Damascus steel - a millennia-old art of forging that continues to fascinate today. The oldest evidence of damask is a Celtic sword from the time around 500 BC. Even though the origin of this forging technique probably did not lie with the Celts, they nevertheless brought the process to perfection. The first artistically forged damask blades came from the Germanic tribes, who at the time of the migration of peoples, i.e. around 300 to 450 AD, were able to produce damask patterns in a targeted and, above all, repeatable manner using controlled forging processes.
Swords made of torsion damascus were extremely demanding to manufacture, even by today's standards. Finds such as the sword from a tomb near Sutton Hoo (England) presented today's damask smiths with a formidable challenge before they were able to reforge this fascinating sword. Parallel to the development in Europe, the highest quality steel was also created in Japan, which was primarily used in the forged katana blades of the samurai. For a long time, Japan was historically seen as a pioneer in this field. While Japanese swords have traditionally been lovingly passed down from generation to generation, the elaborately forged swords in Northern Europe have often been placed in the graves of their owners as burial objects and have thus disappeared into the mists of the past, leading to a "supremacy", so to speak, of the old Japanese swords in the present day, which can hardly be countered by European finds in such immaculate condition. In retrospect, it can be said that the forging of multi-layered steels originally served to produce the highest possible quality of material, while the decorative element of damascus did not take its own direction until much later. Nowadays, damask steels are still in great demand; however, behind the enthusiasm for damask there is hardly a technical demand anymore, but rather the passion for the material and the special impression, the fascination of which is hard to resist. Today, a distinction is made between different types of damask production:
Classic hand-forged damask:
In the most original of all damask types, at least 2 steels of different composition are forged together. After forging, the piece of steel is folded and forged again, doubling the number of layers. This process is now repeated until the desired number of layers is achieved. By using steels with different properties, the quality of the Damascus steel can be significantly influenced; for example, a particularly hard steel can be combined with a particularly tough steel to achieve the best possible balance between hardness and edge-holding properties. Since stainless steels are not forgeable under normal conditions, non-stainless carbon steels are generally used for this classic type of forging. Thus, the result, the forged Damascus, is also not stainless. Of course, the quality of the damascus steel also depends directly on the quality of the starting steels. Damascus per se is therefore not a mark of quality, but merely characterizes the manufacturing process of the material. The pattern of the damask is influenced on the one hand by the forging and the number of layers, but can also be specifically created by additional embossing of the finished forged damask bar. By embossing the bar using an embossing die with a specific pattern, the layers in the damask are shifted against each other. The embossed pattern appears as a structure in the damask, while the blade is ground out of the embossed material. Visually, however, the pattern is barely visible on the freshly ground blade; it is only through the final etching in a special acid, in which the two types of steel respond differently to the acid and tarnish darkly, that the pattern created by the structure is visually revealed and unfolds the true splendor of the damask steel.
Hand-forged rust-bearing Damascus:
Since stainless steels are not forgeable under normal circumstances, resourceful damascene smiths have devised methods to get around this obstacle. The crucial point here is oxygen. While the classic, non-stainless damask is forged and folded in a normal, open forge, the ambient air is the decisive factor in stainless damask: it prevents the forging of stainless steels. Therefore, in the case of rust-incorporated damascus, pre-coated layer packs are forged together under vacuum. Every damask forger has his own tricks for this, which of course also fall under the trade secret and therefore cannot be explained here in detail. Chad Nichols from Mississippi/USA is in the knife world one of the most renowned damask smiths for rosträgen damask, and his noble material serves not only different knife manufacturers, but also numerous custom knifemakers worldwide as premium damask for particularly noble models. The fine high-contrast pattern of Nichols Damascus never fails to impress, but the material's high suitability for everyday use also makes its Damascus the first choice for many users.
Hand-forged torsion damascus:
One of the most sophisticated forms of forging damascus steel is torsion damascus. Here, in addition to the classic folding, the material is also twisted, i.e. twisted in on itself. This creates a very unique pattern, and the control of this forging process certainly requires the highest level of expertise. Torsion damascus is also known, for example, from the few surviving swords from the Viking Age, in which the noblest pieces were forged with the highest skill, which were also technically far superior to the standard swords of the time. The extremely complex forging process with its characteristic pattern makes torsion damascus one of the most exclusive and rarely found damascus variants even today.
San Mai Damascus/Core Damascus:
A modern and widely used variant is San-Mai damask or core damask. This differs significantly in structure and manufacture from the damask types listed so far. San-Mai actually refers to a multi-layered blade, but (unlike Damascus) it is not folded, but usually consists of three layers: a hard cutting core as the middle layer, and two softer outer layers to promote stability and flexibility. In the case of core damascus, the center ply on modern kitchen knives often consists of a continuous piece of Japanese VG-10, a cobalt-alloyed high-performance steel with a fine microstructure and high corrosion resistance. In contrast to a classic San Mai blade, the outer layers are also significantly softer than the cutting core, but they are made of Damascus. However, this Damascus is usually not forged by hand, but produced industrially in a rolling process. Such blades are usually recognizable by their center layer of mono steel, which usually protrudes a bit below the Damascus layers towards the cutting edge. This concept generally results in an odd number of layers (typically 37 layers, or 67 or 69, although other numbers of layers are also possible). Since the number of layers doubles with each fold of the classic folded and forged Damascus, the hand-forged Damascus always has an even number of layers (usually 200 to 300), while the San Mai Damascus can also be recognized by the odd number of layers. The quality here depends primarily on the material of the cutting core, whereby one must basically assume that blades made of today's mono-steels can be quite equal or even superior to a Damascus blade.
Powder-metallurgical damask steel:
A special form of industrially produced damascus is damasteel, which originated in Sweden. The company Damasteel has developed a process by which powder-metallurgical steels can be combined in the ongoing production process to produce a genuine Damascus steel. Powder metallurgical steels (such as the CPM154 of our Boker Pure CPM series) can be alloyed to a higher degree by the special manufacturing process and have a particularly fine and, above all, uniform microstructure; a basic requirement for high cutting performance. The manufacturing process of Damasteel combines the advantages of powder metallurgical steels with the fascinating appearance of Damascus and thus occupies a special position among Damascus steels. Despite the exclusively industrial production, Damasteel definitely represents a particularly high-quality Damascus, which also convinces in use with its high cutting durability and pronounced corrosion resistance.