*UPDATE*
Success met at making Damascus Steel. TONS of pics throughout the thread.
Original post follows:
So after my
first attempt at knife making I thought I would take things up a notch, and by taking up a notch I mean going completely overboard and learn a new skill to add to the tool kit that is ME.
I starting watching lots of videos on how to make knives and one particular thing caught my eye... pattern welded steel. Its "otherwise known" as damascus, or how japanese swords are made. They are made by folding different layers of steels together and getting them to blend. Every time you fold it over the layer count doubles. I thought I would do something nice for my wife and go easily into forging by making her a ring. (in hindsite a knife would have been easier to start off with). In any case here is where we start...
First I needed to learn fire. Here is where I had to learn if I could make a propane torch. It is the heart of the forge. here is my testing various burner methods:
So once we determined that we got that done correctly we needed an actual forge. After watching the various ways to make a forge, i found myself particularly inspired by how easy it is to make one by
watching this video. Then I had to scale it up a bit as I usually do.
A visit to the scrap metal yard (think kid in a candy store) and i found some 12"ID sewer pipe.
Next thing I had to do was build a cart for the forge to wheel around on:
ALL welded steel with a fire brick shelf.
Always being safe with my fan club:
Now we have to get the fire into the forge, and that was done with my
extended drill press. Yea I pimped it out, but I used a simple hole saw on a VERY slow setting with LOTS of oil.
Then welded a section of pipe on:
Now comes the fun part of lining the forge:
Here its lined with ceramic insulation and fire brick for a solid floor
Now we coat the interior with a specific cement:
Done.
Now we need a back:
Yup. A simple aluminum pot.
line the pan with 2 layers of insulation and mount it:
Make one for the front, paint it, and mount it to the cart and we now have a working forge!
Now its time to fire up the forge and see how it holds up:
Seems to work ok to me.
Now comes material selection:
That is S7 tools steel, 4140 steel, and O1 tool steel in the layers shown.
Oh wait... before I forget how are we going to make anything without a work surface that can handle hot metal? Drove around the block to a recently cut downed tree:
I took 2 sections that seemed contiguous and attempted to put them back together:
Wood glue and 10" lag screws. Btw, tree stumps are HEEAAVVYYYY.
Now weld the stack together and try it:
First stack failed so I thought I should just try smaller:
Much better luck:
Then the stack is folded repeatedly:
and beat back together and ends up looking like this:
(after the first few folds and twists)
A quick acid etch and you get this:
(at this point its already weeks of work)
So then after more days of hammering and drawing out the material I got this:
Then came QUITE a bit of grinding out all the garbage, and trying to make my first forged part looking semi-decent. So after the sanding and polishing comes another acid etch:
A final polish and here is what it looks like (with various lighting:
Hope you like it.
I have a few more billets being worked on with similar success:
post edited by nateman_doo - 2015/09/16 10:25:26