Damascus Steel..science side website?

Dark Nemesis

Dark Nemesis

Joined
Mar 20, 1999
Messages
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searched the forums and found many many threads by people who have made their own damascus steel. I really don't understand how the steel is made to show the beautiful patterns and what caused them, can someone give me a URL to a good site that has a good materials and scientific description and explanation? Thanks

Dark Nemesis

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Crimson Horizon
Nothing but edge baby...
dark.nemesis@home.com
 
Someone else will give you more links, but the basic idea is this:

Take two different carbon steels and stack them. Make sure one of the steels will resist an acid etch more than the other, any steel with a significant nickel concentration will do (e.g. L6 or 5160). Bring the stack to forging heat and hammer to weld the sheets together. Cut the billet, and restack. Repeat until the desired number of layers is achieved (2-4-8-16-32 etc). The billet can be twisted and manipulated in different ways to create different types of patterns.

Forge and/or use stock removal to create the blade. Heat treat the blade for use (harden and temper).

And last, to bring out the pattern in the steel, etch in mild acid (ferric chloride is commonly used). If you have chosen your steels carefully, the acid will attack one steel more than the other, creating the dark lines. Lightly polish to bring out the bright steel lines.

The idea is to take advantage of the different rates of erosion in acid between different steel alloys. This will bring out the contrast between the metals.

Good web sites to see and learn about damascus (more properly called Pattern Welded Steel) include ABS Mastersmiths Don Fogg's and Ed Caffrey's web sites

Paracelsus, in brief



[This message has been edited by Paracelsus (edited 05-15-2001).]
 
I'm not going to expound on Para's description of pattern-welded steel, but wanted to clarify that 5160 doesn't have high nickel concentration.
biggrin.gif


Shinryû.

[This message has been edited by Robert Marotz (edited 05-16-2001).]
 
I was in a hurry. Thanks for the correction Robert. He is right, 5160 has no nickel.

Rather than me spending any more time putting my foot in my mouth, I will refer you directly to Don Fogg's Techniques page. In particular, look at the Damascus steel section, inclucing pattern development, straight laminate, mosaic, contrasting steels, and etching.

Happy reading.

Paracelsus
 
Best description that I've seen on how those cool, basic patterns (ladder, twist, circles/pool & eye, X's, O's, multi bar composites) are done is in Jim Hrisoulas' 1994 book called "The Pattern Welded Blade ... Artistry in Iron". He shows you basic sketches of how he assembles the billets. Jim's stuff is all good basic reading on how stuff is forged and what various properties the forged steels have to offer.

For more general forging info, see also his 1991 book "The Master Bladesmith" rather than his earlier, less thorough 1987 "Complete Bladesmith". All are published by Paladin Press:
http://www.paladinpress.com/

There was an article in one of the recent knife mags also (past couple of months? Blade Mag?) that I thought was a good intro... covered how the Montana Mafia, and guys like Knickmeyer, Schwarzer, etc... are using powdered metals and hydraulic presses to do the fancy figures and letters in mosaic damascus. I'd have to go dig to find the issue. Anybody?

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If you just gotta have more, find the 10th Annual "Knives '90" book from a used book seller, the series published by Ken Warner until this year.

The book contains a fascinating, to me anyway, article by Warner on a very talented bladesmith named Scott Lankton. Scott was able to design and fabricate what is likely a very good replica of the legendary "Sutton Hoo" sword, found in an 80 foot long Saxon ship that was buried at a site at Sutton Hoo dated to be several hundred years prior to the Vikings. Sutton Hoo is in "Suffolk, near Woodbridge" in the UK.


http://www.wuffings.co.uk/MySHPages/SHTreasure/SHSword.htm
http://www.capital.net/~mooneye/medieval/lankton.html
http://www.csis.pace.edu/grendel/projs4a/sutton.htm

As you can see from the pics, Scott did a really cool, very complex 4 bar composite blade that has alternating sections of heavily twisted and then straight patterns... one side sort of mirrored from the other side of the sword. Can't explain. Pics show exactly how he built up the composite bars, with "in process" shots of the various stages of the project.

Exceedingly difficult project, it ended up in the British Museum.

[This message has been edited by rdangerer (edited 05-16-2001).]

[This message has been edited by rdangerer (edited 05-16-2001).]
 
the article on the montana mafia was in the june 2001 issue of Knives Illustrated.

Pete

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Pete Jenkins
Lefties unite!
 
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