Our knives use real layered/forged Damascus Steel to achieve our beautiful designs and patterns. **What is Damascus Steel? It's steel made with a wavy surface pattern produced by hammer-welding strips of steel and iron followed by repeated heating and forging. Damascus steel comes in many designs and patterns. Damascus steel is not a specific steel grade, but is a process that is used to create a beautiful multi layered steel blade with creative designs. Damascus steel can have a couple layers to over a hundred layers with each creating a unique style and outcome. Even though there may be thousands of different results, the process to create Damascus steel is essentially the same. Damascus steel uses a layering process through heating/welding/forging several different types of steel. Usually you will see a combination of high carbon steel layered with stainless steel. Steel fragments or a combination steel cluster forged between the layers will yield different creative patterns on the outside of the blade when finished. An acid wash at the end reacts to the variations of high carbon steel bringing out the different unique blade patterns across all Damascus blades. There are so many different techniques and steel materials that can be used while creating Damascus, but this is what makes Damascus steel so unique and so popular with consumers.