All walks of life are now rolled up, and the knife collection is no exception. Choosing a knife is like choosing a cricket, he is a plum wing, I am a big coffin, you are an oil gourd... A few days ago, a friend came to visit the door, saw the knife on my bookshelf, pulled it out and played with it a few times, and said to me with a look of disgust: You are patterned steel, not Damascus! I knew that his interest in knives was average and wouldn't have the patience to delve into the relationship between patterned steel and Damascus knives, so I just laughed vaguely at it.
Craftsman workshop Damascus knife
What is the connection and difference between the pattern steel knife and the Damascus knife, which of them has a longer history and which has better performance?
When it comes to patterned steel, it is easy to think of engraving or printing patterns on steel for aesthetics, full of modernity and cheapness. In fact, this is all to blame the lack of mood of the ancient weapons scientists, pattern steel is originally an authentic ancient weapon noun, refers to the use of swords, swords and other valuable utensils with patterned steel, ancient China also known as flower iron, literary iron. Just because it was given a very "modern" term by ancient weapons scientists, patterned steel was often mistaken for cheap industrial mass-produced steel, which was really disrespectful to the ancient sword casting masters.
Juxtaposed with patterned steel is patterned bronze, which is collectively known as patterned blades. At the height of the Bronze Age, humans invented the technology of forging alloys by hand: stacking metals with different hardnesses, heating them to the point of softness and repeated forging, you can get an alloy with new properties. Since this alloy does not infiltrate trace elements into the metal solution like modern metal alloys, but forges metals containing different trace elements into one at high temperatures, the cross-section of the metal will show a texture formed by the interlayer entanglement of different metals. This is how the patterned blade is made.
The pattern blade technology is very ancient, and when humans did not know how to extract iron from iron ore, the folding and forging pattern blade technology already existed. At that time, bronze patterned blades were forged, as well as alloys of meteoric iron and other metals.
Damascus steel is a type of Asian patterned blade. Between the 4th and 15th centuries, Syria, Afghanistan, and Kashmir in the Middle East were known for their sword production. It is said that the patterned steel swords produced here are based on Indian Uzi steel, and in addition to the forging pattern formed by folding and forging, the special crystals contained in Uzi steel will also show a brilliant starry sky pattern on the knife. According to the division of the ancient weapons scientist Zhou Wei, there are three kinds of patterned blades that can be called the representative or leader of the Asian patterned blade, one is the Damascus flat pattern blade, that is, the Damascus knife. The second is a flat shredded composite dark light pattern blade, which is a traditional Japanese samurai sword. The third is the Malay Kris sword, a rough-faced welded patterned blade based on meteoric iron.
Therefore, the pattern steel does not mean cheap, the ancient dry general Mo Evil Sword, Ou Yezi's fish intestine, Zhan Lu, Cao Cao's Hundred Blades, are all masterpieces of pattern steel. Damascus knives are also a type of patterned steel knife. (The picture in the text is a Damascus knife in the craftsman's workshop)