Has anyone made damascus chisels?

Dave Jacobson

Dave Jacobson

Well-Known Member
I do a lot of work on custom homes and I have been asked a few times from Highly skilled craftsmen, if I could make a damascus wood chisel. I did make one in kinda of a hurry and I didn't put a wood handle on it, and it was too short. I only found one website with japanese damascus chisels. They have a wood handle and the tang does not connect to the pommel, there is a metal ring to keep the wood from mushrooming, and they are about 63 rock hardness.
Does anyone know more about them? Im thinking about making some and there seems to be a small demand for them.
 
Damascus is beautiful stuff, but does not cut as well as a good high carbon mono-steel. You have uneven hardness and wear resistance in the damascus edge, and one or the other steels making up the damascus is going to go south before the other, giving a lesser quality in the cut. I'm sure not a drastic difference, but still a difference. Damascus is at it's best when just looking pretty.
 
I think if you trust your damascus as a knife blade material, it'll be plenty good for woodworking chisels. You may want to play with the tempering and edge geometry, but why not? If you're forge welding, you can also 'half' sanmai a good carbon steel edge to the damascus like the Japanese tool makers will do on to wrought iron. Good luck with the project.
 
cdent sure saved me some time typing with his post. Elmer Roush has made some chisels by forge welding high carbon to wrought.
 
I would make a ni-mai blade with a round through tang. Forge weld some twist pattern damascus to a bar of 1080-1095-W1/2 . Grind the chisel so the mono-steel is the edge.
I did some ni-mai kitchen blades using a couple bars of Thunderforge Damascus and 1095...worked fine.

Stacy

(ni-mai = two layer)
 
LRB said:
Damascus is beautiful stuff, but does not cut as well as a good high carbon mono-steel. You have uneven hardness and wear resistance in the damascus edge, and one or the other steels making up the damascus is going to go south before the other, giving a lesser quality in the cut. I'm sure not a drastic difference, but still a difference. Damascus is at it's best when just looking pretty.
Click to expand...


Only when the damascus maker doesn't properly choose steels properly. Properly done you should not be able to tell the difference between the parent steels and the damascus made from them. The heat treatment is the critical factor here.
 
As I said, I'm sure not a drastic difference, but no two steels are going to wear exactly the same, when they are HT'ed exactly the same. Good, bad, or indifferent, they will not be the same. I know you make very fine damascus, but facts are facts. In the long run, a mono steel will out perform damascus.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top