What is better damascus or damask. Damascus steel. Damascus steel knife care

This article does not claim to be complete coverage of all (especially purely professional) issues, compiled from sources, links to which you will find at the end of the article, is of a promotional, informative nature and is intended for "dummies" who want to broaden their horizons and somehow understand in some interesting questions.

Damascus and bulat - how do they differ?

The blades of modern knives are made from a variety of materials. First of all, it is steel of various types. All steels used are divided into two large groups - traditional carbon and corrosion-resistant. Classic stainless steels are of little use for making knives, since the cutting edge of such blades does not have sufficient durability. Carbon steel with competent heat treatment has excellent performance properties - high mechanical strength, keeps the sharpness of the cutting edge well, and sharpens well. There is only one drawback - the tendency to corrosion, but it is easily eliminated by elementary care or with the help of special coatings.

There are very few specialized materials for knives. Patterned steels - Damascus and damask steel - are one of them. Among consumers, there are many opinions about Damascus and damask steel. Someone claims that their recipe is lost. Others have heard little about it at all, and ask unprofessional questions: “What is it drawn with?”, Or “Why is the blade not polished?”. Of course, in fairness, it should be noted that from year to year there are fewer and fewer ignorant people. It is worth a person once to work with a knife made of high-quality Damascus or damask steel, as he will never acquire a knife from any other steel!

Damascus is a metal composed of two or three different types steels with different carbon content, connected by repeated forging.

The secret of good Damascus steel lies precisely in the correct selection and proportions of various metals. Required condition- what hard steels take more than soft ones. The number of types of steels, the number of layers, the forging technique give the blade a specific pattern. Qualitatively made Damascus has good mechanical properties, excellent cutting qualities and attractive appearance. It should be noted that the Damascus blade does not possess the property of self-sharpening, as it is often believed, it still needs to be sharpened. In addition, it must be remembered that laminated steel is less frost-resistant, and Damascus, like ordinary carbon steel, is prone to corrosion, which is more dangerous due to the inhomogeneity of the material. Now there are so-called stainless damasks, including those made industrially, for example, "Damastil" produced in Sweden. The blade made of this material has high hardness and good mechanical properties.

Bulat it is a metal obtained by casting and is a composite material of mild steel with fragments of high carbon steel or even cast iron.

Hence the unique combination of toughness, elasticity of the blade, its high hardness and excellent cutting properties. Damask saber blades, the flexibility of which made it possible to wear them instead of a belt, are not fiction, but reality. They easily bend at an angle of 900-1200 without breaking. Outwardly, damask knives are inconspicuous, have a blade with a grayish tint. However, damask blades are very rare and extremely expensive, so they still remain the lot of connoisseurs and connoisseurs.

Patterned steels are characterized by increased strength, excellent cutting properties and beauty. As a result of the process of their manufacture, a unique pattern appears, as unique as fingerprints.

How many layers of metal should a Damascus steel blade contain?

The number of layers in patterned steel directly affects both the beauty and clarity of the pattern, and the working qualities of the blade. The optimal average interval, taking into account the ratio of price and quality, is 300-500 layers. What matters here is not so much the number of layers as the quality of the metal. You can forge Damascus in 600 layers of nails, and it will be worse than Damascus, which has 200 layers of good metal. In addition, when forging, above 400 layers, it is required to change manufacturing process(it is necessary to additionally saturate the metal with carbon, because carbon burns out during heating), which significantly increases the cost of the workpiece and, accordingly, the knife. In addition, you need to be aware that the exceptional mechanical properties of Damascus steel do not depend on the layers, but on the quality of forging and the art of the blacksmith. It can be noted that even a specialist cannot visually determine the number of layers.

How to distinguish high-quality Damascus?

Sometimes you hear that a purchased Damascus steel knife quickly became dull. The answer is simple. Either a person bought "damascus" (i.e. stainless steel etched in a special way, artificially imitating the pattern of Damascus), or he acquired Damascus welded from soft metals. Such metal is much easier and faster to weld. It is almost impossible to visually distinguish it from high-quality Damascus. A soft Damascus knife (no matter how beautiful its design is!), Cuts worse than any stainless steel knife. But with limited contact with bones (when butchering an animal), as well as with small chopping blows, this combination of hardness and elasticity is quite enough. A good knife steel should be not only hard, but also flexible.

Blades made of Damascus steel were tested by hunters in various parts of the country. In 99% of such knives, consumers give a positive assessment of the work of the knife; 1% - are people who use the knife for other purposes, for example, when they try to cut nails, steel bars with a knife, throw it at a tree, etc. Although cutting nails is not so a big problem! Knife made of any steel with a hardness of 50 units. HRC on the working part will cut the nail. You just need to change it a little constructively: the thickness of the blade in the cutting part should be at least 1 mm (thicker is better), and the sharpening angle is at least 45 degrees (bigger is better). Order such a knife, and you will be able to chop all the desired nails! Remember that the hardness of a nail is much lower than the hardness of a knife (even from mediocre steel), it's all about the design of the blade. There are knives that cut paper, then cut the nail (by hitting the butt with a hammer) and then the knife can cut paper again (though a little worse). In general, if there is a desire to check the quality of the blade on the nail, it is not necessary to cut it. It is enough to cut the nail or make small notches on it. Any knife made of good Damascus steel will withstand this operation without problems (but not knives with a very thin working part from 0.1 mm and thinner). And yet, such experiments with knives are not recommended. Of course, if in an extreme situation, there is a need to use a knife for cutting nails, rope or thick wire, this is another matter. You don't have to do this unless you need to. There are other tools for this (for example: chisels, metal cutters), which are much cheaper than a good knife. With such constant experiments, especially if the objects being cut turn out to be red-hot, the knife will still break.

According to the reviews of various hunters, two elks in a row were skinned and butchered with a Damascus steel knife without additional sharpening; five small boars; large billhook; several beavers processed several tens of kilograms of fish (the knife continued to cut after that!). If you look under magnification at the cutting edge of a Damascus knife after butchering an elk, you can see a micro-saw. It turned out due to the fact that the layers of soft steels were slightly crumpled, while the hard ones remained sharp due to the additionally acquired viscosity during the forging process. Therefore, if you look at the cutting edge of the knife after a long work, the blade shines in places and it seems that the knife has become dull. But when you start cutting, it turns out that the knife cuts no worse than a new one! Even when Damascus knife completely dull, it is enough to gently correct it with a grinding stone to restore cutting properties. Here the effect of straightening the soft parts of the cutting edge is triggered.

Why such a price for knives made of Damascus and damask steel?

The cost of Damascus blades is influenced by many factors: the exclusivity and originality of each product, the complexity technological production each knife, the quality of the materials. Recently, there has been a tendency for prices to fall in the category of a simple working knife due to the appearance of a huge amount of low-grade Damascus. Therefore, you can observe such different prices for Damascus steel knives even from the same company (for example, one Damascus knife costs 3,000 rubles, and another $ 300). However, high-quality damascus is a material that has a lot of work and skill invested in it, and it cannot be cheap. On expensive knives end damascus is often used. This gives beauty to the product (due to beautifully selected three or four patterns). In addition, this allows you to combine materials of different hardness in one blade. So, a very hard Damascus with a lot of solid metal, soft Damascus is used on the butt of the blade (the same one from which weapon barrels were made). Thanks to the combination of these Damascus, the strength of the knife increases. The cutting properties of such a blade (albeit not much) increase.

All Damascus produced now can be conditionally divided into three categories: the so-called black, white and black and white Damascus. The cheapest is black damascus. It is welded from mild carbon steel. Technologically, it is made lighter than white and black-and-white Damascus. In addition, having high mechanical properties, it has a very low resistance to corrosion, rusts quickly and requires special care. White and black and white Damascus are slightly more expensive than black Damascus. This is due to the complex manufacturing technology of blades. Such blades have corrosion resistance, high mechanical properties. In addition, black and white damascus (composed of carbon steel and stainless steel) has excellent decorative qualities, which gives the knife a unique look.

Cast damask steel is somewhat more expensive to manufacture than Damascus. It has excellent cutting properties and good strength characteristics, but it is quite expensive, and the range of knives made from it is not so large. Damascus is slightly inferior to damask steel in terms of a set of properties, but surpasses the latter in decorativeness and is cheaper relative to it.

Good Damascus and good damask steel from a consumer point of view are one and the same. The same hardness, the same micro-saw effect, is also easy to sharpen ... Bad Damascus and bad damask steel are the same: neither one nor the other will cut!

How to care for a Damascus steel knife?

In terms of cutting properties, high-quality Damascus steel surpasses steel of other brands several times. Its only drawback, due to the fact that Damascus contains carbon steels, is that the blade corrodes and can rust. Therefore, it needs constant care, then the knife will remain in working condition for a long time. To prevent corrosion of the blade and metal elements of the handle, it is strongly recommended that the knife be cleaned after use, wiped, lubricated with neutral oil or grease and stored in a dry place. In order to avoid damage to the pattern on patterned steels, it is not recommended to expose the knife to acid solutions, including organic ones! If suddenly rusty spots appear on the steel, they need to be removed with very fine sandpaper with oil or better with kerosene. All the hassle of caring for the blade is offset by excellent cutting properties (which cannot be compared with any stainless steel: both domestic and imported). It is not recommended to cut large and hard bones with a knife, open canned food, cut metal objects, bend the blade at large angles, use the knife as a mount, screwdriver, hammer, chisel. This can lead to loss of sharpness and damage to the blade or hilt. Also, these knives are not designed for throwing.

(the article was prepared based on the materials of the sites:

Damascus steel (or simply Damascus) is one of the most controversial steels on which we prepared a review. On the one hand, there are very few people who have never heard of her, on the other hand, few people know well what she is.

The hallmark of this steel grade is the pattern on the surface, which is achieved due to the uneven distribution of carbon due to the heterogeneity of the material, which is specially emphasized by etching the surface with acids to give the blade a beautiful texture.

Perhaps this all sounds not completely clear, but in this article we will more consider the characteristics and pros and cons of Damascus blades, and not the production technology. For those who are interested in the process, we recommend reading.

The chemical composition of Damascus steel

Usually in this section I place a table with the percentage of chemical elements in steel. But in this case, it is rather problematic to do so.

We make blades from a package of four steels: ShKh-15 (structural carbon steel), KhVG (steel for measuring and cutting tools), U8A (tool carbon steel) and steel-3 (the name is conditional, but he will not want to reveal the secrets of his products to the end no master.



In the photo (from left to right): a set and welding of a package of steels, twisting an unforged package, forging a package of steels with a hammer.

Looking at the photos, it is easy to understand how the package is set. The blacksmith observes technological process, but it will not measure “in grams” how much of what steel went into the workpiece. So to the question about chemical composition Damascus steel cannot be answered unequivocally - it may vary slightly from batch to batch. Of course, it is possible to carry out radiocarbon analysis of steel, but it is very expensive.

Characteristics of Damascus steel

If you have already visited various knife sites, then you are perfectly familiar with such a parameter as HRC, if not, then I will make a small explanation HRC is Rockwell hardness, the higher it is, the stronger the steel, and the knife keeps sharpening longer, fluctuate this characteristic maybe from 40 with a little for Chinese stamping to 65-70 for a Japanese samurai katana.

Damascus steel knives have an HRC of 61 to 64. Our products are produced with HRC 62. It is very problematic to draw a parallel with other steels due to the fact that Damascus itself is not steel, but a package of steels. Damask steel is the closest in appearance and characteristics, but it has HRC = 64 and the price is slightly higher.

Damascus steel pros and cons:

Like any other Damascus steel has positive and negative sides, we will consider them in more detail.

Pros:

  • Nice pattern on the blade. It is simply impossible not to add this item first to the list. Although the drawing does not affect the cutting properties, it looks beautiful.
  • The strength of 62 units speaks for itself, the knife will cope with the work in the camp and cutting wood and bone without any problems.

Of course, we will not bypass the minuses either, they are present in all steels.

Minuses:

  • Low corrosion resistance. This is a price to pay for the fact that the blade contains a large amount of carbon, and alloying elements are almost completely absent in the steel composition.
  • The rather complicated process of manufacturing welded Damascus cannot but affect the final price of the product.
  • Requires careful attitude and care after each hunting, fishing or camping trip.

Results:

  • By appearance Damascus blades are one of the most beautiful - ideal as a gift.
  • Needs considerable care after use, not intended for cutting and throwing.
  • A good option"front" knife, but for a large amount of heavy work is not the best option.

Researchers once calculated that over the past five thousand years, humanity has lived without war only 224 years. Yes, there is nothing to say, representatives of the Homo sapiens species love to sort things out on the battlefield. And as long as there is a war in its modern sense, so much there is a technology for making weapons of murder.

It becomes sad when you realize that the most breakthrough technologies were created mainly in the military sphere. But, nevertheless, this fact does not in the least detract from the human genius, whose curiosity and inquisitive mind throughout history made truly amazing discoveries.

Damascus steel

Damascus steel became known as early as the second millennium BC in the region Western Asia, which includes the Arabian Peninsula, Persia, Mesopotamia and the peninsula of Asia Minor. For many years, the secret of obtaining such steels was transmitted orally from master to journeyman. Nevertheless, after 500 years it penetrated Europe, and already in the 3rd century AD it became known in Ancient Rome.

The very name "Damascus" is incorrect and, apparently, came from the large cold steel market that was located in this city, and possibly due to the first swords made of Damascus steel found by archaeologists in it.

Strictly speaking, there are two types of Damascus steel: refined and welded. The difference between these two types lies in the way they are obtained.

With the refined method, a single piece of steel is subjected to repeated reforging, while getting rid of various impurities in the workpiece, which can degrade the quality of the product. Until the 18th century, this method of obtaining Damascus was predominant, but subsequently the forge welding method became widespread.

With this method, forge welding is used, when individual sheets are tightly fitted to each other, heated and forged. Sheets of metal, without roughness and cleaned of the oxide film, fit so tightly to each other that interatomic forces come into play, electrons begin to travel between the layers, and the workpiece from the sheets begins to be a single piece of metal. After that received "layered cake" is cut in half and folded again and the operation is repeated again. The total number of layers can reach several thousand, but the most optimal number is several hundred.

The manufacturing process requires meeting certain conditions. The layers of metal in the workpiece alternate with each other, a layer of iron is superimposed on a sheet of high-carbon steel, then steel again, and so on. This is done in order to obtain certain characteristics: if high-strength steel gives the alloy elasticity and sharpness, then softer iron reduces its brittleness.

During the early Middle Ages, a method called kharalug. With this method, the sheets folded together were twisted, after which they were forged and joined into a single beam. There are even mentions of halarug swords in the Russian chronicle "The Tale of Bygone Years".

A side effect of obtaining Damascus steels is a characteristic pattern, which is due to the different carbon content in its constituent metals.

Damascus steel

The first documented information about the appearance of damask steel dates back to the time of the conquests of Alexander the Great. The fearless soldiers of the king were amazed by the incredible properties of swords Hindu Kshatriya warriors: they cut their armor like paper and didn't have great hardness. Indeed, ancient India is considered the birthplace of damask steel, the blacksmiths of which have achieved amazing success in metallurgy.

Over time, damask steel began to spread throughout the Middle East, penetrating into Persia and the Arab countries. At the turn of the millennium, the secret of making damask swords was lost and rediscovered already in the 19th century by the Russian metallurgist Pavel Petrovich Anosov in 1837 in the Ural city of Zlatoust.

Bulat is an alloy of iron and carbon. With slow cooling, undissolved residues remained - compounds of iron with carbon, called cementite. It was they who gave the patterned pattern on the blades, which became a distinctive feature of damask steel.

General characteristics

Both types of steel can be recognized by the pattern that has become their peculiar « calling card» and also thanks to the legends that surround them. The complexity and high manufacturability of manufacturing created for them a kind of halo of a perfect weapon.

They have excellent sharpness and hardness, while maintaining their elasticity.

Comparison and how they differ

Although in modern literature an equal sign is put between Damascus and damask, this is fundamentally wrong. The first is a "layer cake" in which layers of high-carbon steel are interspersed with layers of soft iron. Due to the absence of alloying additives in it, Damascus steel is very susceptible to corrosion, so it needs special care, and long-term storage of the blade in a sheath is undesirable.

Damascus steel is an alloy of carbon and iron, obtained during casting, but with special requirements for its manufacture. Its forging is carried out with a light hammer, since strong blows can damage its structure, which has not yet been completely formed. It acquires its hardness only after slow cooling, when the iron gradually envelops the undissolved particles of cementite. The process is laborious and long, which caused its high cost in ancient times.

Areas of use

The handicraft method of producing these steels has long ceased to meet the challenges of modern industry. For many purposes, whether it be a rocket nozzle or a nuclear power plant reactor, materials are needed that have completely different properties.

Bulat and Damascus are currently used mainly for the manufacture collectible edged weapons and elite kitchen knives. In ancient times, they were also used to make military armor.

The presence of a pattern.

This is now not a defining difference. First, patterned steel appeared at the same time as Damascus. This is a fake and it was made, like all fakes - for the sake of money. Even many "Damascus" blades in museums, after research, turned out to be just an imitation. Already in the days of P.P. Anosov, patterned steel was produced throughout Europe, especially for gun barrels, and he noticed that “... skill European masters aimed more at the formation of patterns than at improving the properties of the metal. History always repeats itself - the craze for the pattern has begun again. In genuine cast Damascus damask, the pattern is a derivative of its fighting qualities. The pattern cannot be scheduled. Until the end of the process, no one knew what level the damask steel would turn out to be and, accordingly, the pattern. Therefore, looking at the pattern, it was possible to determine what kind of damask steel is without putting it to the test. Quote: “If the damask steel is properly etched, then the samples are superfluous; without them, you can see: viscous or brittle, hard or soft, elastic or weak ... metal ”P.P. Anosov. In welded Damascus damask, there is no connection between patterns and quality. S. Danilov is right, saying that "any pattern does not speak of any properties, but only of the skill of a blacksmith." A. Maryanenko is also right when he says that "all the dignity of Damascus is in its pattern." All this is said about patterned steel, and we value genuine Damascus damask steel not only for this.
Secondly, some varieties of damask steel may not have a pattern.

Improved cutting properties.

If you take two blades, one of genuine damask steel, the second of tool steel, then the damask blade will cut a line twice as long. Not 100 (one hundred), but only twice. The figure is not particularly impressive, but people familiar with the technique know that in order to double the result, you need to put in 10-100 times more effort. For example, a motorcycle with a 12-15 hp engine reaches a speed of 100 km / h, and to achieve a speed of 200 km / h, an engine 10-20 times more powerful is required, plus a different chassis and other aerodynamics, etc. The same with damask steel, so that it cuts only twice as well and dulls twice as slowly, you need to make much more effort and do everything carefully than with ordinary tool steel.

Cold forging.

This property is defining. A hardened damask blade can be put on an anvil and cold forged - it will not crack. Damask steel is very weakly hardened: either in air or in boiling fat, i.e. about the same as a braid. The damask blade can be bent 90 degrees and straightened when cold.
The best blades straighten themselves almost to their original position in a few days. The damask blade cannot be broken, only bent. Quote “A good damask blade with ordinary bending pops up and retains its former appearance ..., but with reinforced, for example, stepping on the end of the blade with your foot and bending it at a right angle, it will not break, but will bend, and being straightened, will not lose its former elasticity.” It is interesting that knowing this statement by P.P. Anosov, those blacksmiths who make damask steel from cast iron say: "Anosov made soft damask steel, and we make hard one." Alas, P.P. Anosov in this case speaks of genuine damask steel made in Persia and Syria. At his disposal for research were provided the richest collections of Damascus from the governor of Orenburg V.A. Saltykov and the collection of the chief of staff of the corps of mining engineers K.V. Chevkin. Since we cannot touch this, we will take the word of Mr. P.P. Anosov that damask steel should bend and be forged in the cold. Damascus damask steel does not have great hardness - this follows from its heterogeneous structure. Indeed, in the structure of damask steel, threads, crystals, soft iron flakes are mixed with cementite crystals and high-carbon steel dendrites. If you measure the hardness of such a mixture, then the diamond tip of the measuring device in different areas will show different hardness, but mostly not high, because. particle sizes are commensurate with the diameter of the rounding of the diamond tip of the measuring device, and this tip will slide from a hard crystal to a soft one. On this occasion, P.P. Anosov and said that "hardness is relative." "Damascus steel had enough hardness to keep it sharp." If you are offered damask steel with a hardness of 80 units. HRC is a tungsten carbide coated tool steel.
Damascus damask steel is easier to distinguish by the method of production than by the pattern, because. There are not very many ways, but there are an infinite number of drawings. You can weld a Damascus blank in 1000 layers and weighing 10 kg, then cutting off a portion of 200 g from it to make a knife with one pattern, the next with another; but since the basis is still the same, the quality of the product changes little or does not change at all.

As a rule, in English-speaking countries, these types of steel are called the same - Damascus steel. In Russia, experts are divided into two camps. However, the differences between Damascus steel and damask steel are so obvious that they can be found without difficulty. One question remains: which is better - Damascus steel or Russian damask steel?

Features of Damascus

Damascus is obtained by repeated forging, it consists of several types of steel. The condition for creating a good Damascus is that there should be more hard steel in the "package" than soft steel. The beautiful pattern that adorns Damascus steel is obtained precisely due to the large number of layers. But there is a rule: if there are many layers in Damascus, its excellent qualities are better expressed, but the pattern is almost invisible. If there are few layers, the blade shimmers with beautiful patterns, but its advantages over other knives are practically lost.

The Damascus blade has great strength and keeps sharpening for a very long time. Sometimes you can come across the statement that Damascus sharpens itself - this process is really present to some extent, due to the fact that the soft part of the blade is erased faster than the hard one - this is how a micro file is formed. But you still need to sharpen the knife, although not often. It is also commonly believed that Damascus is rusting steel, and this is true. At the same time, if you really need a blade that is not susceptible to corrosion, you can also find a special stainless damascus, or even easier - take care of the damascus, avoiding long-term serious contact with moisture.

Russian Bulat

Bulat in Russia is a history of experiments and discoveries. Everyone who is interested in history knows about the research of the metallurgist Anosov, who found a way to create real damask steel. And today there are masters who are trying to repeat the discovery of Anosov. A hunting knife made of damask steel is a reliable companion and help in any difficult situation that may arise on a hike.

Damask steel is obtained by casting - it is mild steel, but with high concentration carbon on the surface. And carbon is responsible for the hardness of steel and, in the future, the blade of a hunting knife. The blade is durable and cuts well, has good toughness, therefore, can withstand severe loads on the knife. Of course, carbon steel is susceptible to corrosion, but for this, craftsmen create exactly stainless damask steel thanks to alloyed steel grades. Those. less corrosive steel compared to Damascus. And if you need complete rust resistance, look for fully stainless steel Russian damask steel.

Summary

Both damascus and damask steel are worthy materials for creating a hunting knife. Blades are made from them, which are suitable both for butchering a carcass and for helping the hunter cope with other tasks. Therefore, take into account the individual characteristics of the hunter and then you can definitely choose which blade he needs - Damascus or damask. And he will be happy for sure, so

 

It might be useful to read: