Damascus Camp Knife WIP

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Burt, how much it takes your physical and your mental energy in building such a piece of knife? Would you share with us your real feeling during all the phases and steps in building that knife? All your excitement .. your hope .. your frustration .. your curse .. etc .. it might give us better view .. deeper understanding .. clearer perspective .. more appreciation .. on custom and handmade knife making.

I am just curious .. hope my curiousity doesn't offend you!

Mohd.
 
Very interesting thread !
I'm looking foreward to see more "hot "pictures. Thanks for your time Burt.
 
Burt, how much it takes your physical and your mental energy in building such a piece of knife? Would you share with us your real feeling during all the phases and steps in building that knife? All your excitement .. your hope .. your frustration .. your curse .. etc .. it might give us better view .. deeper understanding .. clearer perspective .. more appreciation .. on custom and handmade knife making.

I am just curious .. hope my curiousity doesn't offend you!
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That's an interesting question. I bet that every knife maker here feels all that, sometimes over a five minute period. For me, it's usually in this order: hope, excitement, frustration, then back to hope. When I get burned I curse. I'm trying to be better about that, the cursing that is, but I figure if I'd stop burning myself, I'd curse less.
 
OK, here are the next few....


15.jpg

I mark the billet at the halfway point and cut it about 90% of the way through with the chop saw. You can hot cut it with the press or the hammer, but it kinda distorts the billet and keeps the mating surfaces from being flat. It really makes no difference, but I like doing it this way now.


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I clamp the billet in the vise and grind the scale off the surfaces to be welded with an angle grinder.


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I heat the billet up again and fold it in half over the edge of the anvil.


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...and then back on itself.


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...then back in the forge. We started with 30 layers and now we're folding those 30 layers back onto themselves on edge. So we don't have 60 layers, we have 30 layers twice - side by side. We're gonna repeat that until we have 16 "sets" of 30 layers side by side. I call that a 30/16 "W" pattern.


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...and back into the press
 
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...and back under the power hammer...


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After all the folding is done, I'm going to draw it out into a long, square bar.


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And here's the finished bar. Almost exactly 3 feet long,


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...and a little over 5/8" square


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Cutting off the end, and a quick etch, this is the basic pattern we have so far.


More in a few...
 
Chop sawing, rather than hot cutting the billet makes sense. First time I have seen it done that way.
Thanks for sharing this WIP, it must further complicate an already complex project.
 
Great stuff. You should really add this to your site when it's all done.

Roger
 
Looking good Burt, I know how much work goes into taking all those pictures when your minds on doing other stuff. Very nice tutorial, I look forward to seeing more.

Bill
 
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