Knife porn thread

which seem to suggest that the modern 'Damascus' steel is missing something from the
steel of antiquity.

tynan paste

I'm pretty sure that the ancient Persians didn't use a MIG welder for a start! Folding and cold-welding like that is an awesome skill and chucking a MIG weld into the mix seems like tailoring a Savile Row suit and then just doing a big shit on it.

You're right, there are two types of 'damascus'; the real deal is that which was made from fancy 'Wootz' steel, the technique for manufacture of which is lost (although some people think that they've reproduced it). The second is the fakey method of folding and cold-welding layers together. Note that swords were historically made this way in an attempt to reverse engineer the characteristics of true damascus steel - so it's not a modern invention.

That said, a lot of folding and forging could be used to improve low grade iron produced in primitive bloomeries.

So next time someone mentions how Japanese swords were amazing because of the thousands of folds, you can call bullshit on them - it resulted in a brittle sword and was an attempt to reproduce the qualities of swords that had been made from imported Indian steel, using really low grade iron. The Vikings did the same and weirdly, I think the fakes are the ones where the name 'Ulfbehrt' is spelled correctly!