Home Forums Gear Knives and Blades sharpening damascus

A friend asked me to sharpen his damascus blade. I have never sharpened damascus before. I got the blade relatively sharp, but could not get it shavin sharp.
Is this common with damascus (due to construction), or just not a good piece of steel to start with. It is not a high end blade and I do not know the materials used in it.
Just curious if damascus sharpens different than high carbon and high carbon stainless blades??????

Thanks for any input.
Tim

If it's good damascus it should sharpen right up. The potential problem with damascas is in the process of forging the metal and folding the layers the smith can burn the carbon out the blade and end up with a low carbon steel. To account for this, the smith should grind off the outer 32nd or so of the blade to get into the steel that hasn't had the carbon burned off. Then go through a proper quench and temper then sharpen.

I have never sharpened but one damascus blade, and that was a damascus blank I purchased and had heat treated by Paul Bos. I did not know what type of steel was in it, or the proper heat treating, so I told him to heat treat it like it was O1.

He did, and it did harden. I sharpened it the way I normally do, and it came out extremely sharp, probably sharper than any blade I have ever sharpended.

What method are you using to sharpen the blade?

I sharpen by hand with 11" flat bench stones. Don't seem to have a problem with 52100, A2, 440C, 154CM or any of the old high carbon knives I have laying around.

I do not think the blade I was working on is of good quality.

I have 8 blades I cut out of a damascus billet I'm in the process of grinding now and I think they are of reasonable quality -- at least I hope so. I will have to sharpen one before I put on handles----don't want to waste high end slabs.

Thanks for the input.
Tim

I've sharpened a number of Damascus blades, including higher end Devon Thomas stainless Damascus. It sharpens just about like any other normal steel. With properly heat-treated quality Damascus just sharpen it like normal steel.......................DJ

MRK:

It is possible the knife is made from un-heat treated damascus. I have found that unhardened steel won't take a good edge. The edge just seems to roll over.

Some kit suppliers are supplying blades that are not heat treated, and they don't tell you this. The worse part is you have no idea if it has been heat treated, and if it is not, how to do it, because you don't know the type of steel.

If it hasn't been heat treated, a nail should scratch it, or one of the cheaper carbon steel knife blades should scratch it.

The tang end of files are pretty soft, as compared to the rest of the file. If a file tang will scratch it, it probably hasn't been heat treated. If you try the 'scratch' method, test on a steel with known hardness.

The owner who built it from a "cheap" kit has taken the knife and accepted the poor level of sharpness we could attain. There was a serious de-lamination on the cutting edge that was ugly to try to work out without making the small blade uglier.
Thanks to all for the input.
Tim

I agree