What makes one Damascus chef knife worth less than $50.00 while others have a price of $30,000.00 or more?
You can check the answer of the people under the question at Quora “real damascus chef knife“
About Alaia
Written by: Alaia
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What makes one Damascus chef knife worth less than $50.00 while others have a price of $30,000.00 or more?
You can check the answer of the people under the question at Quora “real damascus chef knife“
About Alaia
A lot low price Damascus is really just etched or wire brushed. To make modern Damascus, you need 2 or more similar but different steels. Stacked, forge welded, cut, rotated, forge welded, folded and twisted. It takes a lot of effort to make modern Damascus, and if its really low in price, it’s not real. Couple of tips to identify fake vs real, for one someone who forged their own, knows what steel is in it. So ask for the specific grades of steel used. The dark and light patterns are made by the steel itself and have variety, it cant be controlled easily, so if the pattern is very uniform, be ware. Since the patter is the steel itself, fake Damascus can be sanded off. While real stuff while it will get duller, the pattern is always there, cut the knife in half and polish the edge and you will still see layers.
Now there are going to be a few people spouting how nothing in modern times is real Damascus. How it was wootz steel and we lost the process. I highly encourage everyone to watch walter sorrells video about this subject. Damascus is historically used to describe pattern welded steel, and is different than wootz.
Bottom line: Damascus takes a lot of time, just to make the steel used to make the knife. Cheap is real and real isnt cheap. When In doubt, ask questions. Dont buy fake stuff, it puts hard working out of business.
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The $50.00 “Damascus” is unlikely to be actual Damascus and will usually be just etched steel.
I’ve not seen knives in the $30,000.00 range, but if they did sell at this price it would be as works of art.
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Well, a pattern welded blade made by a good smith represents LOADS of work. Even a simple pattern welded billet takes hours to make at some risk of having the whole thing end up a waste if you end up with an inclusion or bad weld. Complex patterns, exotic steel etc, all boost the risks and cost. If you are looking at the product of an ABS master smith well, you are looking at YEARS of hard work and risk to be able to produce that knife.
On the $50 side you have etched patterns which mimic true pattern weld or cheap knives made overseas with unknown quality steels and questionable heat treatment.
Here is some free advice, nothing that happens in a forge is magic. A pattern welded blade will not perform better than a well made and heat treated mono steel knife. The extra $$$ is for art and the amount of work involved in producing forge welded blades.
(As an aside, yes I know that ‘Damascus’ is the term most people use for pattern welded steel but it is not accurate.)
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