Pattern Welded Steel Vs Damascus

Good compression is the key to bringing the weld surfaces firmly and completely together.

Pattern welded steel vs damascus.

Usually manufacturing modern damascus steel involves folding together different grades of steel to create the pattern associated with traditional damascus steel. Often mistakenly called damascus steel blades forged in this manner often display bands of slightly different patterning along their entire length. Pattern welding is the practice in sword and knife making of forming a blade of several metal pieces of differing composition that are forge welded together and twisted and manipulated to form a pattern. In spite of being made as one homogeneous mass this steel displays the patterning which results from making pattern welded steel pws commonly called damascus steel.

The pros and cons of damascus steel. Damascus steel was the forged steel of the blades of swords smithed in the near east from ingots of wootz steel either imported from southern india or made in production centres in merv or khorasan these swords are characterized by distinctive patterns of banding and mottling reminiscent of flowing water sometimes in a ladder or rose pattern. Pattern welded steel needs to be squeezed in order to weld nice and tight. For this a hydraulic press is probably the best but a larger hammer with a good amount of compressive mass behind its blow will also do the job.

A range of manufacturing techniques are used to do this. Gun barrels of pattern welded steel were sold under the name damascus steel well into the 20th century 9 10 such as in belgium in this video taken around 1924. For many chefs a knife made from damascus steel is their knife of choice. The pattern welded steel was even called pattern welded steel to differentiate it from crucible damascus prior to moran s production of pattern welded steel 11.