Damascus steel razor - a curiosity question

[stone and strop]

Yep, Al's Wootz is what Bruno from Snail Forge has used for some razors and beautiful ones at that!
When thinking of PWS as Damascus I would think that a Zowada razor would outperform many others as the attention to detail and LONG experience with a depth of knowledge for such things that few will ever know, would make his razors - better.
At least as good as the very best Carbon razors ever made.

 

[Frank Shaves]

Fascinating video. Thanks for sharing!

 

[Katatsumuri]

Personally, intuitively, but without actual empirical evidence, I suspect that a head to head shootout between genuine ancient Damascus and expertly forged modern tool steel alloys would give a slight win to the modern steel, or at least a tie.

No. Wootz has better sharpness retention than simple modern tool steel. But that's about the only thing you can say for it.

Compared to modern high alloy tool steel, wootz doesn't just get its *** kicked, but it gets beaten to a pulp, and ends up in the hospital with family arguing whether to pull the plug already.

The difference is so big it's not even funny. Wootz is fabulously interesting stuff and I've made more wootz razors than anyone else. It shaves excellent and the aesthetics of the pattern are beautiful.

Woorz was exceptional, in its time. But modern metallurgy has surpassed it juat like modern cars beat racing horses.

 

[Katatsumuri]

As to pws vs monosteel: there is nothing special about it. If a smith is good enough and doesn't make mistakes, he should be able to get pws that is as good as the monosteel they started with.

The reason pws and wootz razors are so expensive is that by the time you get to the part whereyou can make a razor, you've spent MANY hours on the steel already.

The more work you put into it the more amazing patterns you can create. But at the end of the day it's just tool steel with the performance of what you started with if you made no mistakes.

 

[Katatsumuri]

Most genuine wootz that has survived until now, is in museums. You may find blades of unknown provenance being bought and sold, but remember, it is steel, and hasn't been produced in almost 300 years, and steel rusts, after all. I was going to suggest checking with James H Cohen and Sons, 437 Royal Street, in New Orleans (Antique Weapons, Rare Coins & Currency, Jewelry | James H Cohen & Sons - https://cohenantiques.com/) but they currently don't seem to have anything for sale that might be genuine Damascus. Hard to say, from the website.

Verhoeven, furrer and pendray to name a few, have done microscopic analysis of historical wootz and compared it to what they make.

There is no magical difference. I should also point out that even if you look at ancient wootz there is a LOT of difference from blade to blade, and analysis has shown alloying differences as well. There is no 'one and only wootz recipe'

 

[Katatsumuri]

Btw it's too late to add to my previous post but if you are interested in performance comparison between alloys i wholeheartedly recommend 'knife engineering' by dr. Larrin thomas.

 

[q345]

Regarding Thiers Issard Damascus
On their website it's possible to order custom Damascus razors ( choices of 4 points and 9 scales )

Razor Damascus 6/8"

www.thiers-issard.fr

made from XC 130 and XC 100.

Regarding razors from reconstructed Wooths ingots. On the SnailForge

For sale

These blades are available for sale. There is no shopping cart system yet. If you would like one of these blades, send me a message and I will send you the payment details asap. Click on the images…

snailforge.be

One is listed in 'for sale' As I understand it was forged from Wootz ingot reconstructed by Al Pendray and Prof. Werhoeven (who are in the video 'The Secrets of Wootz Damascus Steel' on this thread). It costs 800$ and available . I don't know how many they have forged, the demand probably is not high if it's available for sale. If somebody own it, may be he can post here his impressions how good it shaves.

It's unclear for me if Wootz ingots reconstructed by method of Al Pendray/Werhoeven are available commercially and if custom razor makers are using them now. Based on opinion above, razors forged from them most likely don't provide any magical shave. I tried to find any reviews, didn't see any single one.

Al Pendray passed away in 2017, I don't know if somebody continues his efforts, or they smelt limited number of Wootz ingots and that's it.

Finally an interesting video on youtube : "that's Not Damascus" Rant. and 5 points about Wootz

 

[Katatsumuri]

One is listed in 'for sale' As I understand it was forged from Wootz ingot reconstructed by Al Pendray and Prof. Werhoeven (who are in the video 'The Secrets of Wootz Damascus Steel' on this thread). It costs 800$ and available . I don't know how many they have forged, the demand probably is not high if it's available for sale. If somebody own it, may be he can post here his impressions how good it shaves.

Just for the sake of transparancy: I have wootz from several smelters, including Alfred Pendray and Ric Furrer. The one in that link was forged from an ingot by a Polish smelter named Krzysztof Rusek of whom I've use a couple of ingots.

Alfred Pendray stopped smelting a long time ago. The pieces I got come directly from Mike Blue who was a personal friend of Alfred. Mike forged the ingot down to bar stock with a power hammer. I made a couple of razors from it. They are very expensive. The steel itself for a single razor is almost as expensive as a normal custom damascus razor. After I was working with wootz for a while, Mike decided he'd seen enough to be ok with selling what he had to me. I accepted (without knowing the price at the time, talk about sticker shock) because when things like that come your way, it's a once in a lifetime thing. There's not going to be any more where that came from. I know there is some raw steel from Alfred left with other smiths. I know at least one. But that tends to be forged down to knife thickness. As far as I know, I'm the only one with 1/4" thick stock except Joe Chandler whom I think had one piece left he was making a razor from for himself.

I've always been open about the pieces I have from Alfred's steel, and which piece went to which razor, precisely because it's so limited. Right now I have 2 razors in progress in Pendray steel. One for Mike Blue, and one for me.

Wootz can still be bought. There are several people still making it. In fact I am building a smelting setup myself with some help from Achim Wirtz and Niko Hyninnen. Much of the success in smelting is having access to the right raw materials because you need the steel to be clean and only have the right alloying elements. This can be hard to get. I buy my raw ingredients from Niko because he can get the right cast iron and chemically pure iron to start from. This is hard to get in small quantities. Niko had to buy directly from the mill, and they only sell in volumes of many metric tons.

Working with wootz comes with a significant learning curve because many things are different or opposite of what you do with regular tool steel. And everything you do affects the pattern, both in shape and boldness. And you don't really know how it went before polishing and etching. Just recently I had a dud razor because I screwed something up and instead of a pattern it was just dull grey. The people who make things in wootz tend to specialize in it because of the learning curve. it's not something you do on a whim for a one-off. Most people who smelt wootz, only smelt for themselves, though there are a couple of people who sell bar stock.

I was communicating with Ric Furrer some time ago, and he described it as a love-hate relationship. You love it when it behaves the way you want to but sometimes when you think you finally have it figured out it throws you a curve ball and you hate it.

 

[q345]

Just for the sake of transparancy: I have wootz from several smelters, including Alfred Pendray and Ric Furrer. The one in that link was forged from an ingot by a Polish smelter named Krzysztof Rusek of whom I've use a couple of ingots.

Katatsumutri, thanks a lot foryiur veryinformative post and for correcting my mistake( I knew absolutely nothing about the subject a week ago, then I saw the word Wootz first time ).

From what you described I understand that the technology of recreation is known, ( though not polished enough to be reliable for mass production). I also guess very high cost ( and lack of demand for Damascus swords ensure it will be a niche for a foreseeable future.

Based on your experience, are razors forged from reconstructed Wootz steel really much much better than anything else? I am talking only about functionality, not beauty of pattern and history. Or they are just good, even excellent but not a quantum leap from good modern 'regular' razors made by experts?

 

[Katatsumuri]

From what you described I understand that the technology of recreation is known, ( though not polished enough to be reliable for mass production). I also guess very high cost ( and lack of demand for Damascus swords ensure it will be a niche for a foreseeable future.

That is correct. There is no mass market for this, so there is no drive towards making this a more industrial process. Given how the formation of wootz during smelting works, it would always need to be a fairly small crucible to get a reasonable cooling rate and decent crystallization. If you look at e.g. how Uddeholm make their steel, they work with smelts or powder metal crucibles of several metric tons.

Wootz is still a product of scientific processes. If you could make sure you get 100% the same raw materials in the same distribution, and have scientific equipment to make sure that you follow the same methodology with the exact same temperature profiles, you should get the same ingot every time. But since most who do this use home built equipment, there is variance between smelts.

The price is what makes it a niche, but also the fact that it is still carbon steel. The straight razor world is one of the few where carbon steel is still appreciated. Plus as I said, while it is good steel for cutting ability, and better than 1095 or O1, modern high alloy steels are better.

I recently made a kitchen knife out of Vanadis 4 which is a steel by Uddeholm with over 4% Vanadium. I need to forge this down using a hydraulic press (or powerhammer) and even at very high heat, the steel moves slowly. To give you an anecdote: When I forge a kitchen knife, at the end I need to make sure everything aligns, so I use a vise to straighten the profile. If the tang is still a bit off-center, I simply grab it with tongs and bend it this way or that.

The tang was still glowing a hot orange. With normal steel, this would make it very easy to bend. With the Vanadis 4, it did nothing. Then I put my foot against the bench and pulled. The tang was still pointing the wrong way, but the beak of my tongs was crooked.

Of course, toughness during forging is not really indicative of edge retention but it does highlight the fact that modern high alloy steel is a completely different beast than simpler carbon steel. The book I mentioned by Dr. Larrin Thomas has performace comparison graphs, the modern high alloy steels are so far beyond simple tool steel that it makes sense to go in that direction for such things as kitchen knives. Within that spectrum of high alloy steels, there is still the matter of cost vs. performance. vs machinability. Some steel might outperform other steel but it's much more difficult to work or more expensive or harder to get so even in that realm, there is a tradeoff to make. VG10 seems to have become a very popular choice for kitchen knives. Not because it's better than Vanadis4, but perhaps it is easier to get, cheaper to get, or more easy to machine. Btw this example was purely hypothetical. I don't really follow the trends in the kitchen knife world or why VG10 has become prevalent compared to other high alloy steels

That doesn't mean regular 1095 is 'bad' for kitchen knives. It's just that other steels are better.

Based on your experience, are razors forged from reconstructed Wootz steel really much much better than anything else? I am talking only about functionality, not beauty of pattern and history. Or they are just good, even excellent but not a quantum leap from good modern 'regular' razors made by experts?

No.

I've gotten much feedback over the years, and what helps is that many people who buy my razors also have other customs from my hand as well as other makers. The reports I get are that it gives better shaves than pws or carbon steel, and stays at that level a bit longer. But it's marginal. It's like having a cherry on top of your cake. It makes a difference, but the cake is the main item.

A customer once sent me microscope pics of the edge of a wootz razor, and in the bevel you could see lots of microscopic nubs. Too small to notice or feel, but my theory is that they act like the serrations on a steak knife, and they help tear through the hair / break the surface of the hair.

Btw on the topic of high alloy steels: several years ago, a bunch of people did a comparison between different types of steel including 1095, O1, ... and also steels like M42. The conclusion at the time was that high alloy steels give harsher shaves, and are also a lot more difficult to hone. These high alloy steels absolutely shine when it comes to edge retention after wear, abrasion resistance, impact resistance, ... but to a straight razor, those properties mean little. And they do make it much harder to remove metal for the purpose of honing.

Additionally, in high alloy steels, those qualities come from hard carbides such as Vanadium carbides and molybdenum carbides. These are incredibly hard. Much harder than steel, much harder than even the grit of your hones. So what can happen is when you hone them, you remove the steel matrix but the carbides remain and just break off when they are exposed too much but in a much more macroscopic way.

In knife polishing this effect is known as orange peel skin. If you are handsanding a hardened knife from high alloy steel, it can happen that the surface loses the nice satin finish at higher grits and you will start to see an effect that kinda looks like an orange peel. This is because the fine grit is no longer aggressive enough to affect the carbides so you are removing the steel from in between the carbides and the longer you polish the uglier it becomes.

I'm not sure if I've gotten boring yet. I tend to drone on too much when I start talking about metallurgy but if you have questions about steel or metallurgy I'll gladly answer them.

 

[stone and strop]

I've always been open about the pieces I have from Alfred's steel, and which piece went to which razor, precisely because it's so limited. Right now I have 2 razors in progress in Pendray steel. One for Mike Blue, and one for me.

I would love to see photos of the razors you are working on and any you have made previously.

 

[Katatsumuri]

I would love to see photos of the razors you are working on and any you have made previously.

Is that allowed? I would be perfectly happy to post pics of those blades and some other examples of wootz patterns on razors but since I made them I am unsure whether that would be considered against advertising rules or not.

 

[stone and strop]

Is that allowed? I would be perfectly happy to post pics of those blades and some other examples of wootz patterns on razors but since I made them I am unsure whether that would be considered against advertising rules or not.

Absolutely its allowed!!
If you are trying to sell them here for your business and are not a Vendor, then no.
Just showing something you are working on is fine.
There can be no links to a site you use to sell your razors or knives.
So, showing knives you have made is also fine

 

[Katatsumuri]

Absolutely its allowed!!
If you are trying to sell them here for your business and are not a Vendor, then no.
Just showing something you are working on is fine.
There can be no links to a site you use to sell your razors or knives.

I am not trying to sell anything here, and what I will show is already sold (except the 2 in progress but they will be for me and Mike so not going to be for sale).
If those are the rules I will upload some later today.

 

[stone and strop]

Awesome.
Here is a link to the terms of use.

INFO! - Terms of Use

Preamble TL;DR synopsis = This isn't Instagram, Facebook or Twitter - the goal of this community isn't short form quips, it is to deep dive into long form topics to learn all the ins and outs and build meaningful, lifelong friendships with like folks from across the globe. To that end, if you...

www.badgerandblade.com

 

[Steve56]

Here’s mine. Note: This is not damascus or wootz.

 

[Katatsumuri]

Ok these are 2 earlier razors from Pendray wootz.

This one has a solid gold medallion in the tail with my mark in it. The tang has red white and blue made with high quality ruby, sapphire and diamond in gold settings. The scales are fossil bone.

This is a fixed handle razor on a fossil bone stand, with a ruby set in the end.

On both razors you can clearly see the dendritic structure of the wootz pattern.

 

[Katatsumuri]

This is wootz from Evrahim Baran and Krzysztof Rusek.

 

[Katatsumuri]

In these pictures you can clearly see that the pattern is a lot more 'organic' than pws. It starts with an ingot that has a dendritic cementite structure growing like grassroots through the steel. Forging will physically distort the pattern in 1 direction.

 

[Katatsumuri]

I checked and I don't have decent pics of the Pendray wootz razors I am making for Mike and myself.
I'll take them tomorrow or so if I can get my lightbox out for quality pictures.