations?
I don't disagree. It is just a claim I have heard and never seen anyone test. Pretty much every other claim about damascus being superior to monosteel is either demonstrably inaccurate or vioulates well accepted metallurgical principles.

Also I am with you. I don't even like serrations on knives designed to cut bread.
 
I don't disagree. It is just a claim I have heard and never seen anyone test. Pretty much every other claim about damascus being superior to monosteel is either demonstrably inaccurate or vioulates well accepted metallurgical principles.

Also I am with you. I don't even like serrations on knives designed to cut bread.
bread is my only exception. My mom used to have one of those electric knives with 2 serrated blades. The horror.
 
A IIRC, in 1977-78, the first time that I read a semi-comprehensive magazine article on the steel and the custom forged knife biz, random damascus from guys like Bill Moran and Bill Bagwell commanded a minimum premium of like $10 per blade inch over and above the regular cost of the knife.
Joe, I think it was $100 per blade inch.

I believe I have some of Bill Moran's old price sheets. If I get a chance I'll try and find them. His prices were very low compared to what he got later on in life.
It was very little more for a damascus blade in the beginning. Something like $300 for a big knife in W-2 and $400 for it in damascus.
 
Stacy, the article where I first saw damascus mentioned ran in Soldier of Fortune magazine circa 1977 and they were reporting on a show of some type in Las Vegas where Bill Bagwell had shown some bowies. Now that Don mentions it, I may recall that $100 per blade inch figure being bandied about. Move forward to 1988 and Mr. Bagwell had a cameo in the movie "Things Change" as a Texas mafia don presenting one of his knives as a gift to Robert Prosky's character. who was the don in charge of Las Vegas.
 
$1000 plus for a custom bowie knife at a time when you could get an E class Mercedes for like $10K and a nice 2 story 3 bedroom house in a suburb of Hartford for around $36K. Using the same base model car and the same house in the same neighborhood today, that would be like $5500-7500 for that random damascus bowie. :eek:
Agreed.....
 
Many thanks to you all. I can't tell you how good it is to have a resource like this board and the people on it. What I'm hearing is that pattern welding is done more for beauty than any performance reasons and beauty (along with better selling price!) is surely reason enough to make the effort. Making damascus is still beyond my skills for the moment. I'm using a coal/charcoal forge and while I know it can be done with this equipment I'm not yet good enough to make good welds with it. My thanks again.
 
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