Mysteries of Damascus Steel

Rough instruction for Damascus steel

Damascus steel was made in Ancient India and has another name as "Wootz steel".
Indian steelmaking technology is superior from ancient and they have been making superior steel from B.C.
Especially, existing "Column in Delhi" is not getting rust even now so that the material for this column as Damascus steel is famous for superior material. Damascus steel has mystique from it's own toughness, resistance for rust and elegant pattern of surface and process of manufacture was passed down from the father to just one child of next generation so that this process was not passed to today. Besides, no one could find how to make it until now. Damascus steel was held in high esteem by blade material in modern century and the blade was passed down by dynastic hidden treasure so that it gained reputation by status symbol. Besides, it has special meaning in human history because present stainless steel was developed through investigation for process of manufacture.
Original Damascus steel was forged iron and which pattern was happened by inner join with different melt point steels in skull crucible furnace but present Damascus steel is called for generic name which pattern is artificially made by wrought alloy with different kind steels like steel and forged iron. This pattern is happened by difference of cardinal number of carbon and hardness of steels. Then, there are many method to happen the pattern. In the process of forging for different steels, metal structure will be homogenization and impurity will decrease so that we can make extremely precise. Damascus steel is called as "The best material" for blade with powder metallurgical product method. Because it can make very extremely precise blade by the reason of uniform metal structure and decreased impurity through forging of different kind steels. There were many investigation for forging of different kind steels from ancient age also in Japan and same method could be seen in forging of Japanese Katana. Especially, Japanese are proud of this very rare forging method then, it is not have to say that Japanese Katana is very sharp. Fuji Cutlery Co., Ltd. has been making superior knives like Nickel Damascus steel series and DP Damascus steel steels with our own long investigation for sandwiched knives and forging for different kind steels. These 2 knife series are using Cobalt alloy steel and super hard alloy steel for core so that they are realizing combination of 2 points as superior sharpness and high precision blade.

Damascus Ripple Patterns

Damascus ripple patterns are pronominally well-recognized as showing the keenness with its mystery.
Why the ripple appears? Originally Damascus is forging steel and the pattern appears by crystallization. The cast iron melted in melting pot is solidified and crystallization happens in this solidification process. Iron, which has different melting points, crystallizes respectively and this phenomenon creates the unique Damascus ripple patterns.
However, in these days, Damascus is known as a general term of steel materials that have patterns artificially made by forging with forging steel and different kind of steels.
In forging different kind of steels together, impurities in the materials are purified and the elements become closer and uniformly. Compared to monolayer structure, it has more hardness and enables to make blades more precise. It is one of the best ways on a par with powder metallurgy.
In Japan, this way has been studied from ancient times and we can see the technique in the way of manufacturing Japanese sword. Especially, Japan is one of the countries that have prominent skills and good reputation for the superior keenness in the whole world.
Also Fujitora has been continuing our unique study about materials such as clad, forging etc. for a long time and developed fine knives using Nickel Damascus steel or Kasumi Nagashi(we call DP Damascus) that have advantages both Damascus and clad materials.
Knives made of these two materials overcame the weakness of edge’s partial abrasion in use, which comes from Damascus’ uneven hardness. We use cobalt alloy or super hard alloy steel as the core for the edge and this leads to fusion of the keenness and precise blade.
Also the ripple patterns may appear just straight if don’t do anything on the rolling material. The beautiful ripple patterns just like grain appears by forging the rolled materials again. These patterns arise from the differences of the carbon density and its hardness. We also have several ways to make them appear, for example, shot blast, pickling and so on.