I have a number of kitchen knives that claim to be “damascus,” and a few that should make some kind of claim, but have two that Dr. H and I will soon compare that I think qualify:
I bought a few not-true-true Damascus knives for other people – ranging from two Miyabi Artisan Chef’s knives to a recent Korin Hammered Damascus Wa-Santoku.
It’s hardly surprising that few users have “real” Damascus knives. What gets sold in the mass market are knives with a “core” of solid tool steel cladded with sides of layered steel to look like the entire blade is Damascus.
This defeats the supposed purpose of Damascus–to have the different layers at the very cutting edge, where the microserrations inherent in hundreds or thousands of layers exposed at the edge can contribute to cutting.
IMO, “cored” edges cladded with layered steels are only as good as the cores–the cladding is only layered as matters of aesthetics and marketing. Add to this the intellectual dishonesty of putting VERY few layers into the billet.
That article is wrong. That part of explanation about " There is two mainly types Damascus knives. One is blades are cheaply made and consist of simple layered steel or flattened steel cable that is etched to produce the lines to attract many people…
I would like to recommend the other type is made from layers of high-carbon steel but also has an inner core of high carbon specialty steel like VG-10."
First, neither of these is what I would call a Damascus knife. Second, if we are down to these two options, then the etching pattern on the blade side vs a few more layers on the blade side does not make the difference. These two designs are both based on a core steel, and it will be the core steel largely determining the performance.
You shouldn’t have to sharpen it too often. Maybe all you need to do is to strop like me–or just send it to Shun in Oregon–they’ll sharpen it for free.
Many knives in the mass market are not Damascus knives. Most of the so called Damascus kitchen knives are knives with Damascus patterns. They are beautiful and attractive. Many of them are high quality knives. That being said, their high quality is not due to their Damascus pattern.
Regardless of true Damascus knives or Damascus pattern knives, attractiveness is a big part of their appeal. Therefore, I do recommend people to stay always from certain Damascus knives, especially the shiny ones, which are easier to scratch up and leave a visible marks.
I have two “supposed” damascus knives from Shun. I only put supposed in there because I have no idea about what makes a true damascus knife or not, and I didn’t buy them because they were damascus knives. I bought them because they were Bob Kramer’s line of Shun knives, and they were on sales and a relatively good decent deal.
With that being said, they were fantastic knives! I have an every day chef knife and when it struggles with something too big or too tough, I break out the Kramer damascus knives. Goes through that stuff like butter.