What's your input on damascus steel? If there are several

>>32199886
Memes.

>>32199886
It is worth the cost if you like the way it looks, because that is the only thing it brings to the table.

>inb4 mirrion times forded

Modern powder metallurgy is the modern equivalent of what people were trying to do with damascus type steel, only far better.

>>32199886
A regular knife in the same price range as a Damascus one would be far better.

>>32199886
it's the latter since modern steels are significantly stronger
though that's not a bad reason to get it, think of it as knife jewelry

>>32199886
The original damascus steel technology was lost, nobody really knows for sure how they did it. Today it's something entirely different.

>>32200053

source?

As a blacksmith, it's a meme and just done for aesthetics these days. You could just start out with a better performing steel and have less of a time-sink if you want something to actually cut instead of being a decoration.

>>32200109
Not him but any Google search.
It was tribal knowledge that was lost

>>32200109
We've used up all the actual iron that was used for Damascus steel.
I've got a very old knife from my great grandfather that is real Damascus.

It's in a saftey deposit box

>>32200053
Balls. The blanks came to Syria overland from India (along with algebra and a few other things), and they're still making them.

Arabs invent nothing. They snag other people's inventions and slap Arab labels on them. The swordsmiths of Damascus were masters of their trade. But they didn't make the steel that was named after them.

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>>32199886
>Damascus

You can get that for like 100 $ today in supermarkets, it's being mass produced to death, if you want yesterdays damast steel status you have to fork out 2000 $+, like pic related.

>>32200187
>knowledge that was lost
And how do we know this, seeing as how it was lost?

>hint, we don't, it's a meme for edge weeaboos

Damascus had a reputation for good swords, but the most reasonable explanation is that they stumbled accidentally on some naturally high-carbon metal.

>>32199886
My input is it isn't made anymore and youre being memd into thinking it is

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern_welding

>>32199886
This "Damascus steel" is pattern welding, which is alternating layers of soft and hard steel. It's worthless apart from the aesthetics, and is worse than ordinary high end steel.

>>32200109
The ore that the Indians used to make Wootz steel was all used up. Nobody has been able to replicate the distinctive appearance without resorting to pattern welding, which is not the same thing.

>>32199886
I don't know where you're looking, but most of the damascus steel knives I've seen are cheap Indian crap probably hammered out of some cable wire.

>>32200187
It's just forge welding, brah.

What you want for a high end knife is vanadium-molybdenum. High speed tool steel. Stainless and chisel hard.

>>32199886
Call it wootz steel if you want to be more correct and not sound like a 12 year old. It's kind of garbage except that most blades these days are made of stainless steel, which is even worse. But then, stainless blades generally won't rust and wootz steel will, so there's that. If you do end up getting one, keep it oiled and out of its sheathe when possible.

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I want to get a Damascus blade for my leatherman signal.

>>32199886
Probably a better definition is is pattern welded.

As a hobbyist knife maker, I've done it a couple of times with layers of 1095-15N20, which are quality steels for making knives out of but its a really hard fucking job if you don't have a power hammer. Basically me + friend + 10lb sledge and a lot of bashing the living fuck out of very hot metal and it turned out ok, holds a temper, didn't get a lot of decarburisation or stress through the steel- so I rated it a 'success' in that the blades made out of those billets where structurally sound and functional. They look pretty, but if I'd just used 1095 they'd be a good blade too and without nearly as much fucking around and hence, I don't even bother doing it any more unless someone was willing to throw lots of money at me and pretty much no one will for a hand-made item as there's industrialised facilities with power hammers and cheapo labour churning it out.

Generally if someone wants a knife I just use a single steel. Typically O1, 1095 or W2 and they'll get something that has excellent toughness, only needs sharpening once or twice a year and will last them a long time with no chance of failure.
Back in the old timey days, steel wasn't a uniform thing and when you could find a producer of steel that had a set of qualities (ie: wootz) and known tempering/hardening properties, they'd stretch out that steel (so to speak) with their own locally made steel mixed in that was generally full of impurities and shit. To get all that shit out of the steel, it needed to be folded and beaten like the cunt owed you money, now- we don't have steel with lots of impurities running through it so the process of folding is somewhat redundant.

>>32199886
This is layered steel, not damascus steel. There's a confusion between damask, a form of craft, and damascus, a location. Layered steel is a damasked steel, not made from a damascus steel.
As several anons said, the damascus steel is a lost knowledge, and to complete >>32201157
, it was an impure particular steel, extracted in a particular region, which when forged in particular manner resulted in what recent studies describe as a "nano-sponge of steel". A hand made miracle for that time.
That said there are some layered steel blades (not the arty shits) that have interesting properties.
Anyway, a good knife is made by a good cutler: chose the cutler first.

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>>32200449
Steel isn't really naturally high carbon, naturally it isn't even metal but iron ore.

The various pulad steels, and their patternless siblings, usually had a very high carbon content simply because they put a lot of carbon into them. Since we're looking at crucible steels created by melting non-steel metal and additives together this may have started by necessity, they needed that much carbon to bring down the melting point.

>>32200053
Today it's something entirely different.

Modern metallurgy has figured out what atom needs to go where to make it, and how to make that happen. It's not a terribly complex process, take a high carbon steel, add small amounts of the right carbide formers, melt, solidify slowly, then start running thermal cycles between room temp and just below austenite to grow the carbides.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/zoyjlnmyjtw/Wootz_articles.zip

>>32200512
>It's just forge welding, brah.

That it isn't. Pattern welded steel and pulad (wootz) are quite different things, with the latter getting the pattern from the naturally uneven distribution of alloying elements you get as it slowly cools down form liquid and solidifies.

Cable damascus tends to get a very special appearance, or at least it can get such, so don't think it's likely to be mistaken for other kinds of pattern welded (or pulad) steel.

>>32200504
>Nobody has been able to replicate the distinctive appearance without resorting to pattern welding, which is not the same thing.

Have a look at >>32199942, I'd say that's as close as it needs to get pattern-wise.

And I feel we should make a distinction between people simply not having the experience and skill to get the patterns quite where you'd want, and the entire technology being lost. Not having access to a specific ore matters little today when you can buy all the relevant elements straight up from a chemical supplier and mix yourself to match any and all compositions found in old pulad.

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>>32201848
>resulted in what recent studies describe as a "nano-sponge of steel"

Do you have some links or pdfs of those studies? Because all I've heard of is one group mentioning that when they etched be bejeesuz out of some pulad and then looked at the remains under a microscope they saw some structures which they think could indicate that at one point during the manufacturing process of the metal there had been some nanotubes present.

They then suggested that this could be an important clue to the exact processing parameters during that step of the pulad making process. Nothing said about those nanotubes having any effect on the mechanical properties of the material, or even that they necessarily still existed in the final product.

The whole thing (a single page): http://www.mediafire.com/file/x3js4b93gt83i2p/Carbon_nanotubes_in_an_ancient_Damascus_sabre.pdf

Worth noting is that the author here uncritically accepts the claims that pulad blades were of superior quality, something actual measurements seem to be at odds with >>32199800

I've seen a reply to this suggesting that the cementite wires seen could just as well have formed without any nanotubes as well. Can't seem to find that at the moment though.

We should also keep in mind that nanotubes will tend to form in some quantities whenever carbon is heated up. A normal campfire should produce some. Getting minuscule quantities of them out of an old forge is hardly miraculous.

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>>32199886
damascus, you say?

>>32199886
OK, serious answer is, if you like how it looks and are willing to pay the extra money for essentially the same knife, then yes.
But keep in mind, if you're the type to put your knives in the dishwasher, sharpen them with a $30 electric sharpener, and generally not take proper care of them, don't spend the money. Buy ceramics.