Southern Alberta Hammer-In

[Perry Winkle]

Originally Posted by gvidas

What's the relationship between intricacy/beauty of a Damascus knife blade and the durability/strength? Are they related, like the more pretty swirly bits the better it keeps an edge? Or do they diverge at some point, with "pretty but not so functional" over in a adjacent room from "pretty but functional"?

There's a lot of debate and little testing that I've seen.

You can see in the above Damascus blade that the maker went to a deal of trouble to ensure that one kind of steel ran almost the entire length of the blade. I'd bet that's the higher carbon steel. The entire blade is probably tempered with that as a consideration, too.

Some say this is pointless, as Damascus is inherently weak. I think I accept this when it comes to the coarse patterning. I don't think it's a concern with the tight patterns, like the classical "watered" look. In that case the steels are so well mixed that you're not going to have wildly differing properties.

I have seen one damascus blade that delaminated in use. It was 5160 and 1084 (I think). 5160 is known to be an impossible steel to make a good forge weld to other steels.

Mokume tends to be a lamination of copper and brass or gold and silver. Very pretty, but not really any function to it beyond the decorative.

Originally Posted by Lola Bunny

Thanks, Perry! Those are absolutely gorgeous knives! I would love to have a neck/keychain knife one day....sigh. And I'm with Foot3. It would've been really nice to be there.

Ed, and some other guys, make pens out of Damascus. The day he makes a Damascus fountain pen is going to be sad day for my bank account.