Quote:
Originally Posted by rusnak
Tamahagane>Damascus. But for a regular "knife" you might prefer carbon steel, no?
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Tamahagane arose as a result of the Japanese having to refine iron-bearing sand into steel. The "bloom" resulting from the refining process is folded repeatedly to homogenize the carbon content and various impurities as much as possible.
The resulting product is beautiful, but it is not "better". It's just high-layer forge-welded steel. The argument could be made that due to the extremely lengthy and manual process of making tamahagane, the risk of voids, bad welds, and inclusions is actually higher than in modern-made "Damascus" steel.
Anyway, vash, what KIND of knife are you looking for? Talking about wanting a damascus knife is like saying you want a red car. I have a few damascus knives, they run the gamut from a Case Tiny Trapper in a raindrop pattern to a full-size cowboy bowie in random damascus.