Damascus is just the welding together of two dissimilar steels. The idea is one steel is hard as glass and takes a great edge. The other is tough and flexible. Put together you get the best properties from both and ameliorate the negative properties. Like the fact one is brittle and can chip and shatter and the other is soft.
Now, on a gun? The Damascus patterning just looks pretty. And is hard to gunsmith. And pricy.
The only thing crazier than gun people are knife people. They get way into the weeds on steel metallurgies, and it is glorious and wonderful to watch them debate. As an outsider. You think 1911 v Glock arguments are heated? The knifesmiths go at each other even more, hammer and tongs. Literally.
Hey you know what would be fun metals to pattern weld together to make a knife? 1095 carbon steel and Plutonium.
4 comments:
The only thing truly worse about my fellow knife nuts is the mystical bull that gets spread about steels.
Knife guys are crazy, and I LOVE them.
Plutonium? Don't get that thing wet.
From Wikipedia:
"Metallic plutonium is a fire hazard, especially if the material is finely divided. In a moist environment, plutonium forms hydrides on its surface, which are pyrophoric and may ignite in air at room temperature."
Oh, and probably good to wear a mask while sharpening it also:
"...calculations show that one pound of plutonium could kill no more than 2 million people by inhalation. This makes the toxicity of plutonium roughly equivalent with that of nerve gas."
Plutonium probably would have burned through the box.
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