Got one more :) Making of a Damascus San-Mai Knife

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I promise this will be the last pictorial for the next couple of weeks .

Last weekend I got a visit from a friend who fixed the electronics on my surface grinder, as I know absolutely nothing at all about electrics and wiring stuff.

Since I just recently fixed the dies on my airhammer we decided to do a quick forging session. In the end it lastet about 7 hours . One of my results was the following San Mai Damascus, part of which I turned into a knife this friday.

The following is a pictorial that loosely follows the process of making the knife.

Here you can see the initial billet consisting of three layers of 1.2510/O-2 (5 mm) and 2 layers of 1.2767 (don't know the US equivalent but it's a steel with quite a bit of Nickel in it) (4 mm).

Me welding and drawing out the billet under the power hammer.

I folded the billet 3 times leaving me with a theoretical layer count of 40. Here you can see it soaking away after a fold.

After finishing the folding I drew the billet out one more time and cut in half. I made a new billet by puting the two damascus pieces on the outside of two 4mm layers of O-2. Got no pics of that, sorry.

Again the billet was welded under the powerhammer. I cut of one half for later use and forged down the rest to about 6 mm.

 

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I originally wanted to turn this piece into a folder blade, but then felt a strong urge to make a fixed blade while doodling around during a university lecture (new semester started just this week ).

So I turned this piece of flat steel into a knife, only by means of stockremoval. I hope you guys can forgive me for that. My forging to shape skills are still being developed .

Using an angle grinder to get the rough form.

Here you can see the middle layer pretty good, as well as the fact that the hammer tends move the outer layers quite a bit more on the edges of the billet.

Putting it on the newly repaired surface grinder and marking the edge of the blade.

And yes I know the surface quality sucks. That was the last piece of steel I surface ground until I get a new diamond dresser for the grinding wheel .

Free hand grinding in the bevels, alternating sides while working my up to the back.

 

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That's what the blade looked like after a very quick and mild etch, right before heat treatment.

At this point I also decided not to put any scales on it. I kind of like the patterns on the handle and thought it would be a shame to cover them up with wood. So I just phased the edges of the handle.

And at 5,5 mm the handle is still thick enough to give a nice and comfortably solid feel. Now that it's finished it sits really well in my hand and combined with the blade shape makes it a delight to use for fine work.

No pics of HT as I had no one around to take them, but then again the process isn't that spectacular.

That's what the blade looked like after the two tempering cycles with a freshly reground blade.

I finished grinding the blade to a 240 grit. The rest of the grit steps up to 600 I do by hand these days. You can also see the phases I ground on the handle.

Since I ran out of time but wanted to see what the blade would like etched, I already did a quick etch after this stage.

And I really like what came out of the ferric chloride. I'm going to finish sanding the blade up to a 600 grit again and do a deeper etch, but basically that's what it's going to look like. Obviously the lighter stripes in the middle of the handle won't be there as well when it's finished. They were a result of the hanger I used, since I didn't do it properly.

Like I said it's a pleasure to hold and cut with and I also like the blade shape a lot. Going to experiment with that shape on the next few knives. Maybe something along the lines of a big honkin' bowie .

I hope you enjoyed the little pictorial as much as I did makng the knife.

Looking forward to your comments and questions .

Best regards

Marcus

 

[galadduin]

Thats cool, Thanks for sharing... The shape is just perfect... I knew I should get a power hammer but after seeing your work, I think I'll sell the car

 

[Kim Lau]

I love it! It would make a great utility knife.