TRUELY world class damascus steel blades

[demographic]

As a matter of interest how is he making it though?
Vacuum furnace and running it through progressively closer rollers?

It just seems far too neat and not showing much scale to be beaten together with a hammer.

 

[mountainm]

My favourite

But to be honest I don't really like Damascus blades any more - they look a bit OTT. Better for jewellery, bolsters and butt plates.

 

[Stew]

As a matter of interest how is he making it though?
Vacuum furnace and running it through progressively closer rollers?

It just seems far too neat and not showing much scale to be beaten together with a hammer.

He'll be using a press for squishing.

For sealing multiple bars together after the first forge weld, I'm guessing that he probably seals round all the joints with mig weld rather than fluxing with borax before forge welding.

 

[demographic]

So what kind of carbon content and hardness/so on will he be getting in there?

One of the pictures shows what looks like 50mm box section that he puts the rest into, then there's something silver in there, possibly a stainless?
What steel make up the rest?
I've never seen high carbon content 50mm box section before but I do know carbon can migrate from higher content steels to lower content steels at elevated temperatures.

Honest questions by the way as I just don't know much about high alloy steels beyond what I learned for my weld inspection course about 18 years ago, that didn't cover knifemaking steels.

What I'm getting at is the billets he makes look very nice, but if the knife doesn't hold a good edge its just a knife shaped bling prybar. Any more info on what steels he uses to make the knife billets?

 

[Dave Budd]

the box holds things together and allows you to exclude oxygen, so that the welds take without the need of a flux like borax. Borax sometimes leaves a white line/haze around weld lines and if you are using powdered metals then it would make a heck of a mess. A small piece of cardboard or squirt of oil is often sealed in the box to take up and extra oxygen whilst the billiet is coming to welding heat, that way you don't get the surfaces oxidising and refusing to stick. The box gets ground off once the welding is done, same as any mig welded seams and joints. If you don't grind them off as soon as the welding is done, then they can mess up the pattern development or even get forged into the final piece (making a soft bit that looks awful!).

The quality of the steel will depend on the stuff you put in, mostly it will be a high nickle steel for the bright layers (say 15n20) and a similar plain carbon version (say 1095, cs70, etc) for the dark layers; then you can have pure nickle sheet for silver/white layers and other steels for more of a grey for some patterns. the silver stuff you mention is likely some pure nickle. You can do stainless damascus, but it is more difficult to weld and then forge because it move strangely at heat and oxidises badly, so refusing to weld unless you keep all of the O2 out (some people even use argon barriers!)

Nickle won't harden, but the rest will (they are all good blade steels afterall). In the instances where you have components that don't make a good edge steel, you simply add a seperate cutting edge to the blade after the damascus patterns have all been done. That is why you will often see a plain (or normal damaascus pattern) at the edge with the rest of the blade being poncy mosaics and thigs Or you laminate it as a san mai, with blade steel in the centre. So the edge will be whatever hardness you can from that steel. If its a simple CS70 or c20 and 15n20 billet (such as most non-mosaic is in this country and around europe), then it will all get to at least 60rc and often higher depending on your set up

 

[Stew]

So what kind of carbon content and hardness/so on will he be getting in there?

One of the pictures shows what looks like 50mm box section that he puts the rest into, then there's something silver in there, possibly a stainless?
What steel make up the rest?
I've never seen high carbon content 50mm box section before but I do know carbon can migrate from higher content steels to lower content steels at elevated temperatures.

Honest questions by the way as I just don't know much about high alloy steels beyond what I learned for my weld inspection course about 18 years ago, that didn't cover knifemaking steels.

What I'm getting at is the billets he makes look very nice, but if the knife doesn't hold a good edge its just a knife shaped bling prybar. Any more info on what steels he uses to make the knife billets?

Not a daft question.

The box section isn't part of the final knife - it's just used to hold the first pieces of metal before they're forge welded into a solid block.

One of my knifemaking heroes is Bruce Bump and he has done some great work in progress threads that show the process, although on a less complex scale!
Try this one: http://knifedogs.com/showthread.php?14340-Basket-Weave-Damascus-in-a-Canister

 

[Squidders]

The patterns in the link are very accomplished but leave me utterly cold, they are the smithing equivalent of someone playing every single note on a guitar very quickly. It requires great skill for sure but lacks emotion and seems to be just a technical exercise. I like the swirls in random twists (Or what are called random) because they exist by chance and like grain in wood are more natural.

 

[Dave Budd]

Mostly I agree with that too. The ability to create very even layers and uniformity in the pattern can be useful for some creations, but mostly I prefer the very organic nature of hand (or hammer) forged patterns. The most regular patterns are best accomplished with rolling mills and presses, btw.