Does Damascus Steel Outperform Super Steels?

[Ian]

marius,

I think you are being a bit hard on Larrin. What he set out to do, in part, was to examine some of the long held beliefs ("myths") about pattern welded steel for which there has not been firm scientific evidence. While his findings may confirm some previously held beliefs/convictions, his work shows that some of those beliefs have some factual basis and are not just wishful thinking or traditionally held beliefs (myths).

As far as standardizing his methods, Dr Larrin Thomas is a professional in his field of metallurgy, and well known (at least in the U.S.) for his strong scientific methodology. If you read his web site, you will find a lot of the experimental work he has done on many, many different steels.

His recent work on Damascus (pattern-welded) steels produced a number of important observations IMHO. For example, if you take two carbon steels of different hardness (one hard and one soft), and pattern weld them, you end up with a steel of medium hardness because the carbon "flows" readily and equalizes its concentration across both steels. That's an interesting observation that I had never heard before and may be a new scientific finding.

Another observation that I found fascinating was the effect of pattern welding pure nickel with a hard steel. The nickel is soft, and reduces the overall hardness of the blade, but it led to much improved cutting properties! This related to the alternating pattern of hard steel and soft nickel along the blade's edge, producing tiny serrations as shown by his excellent photo-micrographs.

While one could say these observations are intuitively obvious (they were not for me), the demonstration of these features in a scientific manner is what sets Larrin's work apart from guess work or "experience."

[A. G. Maisey]

I thought Larrin's investigations to be pretty interesting, perhaps nothing unexpected, but really useful to see it all laid out so clearly.

In respect of better cutting ability of damascus if compared to non-damascus blades.

In another lifetime I made a lot of blades, both damascus & non-damascus.

I made simple blades, the materials I used were 01, motor vehicle spring steel, nickel, mild steel, wrought iron.

I made mostly random pattern damascus and I heat treated in the forge, not by sending my blades to a heat-treating company.

As I said:- simple blades.

Cutting tests that I carried out using manilla rope invariably demonstrated that damascus 01 + nickel cut more manilla rope than damascus 01 without nickel, & both cut more manilla rope than 01 & spring steel.

This is purely a comment on my own experience in making, using & selling blades I made myself, I am not up for debate on any aspect of this.

EDIT

It has been pointed out to me that I have only told a part of the story.

The cutting/slicing ability of a blade depends in large part on the heat treatment, yes, blade geometry is important, but it is the heat-treat that provides a long lasting ability to cut --- or not.

In the case of a blade made with non-laminated steel, ie, non-damascus, it is essential to draw the temper to protect against gapping & fragility.

In the case of a laminated blade, it is not necessary to draw a blade if its intended use is to cut/slice, rather than to chop.

If that laminated blade is not drawn it retains the full hardness that was achieved in the quench, thus the cutting ability is retained for longer.