Pattern Welded Steel... How Much is Just BS?

[Slash McCoy]

Oooooooh that razor has such a beautiful damascus pattern... I would gladly pay 5x the price over homogenous tool steel even though it doesnt shave a bit better!" That's not me.

The theory behind layered steels is pretty obvious, but how much of it is BS? Has anyone done any sort of real, valid, empirical testing of edgeholding or edge taking qualities of various pattern welded steel blades? I don't clang my razor edges against chain mail armor or enemy swords/razors. I have to question whether mixed layers of different densities or hardness or carbide particle sizes can't sometimes produce an inconsistent edge, to some degree. Yes, a PWS blade can look stunning. But let's be honest... pattern welded steel is NOT wootz steel and is NOT damascus. I would kinda like to try making a few PWS billets to use for razors, eventually, but I don't believe in coating my razors in BS and putting functional quality behind cosmetics. I know this topic might hit some nerves, particularly guys who are proud as peacocks of their $1k "Damascus" razors that shave just fine but look crazy good.

 

[Clay S]

Haven't tried one, so went with the safe option. YMMV

 

[Legion]

IMHO, pattern welding on a blade, in other words combing two or more steels into the billet, might improve the durability of a blade that is put under stress, ie a sword, or maybe a knife.

For something treated as gently as a razor its value is just cosmetic, and could introduce issues at the cutting edge.

 

[6Cuda6]

Guess it depends on what steel ends up at the edge.

 

[dundak]

Depends on the quality of the billet and the grinder. It is cosmetic but so are a lot of touches on a razor. The grind, scales, gold wash, etchings, spine work and the list goes on.

People pay for $400 DE razors that take a dime blade. $100 soaps that do nothing better than $7 soaps. Again the list goes on.

I don’t put worth on other people’s purchases. It’s like sitting on a porch screaming get off my lawn. [emoji23]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Kooldecker]

well i think alot of people overlook the plesebo effect in products , which is a real thing. i say shave and let shave! if sombody swears that their 500 dollar razor is amazing, and that its the best blade ever forged....let them! tell them bravo on finding something that brings them joy and celebrate the fact that you too indeed found the same joy in a shave but found it in an unmodded gold dollar you found in a yard sale for 25cents! it comes down to this (and this is just my flawed opinion) its a slab of steel, with a handle, gliding through some lather that was made by some brush like object. follwed by some product applied to the skin which may or may not contain a scent. lol everything else is added for luxury and subject to everyone's completely VALID opinion! now go shave darn it! lol

 

[stone and strop]

Depends entirely on what it is comprised of.
Zowada uses L6 and O1. The L6 adds significantly to the toughness combined with the fine edge O1 can take to make it a good combination.

I would guess it is slightly better than just O1 given proper heat treat etc.
Tim has been relentless on trial and error to find the best of everything in his field, including hones to finish razors.
I'm sure there are very few people that have put in the time and effort he has to create PWS.
The artistic side of this has worth as well. To that, you must decide for yourself the value.

 

[eKretz]

For a razor it's just cosmetic. But time has demonstrated that many people will pay more for pretty things. As long as both steels harden to a similar level the edge should hold up fine. They are effectively (literally) welded together. Since heat treatment occurs after welding there should be no edge defects unless there's poor craftsmanship involved.

 

[stone and strop]

Any razor is only as good as its components.
There's lots of "pretty" looking crap out there.

 

[bluesman 7]

Some pattern welded blades are made to have a mono steel edge. Just sayin'.

 

[stone and strop]

San Mai?
I know when Bill Moran started making "damascus" he was inlaying an O1 piece in the last fold that became the cutting edge.

 

[KW Driver]

From Tim’s post elsewhere:

I keep forgetting to do the social media stuff. This is the razor with the Kentucky Agate wedge in the scales. Timahagane/meteorite blade, mokume tang, mammoth ivory scales. #madeinmichigan #puremichigan #petoskey #customrazor #straightrazor #smelting #damascussteel

While unecessary to get a good shave, these are functional pieces of art. The world is a better place with art in it. Functional art is an altogether rarer and beautiful thing. I’ll never own one of these unless I inherit an obscene amount of money, but I appreciate that they and others like it exist in the world.

 

[6Cuda6]

From Tim’s post elsewhere:



View attachment 960269 View attachment 960270

While unecessary to get a good shave, these are functional pieces of art. The world is a better place with art in it. Functional art is an altogether rarer and beautiful thing. I’ll never own one of these unless I inherit an obscene amount of money, but I appreciate that they and others like it exist in the world.

Never say never my friend.....someday youll be in the right place at the right time. I waited 5 years for a perfect used one to come along that i could afford.

 

[KW Driver]

I picked up a carbon series of his used. I'm utterly impressed with his attention to detail and how everything blends and flows just right. I can't say I've seen anything to rival his work. now if only he could/would do a full hollow...

one if those ^^? nah... I can't justify the expense unless I've got "f*#k you" money. I'm not on track to acquire that much wealth through my own effort. and I'm ok with that.

 

[Namkcakram]

This application it’s pure cosmetics. I are uh scientist, so trust me when I say you’re not somehow combining alloys into visibly thick layers and selectively cherry picking the best qualities of each alloy to make a better blade. If that was a possibility then anything constructed at the fringe of our abilities (space craft, weaponry, sky scrapers...) would be built with layers of cold rolled steels pressed and forged into the shape they need to magically get “the ductility and durability of this steel, with the peak strength of that steel”. It doesn’t work that way. It makes pretty patterns after you acid etch it.

Wootz Damascus has little to no folding involved after the initial smelting and casting of the ores. The pattern is from impurities in the iron ores, not folding. Samurai swords were folded in order to blend the inconsistent tamahagane to get uniform properties and ~.7% Carbon content. The Hamon on the edge has nothing to do with the layering as there are ~2^13= 8,192 layers perfectly forge welded Across the thickness of the blade. The hamon is painted on with clays prior to quenching and effectively etched into a uniform steel.

These days anything “Damascus” is for show and does not blend the best properties.

If you told me someone had GKN sintermetals contracted to develop them specialized forged powder metal blanks that yielded the sharpest straight razor ever made... I’d be interested.

 

[Slash McCoy]

Okay so the consensus here is that modern "damascus" as we improperly call it, offers basically zero functional benefit, and possibly even a functional liability, but it looks pretty. No, I don't think anything is wrong with pretty razors, either. And obviously it is worth it to a lot of shavers to purchase and to have such blades. I am not belittling pretty razors, no. Even the ones that might be functionally crippled or unusable for fear of cosmetic damage. A work of art is a work of art, after all. What I was looking for was confirmation of my idea that PWS steel offers zero functional benefit, and that I could forget about using it any time soon and concentrate on plain tool steel for my initial runs of razors from my new shop. Yup, the building is UP! Wiring still do do. I still haven't seen it yet but the pics give me a renewed optimism and before I go to sea again, I hope to have a few razors to show off that were forged and heat treated in something fancier than a barbecue grill with a hair dryer piped in for forced draft. Pics later, it is 0530, time for work.

 

[Namkcakram]

I didn’t realize this was going somewhere productive!

A work of art is a work of art and should be appreciated. A functional work of art that can really be handled and used is downright dangerous to wallets everywhere.

If I were you I’d start messing around with 1095 and really cycle and hammer it. Haters think it’s “too basic” or “too brittle”, but a lot of people have seen the Kezuroukai style Japanese planing competitions to make the thinnest full width full length shaving off of a piece of softwood. A guy showed up and won the NYC competition with a home forged laminated 1095/garbage wrought iron forge weld laminated blade. Not a metallurgist or really even pro blacksmith at the time, just had a passion for it and a small budget. Not only did he win, he passed it around and let other people pull off shaving after shaving before finally resharpening it.

Apparently that .3-.5% manganese makes it more forgiving during the quench without really affecting the edge forming or holding significantly. There’s a reason it became the default high carbon knife blade steel.

 

[Slash McCoy]

Nothing wrong with 1095. You can do marvelous things with it. Maybe not the best alloy for stock removal razormaking, but for forging, it is a blank slate. My uncle knew a guy who made knives and he used a lot of 1095 but he introduced "stuff" into it in similar fashion to case hardening. And 1095 is inexpensive, FWIW. Nevertheless my efforts will mostly be confined to O1, partly because I already have several bars of it on hand. It is very much a ready to roll steel, suitable for forging but particularly for straight up stock removal. So they say. I may also fool around with various types of used blades, needle gun needles, etc but the serious razors will be O1 for a while. When I can say I have "mastered" O1 I will think about production with other alloys. The crazy stuff will just be kind of a side hobby. Like "Wow, I got a whole coffee can full of old hacksaw blades and HSS sawzall blades... I wonder what I can make with them?" LOL. And needle gun needles, I probably toss a couple pounds overboard every job, and every ship I go on there are a few pounds of old needles saved... I don't have a clue why. But I figure O1 is popular for good reason.

 

[Namkcakram]

Nothing wrong with 1095. You can do marvelous things with it. Maybe not the best alloy for stock removal razormaking, but for forging, it is a blank slate. My uncle knew a guy who made knives and he used a lot of 1095 but he introduced "stuff" into it in similar fashion to case hardening. And 1095 is inexpensive, FWIW. Nevertheless my efforts will mostly be confined to O1, partly because I already have several bars of it on hand. It is very much a ready to roll steel, suitable for forging but particularly for straight up stock removal. So they say. I may also fool around with various types of used blades, needle gun needles, etc but the serious razors will be O1 for a while. When I can say I have "mastered" O1 I will think about production with other alloys. The crazy stuff will just be kind of a side hobby. Like "Wow, I got a whole coffee can full of old hacksaw blades and HSS sawzall blades... I wonder what I can make with them?" LOL. And needle gun needles, I probably toss a couple pounds overboard every job, and every ship I go on there are a few pounds of old needles saved... I don't have a clue why. But I figure O1 is popular for good reason.

So what would make O1 outperform 1095 for stock removal I wonder?

If you like O1 you should try to go even higher purity for some hitachi metals or boeler or assab or something.

 

[Slash McCoy]

LOL All I know is what guys have told me, and that O1 grinds really sweet in my hands. I did one barbecue razor in alleged 1095 but never succeeded in getting it hard enough to suit me so who knows what alloy it really was. It chipped easily on the belt sander and I cracked the toe off on a cut that should have gone just fine. If I had several feet of it maybe I could have deciphered the mystery of it a bit better but O1 I just do it and it kind of comes out okay all by itself. Still working on my HT and tempering but having the electric oven will help a lot. I think my problems with O1 hardening were just lack of precision. Making barbecue razors has a big element of chance in it I think. Also working according to a pattern will enable me to fine tune the blade design where before they have been one-off, no two alike.

Not messing with the fancy stuff until I am at least out of the O1 I already have, enough for a couple dozen razors I believe.