Modern 'wootz' going into commercial production.

A. G. Maisey · 28th July 2011, 02:39 PM

All of the knives that I use to eat my meals with are 19th century English shear steel.

Sometimes they get etched with tomato juice, or some other acid in the food, and I need to polish them clean with Ajax and Scotchbrite --- my wife won't do it, she wants to know why I won't eat with the perfectly good stainless steel knives we've got.

Anyway, the material in this pic does not look even remotely like the shear steel I use several times a day.

Shear steel is not really all that much different to mechanical damascus --- another material I'm more than just a little familiar with --- and it most certainly is not mechanical damascus either.

I don't know what this stuff in the picture is, but it does not look like mechanically manipulated material to me.

Please accept my apologies for being so disagreeable.

28th July 2011, 02:39 PM	#9
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 7,015	All of the knives that I use to eat my meals with are 19th century English shear steel. Sometimes they get etched with tomato juice, or some other acid in the food, and I need to polish them clean with Ajax and Scotchbrite --- my wife won't do it, she wants to know why I won't eat with the perfectly good stainless steel knives we've got. Anyway, the material in this pic does not look even remotely like the shear steel I use several times a day. Shear steel is not really all that much different to mechanical damascus --- another material I'm more than just a little familiar with --- and it most certainly is not mechanical damascus either. I don't know what this stuff in the picture is, but it does not look like mechanically manipulated material to me. Please accept my apologies for being so disagreeable.