First pattern welded billet completed!

Keep us posted, it's looking great. Making just plain hunters and users is quickly loosing appeal. Need to finish my gas forge, then figure plans for a hammer, and then I need to make.........
 
deker...Here is the 4 bar composite twist knife I promised a picture of. I have the mokume bolster attached. I'm planning on using stabilize birds eye maple for the handle slap to match the mokume. Sorry about the quality of my pictures.
 
scottickes said:
deker...Here is the 4 bar composite twist knife I promised a picture of. I have the mokume bolster attached. I'm planning on using stabilize birds eye maple for the handle slap to match the mokume. Sorry about the quality of my pictures.
Click to expand...

That looks pretty cool! I like the shape of it as well. I bet that's going to be really comfortable in the hand.

After the knife show yesterday I went into the shop for a few hours and took billet #2 from 14 layers to 56, twisted it and drew it back flat. I'm going to even it up, cut it in 3 and restack it next go-round with the center piece of the stack "backwards" from the rest and draw it out sideways to get more of the 3-bar action in the pattern.

I've got to find a way to properly note what I'm doing. I'll definitely be stopping to get a good notebook today so that I can keep track of each billet that I do and how I do it. I realized yesterday after seeing a piece from J. Neilson that looked like a medium layer count twist layered in a low # of layers with something else that I might re-use part of a billet in another billet. In that case, it would be good to know what went into each piece of the stack. That, and getting to see some of Robert Eggerling's work in person made me realize just how complex pattern welding can get. Best to keep notes from the beginning :)

-d
 
get a dry marker board and put it near the power hammer so you can just quick jot down what you ahve done
then put it in your log book when you have more time /your thinking about it
 
butcher_block said:
get a dry marker board and put it near the power hammer so you can just quick jot down what you ahve done
then put it in your log book when you have more time /your thinking about it
Click to expand...

The dry-erase board is already in the shop :) and pieces of "finished" material are currently laying on their section of the board. The idea for the "log book" though is to make sure that I don't lose info gained in the long run. While it's on the whiteboard I can track it as a current project, but when I go back some time later and want to reproduce it, I need to have more permanent notes. Also, if I sequentially number each billet I ever produce, I have a way to label them so I know what's what around the shop, and I'll know how much I've done down the road. Once I'm old and crotchety, and some young whippersnapper is trying to tell me a thing or two I'll be able to say stuff like "Tell that to the 1500 billets of damascus I made that way", or "I've invented more patterns than you have IQ points Einstien", or "Nurse! Time for my sponge bath!" :D

On a serious note though, how do folks who do a lot of pattern welding take notes on what they did? I can see a very complex shorthand evolving already to describe numbers of layers, how many twists, directions of drawing, directions of pieces placed in a re-stack, etc.

-d
 
deker,
I'm not sure my post made it in. I typed it all up, but when I went to the list of threads, it didn't show as being posted. So I repeat it.

You said you were going to stack the center piece of the next stack backwards. If you do this, the twists will still all run the say direction. It will have a similar effect to just forging a twisted bar flatter and wider, especially if all the twisted lines happen to line up.

If you twist the center one the opposite direction as the other two, then you'll get a zigzaggy (<<<is this a real word?) effect. I even did I light etch prior to final cleanup before welding my four bars together. This allowed me to see the pattern and offset my bars slightly to get all of the twisted lines from one bar to line up with the twisted lines from adjacent bars.

By the way, your forged knife is awesome. Very nice indeed! Post more pictures when you get the three bar twist done.
 
scottickes said:
deker,
I'm not sure my post made it in. I typed it all up, but when I went to the list of threads, it didn't show as being posted. So I repeat it.

You said you were going to stack the center piece of the next stack backwards. If you do this, the twists will still all run the say direction. It will have a similar effect to just forging a twisted bar flatter and wider, especially if all the twisted lines happen to line up.
Click to expand...

I was thinking about this on the drive into work and was realizing it probably wouldn't do what I wanted, but I hadn't figured out how it WOULD turn out yet...thanks :)

I'm actually thinking now about drawing it into 4 seperate 1/2" square or so pieces and welding them up as a bundle of 4 pieces and then folding some more and twisting again. I'm going to be SERIOUSLY hooked on forging pattern welded stuff. There's just an endless number of possibilities and I have to try them all! :D

scottickes said:
If you twist the center one the opposite direction as the other two, then you'll get a zigzaggy (<<<is this a real word?) effect. I even did I light etch prior to final cleanup before welding my four bars together. This allowed me to see the pattern and offset my bars slightly to get all of the twisted lines from one bar to line up with the twisted lines from adjacent bars.
Click to expand...

I'm having trouble picturing this...I may have to buy some clay and a rolling pin at lunch to play with tonight...

scottickes said:
By the way, your forged knife is awesome. Very nice indeed! Post more pictures when you get the three bar twist done.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the complement. I'm pretty happy with it. I do wish I hadn't rushed it QUITE so much. I really should forge closer to complete than I did with this one. I left it pretty thick and just ground out the hammer marks I left. The resultant blade is just about the right thickness at ~1/8" thick though, so it worked out, I'm just a little annoyed with myself for rushing the process. The other thing I'd change is that I would have cut off the end 1" or so of the bar before forging the blade out so that the pattern that's in the middle would be on the blade rather than covered by the scales. Live-n-learn I guess! I will be proud of it when it's done though since it's my first pattern-welded piece. Now I just need to grind the bevels. I've never done that from flat stock before! :eek: Hopefully not having to compensate for the slight unevenness of my forged bevels will save me some work :D

-d
 
I finally finished it. Knife specs. are:
Total length...7 3/4"
Blade length...3 3/4"
Blade steel...1084/15N20, four bar composite twist...120 layers
Raindrop mokume bolster
Mosaic pins and thong hole
Stabilized Birds Eye Maple handle
Edge quenched...59 Rc
Soft draw back, to about 53 RC
Full tang....my first tapered tang...

Tell me what you think of it...

My camera skills need to improve and I need a light box...
 
Scott, that knife is almost as hot as my WIFE!! VERY Nice knife. Had you considered using mosaic pins with some copper in em to kinda go along with the mokume?
 
I keep the edge in a large tank of water, and wave a flame over the back spine. The water keeps the edge from losing it's temper or hardness. Also, some steels change color beginning at about 375 degrees F. This one went from straw at about 450 to the orangeish color at about 475 degrees F. I have a laser temperature gun that my wife keeps on the knife, as I heat it. Let's me know what temp. I'm at, since I can't watch the color and the gun at the same time.
 
Good looking knife. I've been scared of heat coloring damascus as most of mine is tempered in the 350-400 deg. range. I've found Super blue to work pretty well if you follow the directions and crose your fingers and point the blade north and dance a little jig.:D
 
Ohhhhhhhh...something new to me....teach me...what is Super Blue? Are you talking about some kind of cold or hot gun bluing?
 
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