Laminated, Damascus, one-material blades — advantages and disadvantages?

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Naphtali

Joined
May 20, 2002
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Fällkniven specifically identifies laminated steels they use as having a 20 percent advantage compared with the same blade of a single material. I am unclear what the advantage is, though. Other than raising blade cost, please identify advantages and disadvantages of:

- Laminated steel compared with single steel blades.

- Damascus [forged??] steel compared with single steel blades.
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Have there been valid tests that verify claims either way?
 
I am not sure what the advantage is for Fallkniven. I think most people would be happy with a 100% VG10 blade and a cheaper price. They claim laminated steels are better because you can have a more brittle steel on the inside with a more flexible steel on the outside giving it more strength. (I assume in a breaking test? It also allows you to have a higher edge retention with out making the whole knife as brittle.) I would say Fallknivens laminate is mostly marketing. But I dont have enough information to know if there test is true or how it would compare to just VG10. It really depends what steel you compare the laminate to. I think CPM3V would outperform it on all counts except rust resistance.

Damascus can be made from many different steels. I would say most modern Damascus will be more for looks and less about performance. It would depend what kind of Damascus you are comparing to what steel and what you intend to use it for.
 
Naphtali said:
Fällkniven specifically identifies laminated steels they use as having a 20 percent advantage compared with the same blade of a single material. I am unclear what the advantage is, though. Other than raising blade cost, please identify advantages and disadvantages of:

- Laminated steel compared with single steel blades.

- Damascus [forged??] steel compared with single steel blades.
***
Have there been valid tests that verify claims either way?
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The laminated steel should provide more rust resistance in that the cladding will generally be more corrosion resistant than whatever steel is making up the core. In theory it should also be tougher with the softer cladding, but I haven't seen any real tests to quantify that advantage.

Damascus is just decorative. No blending of steels or other alloys can really compete with the particle metallurgy employed in modern tool steels.

Single alloy blades are probably the best practical option.
 
unwisefool said:
20 percent advantage at what? There are lots of factors, [you] would need to be more specific.

Also, do you know how many types of steel, damascus and laminated variations there are? You need to narrow down your focus a lot.
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You and I agree. Fällkniven's blurb did not furnish an explanation. So unless we can identify a valid test that shows [any] laminated steel having at least a single facet of significant superiority when compared with a solid steel of whatever is its center lamination is, laminated steel blades are marketing hyperbole.

I am more than a little mystified that so many modestly priced Scandinavian-blades and high cost Japanese blades are laminated steels. About the only laminated steel I could imagine might be useful is Cowry X Damascus, only because that center lamination of Cowry X is nearly off-the-charts hardened for a knife blade. Ichiro Hattori has created a small number of extremely costly outdoorsman's knives. Using that steel for butchering or quartering large animals, or practicing bushcraft extensively, I imagine the blade would chip or shatter quickly. Long ago I owned a best-quality Gerber hunting knife with chrome plated M-4 steel whose HRC 64 was verified by a metal fabrication shop's portable tester. I dropped it on hard-packed frozen ground. That beautiful blade shattered into four pieces.
 
Naphtali said:
You and I agree. Fällkniven's blurb did not furnish an explanation. So unless we can identify a valid test that shows [any] laminated steel having at least a single facet of significant superiority when compared with a solid steel of whatever is its center lamination is, laminated steel blades are marketing hyperbole.

I am more than a little mystified that so many modestly priced Scandinavian-blades and high cost Japanese blades are laminated steels. About the only laminated steel I could imagine might be useful is Cowry X Damascus, only because that center lamination of Cowry X is nearly off-the-charts hardened for a knife blade. Ichiro Hattori has created a small number of extremely costly outdoorsman's knives. Using that steel for butchering or quartering large animals, or practicing bushcraft extensively, I imagine the blade would chip or shatter quickly. Long ago I owned a best-quality Gerber hunting knife with chrome plated M-4 steel whose HRC 64 was verified by a metal fabrication shop's portable tester. I dropped it on hard-packed frozen ground. That beautiful blade shattered into four pieces.
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Ichiro Hattori has my respect and he sure knows how to heat-treat a steel to its best performance.
I have a Hattori 1050 Folding Field in laminated VG-10 at HRC 61.
No chipping or loss of sharpness in the 13 years I have had it in my care.

IMGP5552.JPG
It's a Grailknife IMO.
BTW here are the FK break tests:
https://fallkniven.se/en/product-information/break-test/

Regards
Mikael
 
Flexibility of even very high hardness materials increases drastically with a reduction in thickness, hence (simplified) why fiberglass is so flexible compared to solid glass. In most knives we want high hardness and rigidity but also high toughness, and it's difficult to capture all three in monosteel construction. A lamination allows you to use softer cladding steel for toughness and spine thickness (for that cubically-scaling rigidity bump) with a high-hardness core that is more flexible than the same steel/heat treatment in monosteel construction. When done with a good, thin core you can get very high toughness out of what would otherwise be very delicate steels.
 
Probably doesn't help much, but Cold Steel has always claimed that their laminated San Mai III is 25% "stronger" than their AUS8A monosteel.
 
I can't give highly technical reasons for laminating/damascus, but there must be a very good technical and aesthetic reasons for it. After all, the Japanese have been making/laminating damascus swords (commonly considered some of the finest swords in the world) for about a thousand years.
Rich
 
Rich S said:
I can't give highly technical reasons for laminating/damascus, but there must be a very good technical and aesthetic reasons for it. After all, the Japanese have been making/laminating damascus swords (commonly considered some of the finest swords in the world) for about a thousand years.
Rich
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Yes and there are knives found in the soil of Sweden that are dated around 800 AD in laminated steel.

Regards
Mikael
 
The reason why forge-welded "damascus" was made varied depending on the region. In the case of Japanese swords and tools it was because the smelting method they used didn't fully liquefy the steel, leading to unequal distribution of carbon throughout. The resulting bloom was then broken apart and sorted according to carbon content, and then multiple pieces would be selected according to the job's requirements and forge-folded to homogenize it. The patterning historically was much finer than is seen today because it was being done out of functional concerns rather than aesthetic ones. In the case of Viking era work it was because they were using bog iron, which was found in small pieces, and so to create larger pieces of workable iron they had to forge weld the smaller pieces together.
 
Rich S said:
I can't give highly technical reasons for laminating/damascus, but there must be a very good technical and aesthetic reasons for it. After all, the Japanese have been making/laminating damascus swords (commonly considered some of the finest swords in the world) for about a thousand years.
Rich
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Japanese katanas are not damascus. Google Japanese sword making.
 
https://fallkniven.se/en/product-information/break-test/
Mikael W said:
Ichiro Hattori has my respect and he sure knows how to heat-treat a steel to its best performance.
I have a Hattori 1050 Folding Field in laminated VG-10 at HRC 61.
No chipping or loss of sharpness in the 13 years I have had it in my care.
. . .

BTW here are the FK break tests:
https://fallkniven.se/en/product-information/break-test/

Regards
Mikael
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Mikael:

Many thanks for the break-test information link. I've downloaded the web page for reference and will read it slowly and carefully as soon as my ulcer-causing pot of coffee wakes me.
 
Mikael

I have several vintage (1950's) Swedish and Norwegian knives made with laminated steel. I especially like those by Carl Andersson and Broderna Jonsson. Outstanding knives.

Rich
 
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Rich S said:
Mikael

I have several vintage (1950's) Swedish and Norwegian knives made with laminated steel. I especially like those by Carl Andersson and Broderna Jonsson. Outstanding knives.

Rich
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Yes Rich, those are nice and we have a few inherited users, floating around in our life from Andersson & Jonsson.
Not laminated though and quite soft compared with lam. Mora's.
Here's a 7" kitchen model from "Bud-Carl" Andersson.
IMGP6565.jpg

Regards
Mikael
 
Mikael

Nice old kitchen knife. I only use old knives for kitchen use (most old US stuff picked up at yard sales,etc.)
I wish I had your access to vintage/antique Swedish knives. Or maybe not, I'd be in the poor house :)
Rich

I should add that I only buy old carbon kitchen knives, seems young folks like shiny stainless.
 
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Rich S said:
Mikael

Nice old kitchen knife. I only use old knives for kitchen use (most old US stuff picked up at yard sales,etc.)
I wish I had your access to vintage/antique Swedish knives. Or maybe not, I'd be in the poor house :)
Rich
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They are not really pricey or common when found at fleamarkets and such. Many of the better models are already exported to the USA a long time ago.
The auctionsite Tradera is a good source (it's owned by Ebay).

Regards
Mikael
 
Mikael

Not familiar with Tradera.Will give it a look. Do they sell/ship to US?
Thanks for the info.
Rich
 
Laminated steel - disadvantage is brittle core which could chip during chopping, or tip which could break off easily. I know a guy who chipped his Fallkniven F1 on first use. And more people on here have told me it's a thing with Fallkniven.

Damascus is mostly about looks, and less about performance.

Particle metallurgy steels will outperform both, laminated and damascus blades. CPM-3V is an example.
 
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