I plan to buy a bushcraft knife ..The blade made up by damascus steel.My question is ,is damascus steel is very strong ?
Pattern welded /damascus is too expensive to use as an everyday knife, as it can cost more than silver. It's best kept as a collection piece. You'd be stupid to keep it in your pocket or use it everyday. that would be a waste of money. Knives you use everyday might be lost or stolen, or they may get rusted, worn, or dirty..... ruining their value. From that point of view the strength or edge-holding ability means very little. Specifically, the bushcraft knife is pattern welded steel. True damascus or Wootz steel is something you'll only find in museums and private collections. they stopped making it several hundred years ago. Despite what many people have claimed, Wootz damascus was inferior to modern tool steels in every respect. It was a brittle, dirty material. It's legendary status has more to do with myth and storytelling. The reason they stopped making was undoubtaby because more modern methods came along that produced a more consistent product, more quickly and easily. Old technologies tend to be abandoned for good reasons. With pattern welded steel, about a dozen strips of two different grades of steel have been stacked, welded together, the twisted and forged to create interesting patterns. This more of an artistic process and doesn't improve the properties of modern steels. Pattern welded steel is for the most part, inferior to a homogenous blade made of a single grade of steel. First of all, PW is a handmade product which means there will be faults and oxide inclusions incorporated into the steel. The welding process is not perfect. Secondly, in the hardening and tempering process you end up with a compromise between the properties of the two different grades of steel. You end up with a product that is not quite as good as either steel would have been individually. The blade may either be too brittle or too soft.
Ok, lets define what is Damascus steel. The modern Damascus is basically any steel that shows a pattern. Patterns are accomplished by 1. manipulating the crystal structure or 2. by combining 2 or more different alloys together. The blade you are looking at is referred to as a pattern welded blade. Damascus is only as strong as it's base components + heat treat and design. The strongest will be obtained by combining high carbon and low carbon steels. I do this by using steel cable. The patterns aren't real bold but are interesting none the less. To break it you must brake the hard steel and tear through the soft iron. The laminated stuff works the same way. For greater edge holding I use all high carbon, varying alloy content from simple carbon to chromium/nickle alloys. These are what you normally find in pattern welded blades. A fine pattern that has many lamination's crossing the edge will offer the best edge holding. Properly done one can get the DCE or damascus cutting effect where the soft layers wear away faster than the hard layers almost making the blade self sharpening. Is that blade good? Buy it if you like it, it won't compare to a well made hand forged blade but is much cheaper. sorry for the overload.
How To Sharpen Damascus Steel
So, there isn't a good answer to your question, because Damascus doesn't describe the actual materials properties of the steel, rather the mechanical construct of the steel. For example: A very common Damascus steel is to layer L6 with 1080 high carbon steel and forge weld the layers together to make a blank, anneal it, then grind it into your blade and heat treat it. (Massive over simplification) That type of Damascus steel is going to be a bit softer than one of the super high carbon exotics, but will be tougher in terms of ability to flex without taking a set, and not chipping out if the edge hits something hard. (assuming it is heat treated well) - edge between RC56 - 58 typically. Another common Damascus steel is layers of VG-10 steel and VG-1 steel also welded together, with the billet then annealed, ground, and heat treated. In this case, because you are using stainless steels you will get a much harder edge - RC 60 - 62 typically. It will have better toughness than plain VG-10, but certainly nowhere near what you can get out of L6 or 52100 or something of that sort. Generally, for a bushcraft knife you typically want something like the first type of Damascus because you are looking for a more all purpose tool, and typically a larger knife. The only problem is that in the bush the first types of steel typically rust. The second type is made up of stain resistant steels and will hold up better. So, this brings me around to - why exactly do you want a Damascus blade on your knife? Are you already looking at one you like? Thinkingblade
