Damascus is pretty but I don't like it.

[Grant Lamontagne]

Yes, I am a sucker for a Damascus blade, as many of us are, but the Damascus we are seeing on Forged in Fire and production blades is just not REAL Damascus- it is a simulated Damascus known as Pattern Weld Damascus.

Wootz Damascus is another story- it is the real deal, or at least as close as we are ever going to get, as the art of creating Wootz Damascus has been lost for centuries.

A while back I read this article in Scientific American in a laundromat (of all places) and I promptly liberated the magazine.  I can admit that now as I am sure the statute of limitations is long since up on the theft of a magazine that no one but me was likely to have read in a laundromat that has probably changed hands at least a dozen times since then.  Here is said article- it's a bit long, but it's an excellent read.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/inp7l5a0c9coppq83ypya/MysteryOfDamascus.pdf?rlkey=csbnsfyt3qszz6rk43k811xo0&dl=0

It gets a bit wordy and fancy, but it also provides a really great historical account of how both types of Damascus are made, and I think even this knowledge has been largely lost to modern knifemaking, especially because I keep watching TikToks of guys who "make Damascus" out of nails, cutlery, golf clubs etc.

Nowadays pattern welded Damascus is (allegedly) in such high demand that you can do it with terrible steel choices and people will still pay a premium for it.

Read the article and let me know what you think.   

Def

[nate j]

Interesting read, thanks for sharing it!

I think the author makes a strong case for having “re-discovered” the process of making wootz damascus blades.  The idea that the “knowledge was lost” due to changes in source materials not fully understood by smiths of the time also makes sense to me.

Both types of damascus are undeniably pretty, and historical wootz damascus blades may well have been superior to their contemporaries.

However, the idea (not necessarily espoused in the article, but seemingly held by some) that these blades are somehow imbued with magic properties that make them better than modern mono-steel or laminated steel blades seems silly to me.  Though, as the author of the article notes, surviving original wootz damascus blades are expensive museum pieces, so we’re unlikely to see many sacrificed in cutting competitions to prove this.

[Farmer X]

  Wootz and pattern-welded blades can be great to look at, and I appreciate the art behind them. But I'd very much prefer good ol' mono-steel for a blade that I'm actually gonna use.

[Grant Lamontagne]

It's just fascinating because of the stuff you see on social media and on shows like Forged in Fire where they make "Damascus" out of all kinds of things like nails or golf clubs or other metals that you would never want to make a knife blade out of.

Just because it's flatted and folded and hammered back together to make the pretty lines that look like Damascus,doesn't make it Damascus. 

In my mind, Wootz Damascus is actual Damascus, or as close as we are likely to get.

Pattern welded Damascus is just an aesthetic, like putting a Corvette body on a go kart.

Def

[nate j]

There is some modern high quality functional Damascus out there, such as Damasteel.

But yea, while it’s pretty, I don’t think anyone is really arguing that it’s functionally superior to modern mono steel.

[Grant Lamontagne]

Of course there are decent Damascus like steels out there (I just cent bring myself to call them Damascus) but are they worth it?  That's definitely debatable.

I admit, I do like the look and I have a few old Cold Steel knives in San Mai, which could easily be considered Damascus for Beginners, but I've never really felt like I needed these things for any functional reasons.

Exclusivity?  Absolutely.

Visual appeal?  Definitely.

Any tangible benefit?  Not really

Def

[dks]

 Next weeks episode- "Calling all Victorinox models SWISS ARMY KNIVES sounds cool but it is a lie"

[Grant Lamontagne]

I mean, you are technically correct.   

Def

[dks]