What Is Damascus Steel? (And Everything You Need to Know about It)

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What is Damascus steel?

Damascus steel is one solid piece of steel made from layering two different alloys — 1080 high-carbon steel and 15N20 carbon steel, for instance.

You can’t make Damascus steel by combining two pieces of the same alloy. That would be like stacking red Play-Doh on top of red Play-Doh — you just end up with red Play-Doh.

But when you stack red Play-Doh on top of yellow Play-Doh, you end up with different layers and colors, just like the different layers you’d see in a Damascus steel blade. You need to combine a high-carbon content steel and a high nickel content steel to create a nice contrast.

I started working with Damascus steel as a teenager, meaning I’ve been working with it for over 25 years to date. In fact, in 2000, I won the “Best Damascus Knife” award at Blade Show Atlanta, the world’s largest knife show.

Needless to say, I know a thing or two about Damascus steel — and I’m packing all my knowledge into this blog post to help you understand it, too.

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I learned something today and in less than 8 minutes, thank you Josh!

AdMan-The-LabRat

i feel like this explained what we call the style of "Damascus" today opposed to why its called Damascus and what it was made from originally

stephenkasee

Was hoping you’d talk about the original Damascus steel. Not todays lesser copy.

tylersmith

What nobody EVER mentions is when we look at the face of a Damascus steel knife, are you looking at the EDGE of the steel stack or the face of the steel stack? If it’s the edge, and the spine of the knife is formed by the face of the steel stack and the cutting edge is the other face, I understand how the pattern is formed. If the face of the knife is the face of the steel stack, how can we see the different types of steel from underneath?

gyakuto

Super helpful. Thank you for making this video.

samdavis

Can we make a Damascus of 3 different metals ? Such as copper and nickel both sandwiched in some steel ?

archinsoni

"damascus" steel is a marketing term for pattern welded billets. Damascus Steel referring to the historically produced metal produced in the near east and south-east asia is a complicated topic without easy clear definitions.

geniusofhate

can we use an alternating stack of mild steel and carbon steel (for the edge)?

Ember_Edge

Can the type of steel used to make Damascus be more than two?

albishir

If you didn't care about appearance and were just going for the best knife with sharpness and strength what would the ideal layer target be like 200 layers or 600?

mbokil

It still doesn't explain why modern metallurgists still call the folding process "DAMASCUS STEEL", this kind of forging process was done thousands of years ago where 2 different kinds of metals are hammered and folded to increase the metal's durability and strength, for example, Samurai Swords are basically a more authentic and more refined traditional process of what modern metallurgist/content creators made in their shop, so basically the more traditional style folding process well cut and beat content creators Damascus steel any day.

Real Damascus Steel was not just about the folding process but also the types of metal used and techniques, that were used to create a durable and strong blade that does not rust away in time before stainless steel was even created in the factory decades ago. It was made in Damascus modern Day Syria 2 Thousand Years Ago. But that process was lost for some unknown reason, maybe back in the day making real Damascus steel blades was more expensive and time-consuming than making regular folded steel that content creators are making today and have decided to patent their folded steel Damascus Steel.

nikkotan

#MontanaKnifeCompany
how steel can be used against leaf spring in damascus?

gideonragnarsson

Is it better than just melting it all into one brick? if so, how?

captainjellyfish

There'a got to be a way to automate whacking the metal with a hammer by hand.

MS-svtr

Hi, check out pulad and wootz steels from central asia and india. Made since the first century, sold thru damascus . It has a different pattern to forge welded steel. Hope this interests you. Good forging.

hanssharma