PSA: Chef's Knives - Page 7

On the contrary, I DO think that a Damascus steel blade is made in such a way. I was referring to heloguy, I think his name is, on the prior page. To address the question of what makes up a Damascus blade, it depends upon the technique more than the looks, which you already know, but I'm just letting you know what I believe it to be. I personally don't believe that there was some lost process of making ancient Damascus steel that we currently are missing. Who knows? But probably not.

The process by which true Wootz Damascus blades were made is generally thought to be a lost art. There has been a lot of research into the metallurgy of original Wootz, but nobody alive today can walk you through the precise process of making a blade in the authentic Wootz techniques.
http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/jom...even-9809.html

What most people who are not true blade geeks will picture when we say "damascus" is pattern welded steel that has been prepared using modern forging techniques. Such steel has an appearance similar to historical Wootz blades, but if you limit your use of the term "damascus" to Wootz, the modern stuff is not truly damascus. Neither would be folded steel made in the Japanese style. There isn't much difference from a visual perspective, or likely from a performance one either.

A lot of the pattern welded/folded steel knives that you see today come from factory folded steel stock. That kind of mass production is what allows something like a Shun to be made in san-mai construction (folded steel sides, homogenous steel core) and sold for a relatively low price. In contrast, more expensive Japanese blades are made using many of the same techniques used to forge katana swords, but usually with some shortcuts (e.g., starting with factory steel rather than manually smelted tamahagane, or using a power hammer rather than hand hammering everything).

Pattern welded blades are often acid etched. This is just a way to enhance the visual contrast among the layers. It is simply a cosmetic treatment, not a process directed at the performance of the blade. It will certainly not convert monosteel blades into pattern welded or "damascus" steel.

Daryl Meier makes some awesome pattern welded steel, like the "USA flag" pattern. I think he prefers to call his steel "pattern welded" rather than Damascus.

that's a great explanation!

Thanks for that.