Over 2400 years ago, the art of forging Damascus knives as we know it today began with the Wootz technology from India. The Damascus technology is centered around using different metals heated in a forge, until hot enough to be hammered together into a single piece of material; this is also known as forge welding. This welding process was repeated multiple times to fashion the layers in a large piece of material with the number of layers varying from a few to thousands. The only problem ancient smiths had with this layering process was that it was hard to control by hand, and blades would break apart at their forge welds if not properly done. In following centuries, the process was further refined by wrapping the materials together during the forge welding. Twisting the blank together with the next layer of hot metal as it was hammered added quality to the blade, and was its secret to its ability to hold and edge and have elasticity to prevent snapping off under extreme use. Ginsu Damascus material is made by hot rolling multiple sheets of different grades of stainless steel together and hammering (forge welding) them together in large machines, instead of by hand. Every Ginsu Damascus blade is comprised of 33 layers of stainless steel materials. The core of the blade is comprised of high carbon, very hard Japanese VG-1 stainless steel. The VG-1 stainless steel core is over laid in the forming process with alternating layers of Japanese high carbon 420 and low carbon 430 stainless steels. Each knife blade is then cut from this Damascus stainless steel sheet. The blades are then sharpened to a wickedly razor sharp Asian knife edge angle of 10°. This angle ensures that every blade is wicked sharp right out of the box. Each blade is then cryogenically cooled in our proprietary process. The proprietary cryogenic process uses liquid Nitrogen to draw the molecules of the steel closer together for ultimate edge retention.