first time damascus

Q

queball

Joined
Jul 8, 2015
Messages
5
Hello This is my first time on this form so I hope this is in the right place

I have started makeing damascus for a chefs knife but the center layer didn't weld at all.
I'm using a charcole forge and I'm placing my steel in the upper 1/3 of my fire to maintain a reducing atmosphere
I'm using the flux free method developed by Bob Kramer and JD Smith. I herd that JD Smith has reported a 100% success rate with this method. The welds that did hold are perfect it was only this one layer in the center.
I have broke the welds and I'm going to clean everything up before trying again
I'm just looking for a reason as to why only the center weld failed. I rotate the billet to maintain a consultant heat.and I wait for a white glow before I attempt the weld
 
The center is the last part of the billet that reaches welding temperature. The outside can get well into the sparking range when the center is just getting up to wieldable.

Heat the billet as evenly as possible and soak for long enough to assure even and complete heat through the center. This is the big disadvantage of charcoal over gas in making damascus. gas is far easier in my opinion.
 
Thanks for the quick response I'll be sure to let my billet soak a little longer. As for a gas forge. It would be nice but I'm straped for cash to build it and I'm working towards a ht oven
 
A basic vertical welding forge for making damascus can be built for as little as $50. $100 will do it easily. The same forge can be used to forge knives and swords in.

A single billet of damascus can cost you $50 in material, and be worth several hundred dollars in value when finished.

I always say, "Put your money where it will make you money."
 
Ok I'll take what ever I make off the next couple knives and invest in a propane forge
Any recomended designs. That are cheep efective safe and compact
I know I need the ht oven to get concistancy with triple edge quench on 52100 kitchen sets
I'm on the college kid romman nudles for dinner and skip lunch budget so I have to emphasize cheep
 
"....consistency with triple edge quench on 52100 kitchen sets..."

These words don't go together. Do some reading and research and you will see that an edge quench....much less a triple one, is not the path to consistent or high quality results.
A fully hardened martensitic blade with proper temper will always be a far better kitchen blade. Doing that right is why you need a HT oven. Kitchen knife people are fanatically insistent on evenly hard edges. If you edge quench, you can't get that.


A 12-16" round vertical welding forge build is really simple. Many like to make the forge shell oval. All sorts of things can make such a shell.
It is basically a vertical cylinder about 14-20" tall with a 4X4" port on opposite sides at the top. The cylinder is lined with 2" of Kao-wool, coated with satanite/ITC-100. The bottom is usually separate/removable and filled with a couple inches of kitty litter to catch the flux. The top just sits on the forge. A single blown 1" to 1.5" burner runs it. Burner is placed about 4" up from the floor at an upward angled tangent/chord as normal.

This is the BF search engine. Use it to look up the many vertical and regular forge build threads.
https://cse.google.com/cse/publicurl?cx=012217165931761871935:iqyc7cbzhci

The stickys have some info, too.
 
Thank you for your help and insight., I'll be sure to do some more research and scrounge up some parts for a propane forge asap
 
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