416 Layer Twisted Damascus letter opener

[Matt-D]

Hello Everyone, this is my first attempt at making a Damascus steel blade, and I just thought I'd post some pictures and comments on how I made it. I didn't originally intend to make it a letter opener, but that just happened to be how it turned out, partially because you lose a lot of steel through processing. The base composition is 6 layers of 1/16" O1 tool steel and 7 layers 1075 high carbon steel for a total of 13 layers. These were then tac welded together, welded to a half inch piece of square stock for a handle piece, heated in the forge, and forge welded together, drawn, cut, folded, forge welded, done a total of 6 times and twisted at 208 layers to create a 416 layer twisted Damascus billet. The billet (which was remarkably smaller than when I started) was then forged into the shape of a knife blank. The left over piece of damascus (a mix between 416 and 208 layer Damascus I believe) was used to make a metal bolster. after that it was ground, filed, sanded, heat treated, tempered, burned into the black walnut handle, finish sanded, fit to the bolster, drilled in the handle to accommodate the brass pin, sanded to 400 grit, etched in ferric chloride, polished, oiled, and finally finished by assembly. Due to it being hand made, and myself not yet a perfect craftsman of this trade (will I ever be? probably not haha) there are defects, even unfortunately in the forging of the blade. But I'm still learning and hopefully increasing in skill and ability.
God Bless,
Matthew.

The billet and the forge,

Knife blank,

finished blade.