Japanese / damascus steel making from hacksaw blades and nails

[Tipi]

was reading an article on Japanese steel, (link below) about how they blend hard steel and softer iron to make their blades, and i got to to thinking how i could replicate it using an old hacksaw blade and some soft iron nails.

a cursory search of the internet didn't reveal anyone who had tried this, does anyone know of anything like this being tried before? if so any advice would be much appreciated.


http://ginkgraph.net/articles/products/feature-of-japanese-knives.html

 

[Dave Budd]

eh? you must be using a different internet to me! Damascus (or pattern welded steel, to give it its proper name) has been around since the early iron age in most iron working countries; the UK since at least the 3rd century BC.

The alternating of hard steel and soft iron was also a method of evening out of the physical properties as well as spreading the expensive steel further. These days if you start with a medium carbon stel rather than mixing high and low together, then you are going to get a better material without the fuss and potential flaws. Of course, pattern welding is still done today, but ONLY because it looks pretty. It serves no advantage whatsoever

Amongst many others, I make my own pattern welded blades. I do it because I can, to show off that I can and if I am making historical pieces that required it.

nb. Hacksaw blades aren't your best start, many are High speed or bimetal blades. Use bandsaw blades or pallet strapping instead

 

[Goatboy]

was reading an article on Japanese steel, (link below) about how they blend hard steel and softer iron to make their blades, and i got to to thinking how i could replicate it using an old hacksaw blade and some soft iron nails.

a cursory search of the internet didn't reveal anyone who had tried this, does anyone know of anything like this being tried before? if so any advice would be much appreciated.


http://ginkgraph.net/articles/products/feature-of-japanese-knives.html

It's an incredibly simplistic article; "Western knives are made of only one steel. On the other hand, the edge of Japanese knives is steel, while the other part is made of soft iron." Codswallop the west has been blending the two for centuries, look at some of the Nordic blades, Oh from all over, Damascus steel came from India in the middle ages but European smiths had been pattern welding since the 2nd century BC.

One of the knife makers here'll give you a better explanation as to what'll happen with the nails / hacksaw blades but I think holding them together to then beat together successfully would be pretty darn hard.

Good luck though.
GB.

 

[Goatboy]

Thankfully Mr Budd got there while I was writing - +1 to what he said, he should know.

 

[mrcharly]

I couldn't resist - I ended up commenting.

The whole 'Japanese swords cut through anything' schtick really annoys me.

 

[Tipi]

i know its a short sighted article but it was what prompted the thought.

right, off to look at pattern welded steel and find some pallet strapping.

thanks guys

 

[Dave Budd]

the irony (pun intended) about the current marketing hype of laminated blades being better is that it was the standard way to make blades until the early 20th century in the UK. At that point it became cheaper to make a tool (not just knives, but any cutting tool) from a single piece of good steel rather than laminate.

The same was true all over the western world (with the exception of knives in Scandinavia, even there the axes and other tools went to single piece). The Japanese kept at it due to the national tendency towards tradition and ritualistic manufacture; and put together better marketing stratagies!

the hard edge/spft body can be accomplished by selectively heat treating (such as edge quenching or soft back draw) as well as laminating a hard edge to a soft body, the extra patterned portions are just for aesthetics.

 

[Dave Budd]

Making pattern welded steel isn't too tricky, assuming that you can already forgeweld. The best contrast will be a steel with nickle combined with one that has manganese; the classic European combination being 15n20 and CS70. You can combine any two different steels to get some pattern, the most easily found would be files and mild steel, or pallet strap and bandsaws (some bandsaws have nickle in them, but mostly big industrial ones). Some steels won't weld well and others behave strangely when forged or don't heat treat well, but try different combinations and see what you like

The easiest place to get new steels with good contrast is to buy from Mick Maxen: http://www.patternweldingsteels.co.uk/

 

[HillBill]

Not true , Damascus steel came from damascus, and wasn't pattern welded at all. It was a crucible steel that had a surface pattern caused by crystalline carbide formations. It also contained carbon nanotubes. No one knows how to make it today.

What we call damascus today is, as Dave points out above, is just pattern welded steel. It is done to look similar to how damascus looked. But it aint damascus.

, Damascus steel came from India in the middle ages but European smiths had been pattern welding since the 2nd century BC.
.

 

[Goatboy]

Not true , Damascus steel came from damascus, and wasn't pattern welded at all. It was a crucible steel that had a surface pattern caused by crystalline carbide formations. It also contained carbon nanotubes. No one knows how to make it today.

What we call damascus today is, as Dave points out above, is just pattern welded steel. It is done to look similar to how damascus looked. But it aint damascus.

Always happy to be corrected

 

[Dave Budd]

the crucible steel Bill mentions is known as Wootz and there are lots of folk making it today Granted the recipe may be different, but the chemistry is nearly identical. One of the leaders in the US of recreating the stuff is Ric Furrer, but there are others around the world (and UK) who make wootz to their own recipes and the resulting patterns are the same dendrictic structures found in ancient wootz

 

[dwardo]

So what's wootz then?

 

[HillBill]

Its the carbon nanotubes they cant reproduce. Its these nanotubes that gave the steel longer molecules or some such that made it so tough

I think it was some plant material added to the crucible to burn up any oxygen that created them....might be wrong, just my theory based on things i have read. Without the nanotubes its not true damascus.

Wootz was the base ingredient that went into it.... damascus was what came out of it. Just like flour is the base ingredient to a cake, but what comes out isnt flour. Just the same as damascus is made from wootz, but wootz isnt damascus.

the crucible steel Bill mentions is known as Wootz and there are lots of folk making it today Granted the recipe may be different, but the chemistry is nearly identical. One of the leaders in the US of recreating the stuff is Ric Furrer, but there are others around the world (and UK) who make wootz to their own recipes and the resulting patterns are the same dendrictic structures found in ancient wootz

 

[HillBill]

So what's wootz then?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wootz_steel

 

[dave53]

hi all i enjoyed this thread nice bit of history and alchemy regards dave

 

[Robby]

Not true , Damascus steel came from damascus, and wasn't pattern welded at all. It was a crucible steel that had a surface pattern caused by crystalline carbide formations. It also contained carbon nanotubes. No one knows how to make it today.

What we call damascus today is, as Dave points out above, is just pattern welded steel. It is done to look similar to how damascus looked. But it aint damascus.

Damascus steel came from Damascus. If I remember correctly what we nowadays always refer to as Damascus used to be refered to as Damascene, it looked similar but was a totally different process, being a type of pattern weilding. That term has fallen out of use and all of it is called Damascus. It seems to be where most of the confusion comes from on the subject.