First Feather Pattern

Steven Kelly said:
Nice job Chuck!!!

I too have screwed that pattern up!!
Couldn't get it to flux weld.
I guess I wasn't smart enough to do a dry weld on it!!
Did you get shrink cracks with the tig?? I have tried tig and have gotten cracks every time. So, I have gone to mig and just deal with the down side of grinding out the wire...

Steve
Click to expand...

I just mig the seam and after the initial forge weld I grind off the weld flush while its still hot. Helps save precious material that way.
The dry method is the best on that center seam. I have been successful with flux but there is ghost line that shows for some reason. The dry method leaves a perfect weld and is nearly impossible to see the seam.
 
Love the pattern... I must say that the "feather" pattern is probably my favorite, something organic about it compared to the other mosaic styles.

Bruce, your feather looks a lot like drawings of the North wind.... maybe a mosaic bolster/guard with like a cloud with a face blowing the wind into the blade?
 
A C Richards said:
You know this is how I got hooked. Forge welded my first piece and that was all she wrote. If it were not for Damascus I probably would be a grinder.... By the way your welcome
Click to expand...

Yep. I get it now. Clear as day. :D

There was a link to Ray Rogers' mini forge in another thread. It got me thinking about working on small damascus knives at least. No way I can get all the equipment together you guys use, but I can do it on a smaller scale if that would work.

Does anyone make "miniature" damascus? I'm going to go read that feather damascus process now!
 
Very nice Chuck! :D :thumbup:

I have been messing with feathers for as long as I've been making damascus... I fell in love with the pattern after seeing a Don Fogg, Jim Kelso collaboration with a feather. Don forged a JELLY ROLL feather and then forge welded wrought iron to the other side of the blade.

It was quite brilliant... just the same as most everything Don and Jim make. :thumbup:

I screwed up a LOT of attemps :) :grumpy:

Harvey Dean and Steve Dunn have certainly brought the pattern to a huge audience, and their version done with W's like this one that Chuck did are beautiful.

I'm still a bit partial to the jelly-roll since I saw it first. You know... like depending on if you saw MASH the movie first, or the TV series, usually determines which version you like better ;) :D

Thanks for sharing Chuck!
 
I appreciate the link guys. This one is on my list, for sure.
Thanks for the inspirational post AC.:thumbup:

Fred
 
This pic is just small/big enough to frustrate me, but it's the knife I was talking about. Pic borrowed from Jim Kelso's website :) It was featured on the cover of Knives Illustrated some years back, and it is a fantastic piece. :cool:

jk44w.jpg
 
That was a spectacular piece. I was wondering what the difference was on each side. I wonder how it was to HT. To do my center cut I started it with a dull ax then I used a wide piece of 1/4" 304 SS with a radius ground on the edge. It took 3 heats to get it through but it turned out pretty good. Think I may try a piece of 3/8th next time. I fell inlove with the pattern when I saw it also. I have tried what I thought was the way it was done but I was way out. This was my first attempt with the right instructions. I did not get any shrink cracking with my tig welding. You might try doing it hot, 300+. Thanks all. this is the most response I have ever had from a post. COOL
 
How did you push it through Chuck? Press, Beaudry, by hand?

BTW- I forgot to mention, this is a great billet whether first or fiftieth try... great stuff! :)
 
Hi Chuck,

Out-a-site man, absolutely out-a-site! Of course, I'm still working on trying to get one solid piece of steel knocked up into a blade, never mind all that amazingly fancy footwork! I read through the link you posted to a tutorial for this bugga, but I couldn't make heads nor tails out of it. Maybe I'll make more sense out of the one to Don Fogg's. One can always hope I suppose. Thanks for posting.

All the best, Phil
 
Nick, Used my little ol press. The Beaudry is not quite big enough and my arm would have given out.

Phil, Thanks man. Hang in there you will bang out one some day.
 
just though I would post a picture of my press. The thing is too tall to fit in the garage/shop. Will have to build a new one someday. But this one works soooo good i hate to play with success.
 

Attachments

  • attu knife project 071.jpg
    attu knife project 071.jpg
    77.9 KB · Views: 83
Looks good Chuck.
Your center line stayed pretty straight. It's a tough one.

Like yours too Bruce. Never seen it used with a long swedge before.
 
That is looking good Chuck. I just did my first feather pattern last weekend. I got too high of a layer count so too fine of a pattern. The pursuit is half the fun though. Looking forward to pics of the finished knife.

Dave, thinking of turning to the dark side :)

Brian
 
A C Richards said:
just though I would post a picture of my press. The thing is too tall to fit in the garage/shop. Will have to build a new one someday. But this one works soooo good i hate to play with success.
Click to expand...

My gosh Chuck that press makes a 20 pound billet look small! Awesome press!
 
BrianThie said:
Dave, thinking of turning to the dark side :)

Brian
Click to expand...

:D Yeah man - scary ain't it? :D

Frankly, this is about all I've been able to think about this weekend. I'm taking the first week in December off work and I think I'll try my hand at welding some steel in some manner. At least, the knife I make that week is going to be forged. It's just gonna have to be small, because I only have small tools for this.
 
Chuck

I have been thinking about this some more and have a couple of questions for you. First off, what was the orginal size of your billet?

When I attempted to do a feather, when I pressed the cutter through, it stretched and thinned the billet where it entered so when the pieces were put back together, I had a V on that end when looking at it from the side. How did you deal with this V?

After you did your initial weld. you did 4-5 welds so your layer count was 5, 25, 100, 400. Is this correct?

Thanks
Brian
 
Bruce, I like my press. I kind of fell into it and it works great. Just so big it is hard to do any modifications etc.

Dave, You will be absolutely hooked once you etch your first piece. Making a pattern the way it is supposed to look is an adrenalin rush to me. But then I can't bungee jump or ride roller coasters anymore.

Brian. My orig billet was 1.5 wide x 4 tall x 11.5 long. I used 1/4" 1084 and doubled .062 15N20. I forged the billet into the standard W pattern. Folds were done 5 stack. I cut the stack into 5 sections and re-welded. I did this 4 times so 5-25-125-650. When cutting for the feather I pushed through to within .25 of the bottom of the billet. I still had a lot of V left so for the smaller knife I cut a bit off the end to reduce the V effect. After the cut I then essentially cut slices off the loaf, tig welded the seam and dry welded the piece back together. Each piece would make from 1-3 knives depending on the thickness of the slice. i did draw out the final slices quite a bit. The small billet in the photo made one knife, the one shown, which has a 4.5" blade. The larger billet was over 12" long 1.24 wide x .25 thick. Since the billet is being drawn so much the layers do not seem as compact. now that I am totally confused myself I hope it is clearer than mud to you all.
 
That turned out Great Chuck. My first and only one looked like sh$t. I went too fine with the "w"s and coudnt get the hot cut back together good. I think I'm going to try and hot cut all the way through the next one so its easier to clean up then tig up like you did. Thanks for the tips.

Shawn
 
Chuck

Thanks for the info. It helps a bunch!! My billet was much smaller and the material thinner. Even though I kept the layer count lower, it was still too fine.

Now I just have to figure out how to make what I have work. :)

One more question please..... What was the approximate size of your billet before you split it for the feather effect?

Thank you again
Brian
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top