Help with first try at Damascus

W

WHS III

Joined
Aug 30, 2013
Messages
6
Need help with first try at Damascus.. Started with 9 layers of 1084 and 15n20. .125" x 1.25". Hand hammered. Welded up just fine and drew it out to 11.5". While grinding off the scale and deep hammer marks I noticed a couple of hair line cracks on the face of the billet. I kept grinding trying to get to the bottom of it and can't seem to get them out. This is the first drawing out, it has not been folded or stacked. Any idea what coused this? Is it fatal to the billet? Should I just keep grinding and try to get to the bottom of it? Ignore it and carry on? I'll eventually grind through the top layer of 1084 trying to get it out. Any help would be appreciated. You can see the hair line "crack" near the right edge.

Bill


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Hard to tell from that photo. Can the "hairline crack" be opened with a knife blade tip? Does it look like a crack or just a fine line when looked at under magnification?

It could be incomplete welds. You can go back and try to re-weld it, but if they are bad, it may never close solidly. Such non-welded places are fatal flaws. I would still give it try for the welding practice.

Personally, I would grab some more steel and do a second billet. Work the welds from end to end and repeat until the billet is solid. Make sure you are at full welding heat, and quit when it drops below 2000F. I make three full sets of passes once I am sure it is welded. It won't hurt anything, but if there is one de-lam in the billet, the final bar may be useless. Even worse, you may think all is good after folding, and when grinding or doing HT have a de-lam open up and make you say bad words.
 
Thanks for the reply Stacy. The crack is way too small to stick a knife blade into. Looking at it under magnification, it looks like near the edges I have ground through the top layer of 1084 and I am seeing a bad weld to the 15n20. Oh well, that was a lot of work to come out with a bad billet. I thought It had welded up fine. I had both burners running full blast and let it soak untill I thought it was at welding heat.
 
Welding is a learning process. It has failures. Few first billets are a success. Some things that will help assure success:

Make sure you weld from the center out toward the edges.
Go down the billet from the handle toward the end.
Work it hot. The flux should be running like melted butter, and a few sparks coming off the billet are good for the first passes. A great trick to tell if the billet is ready to weld is to stick a coat hanger wire in the forge and poke it on the billet. If it sticks, the billet is ready to weld.
Make sure the entire billet is at heat. Edges will heat up faster than the middle.
Weld and reweld. Several passes are necessary to assure the initial weld is solid. You can hear the difference in the hammer sound as it solidifies. Also, the edge should show no strips or lines when fully welded.
Use the right hammer. A very slightly domed face hammer is vest for welding. It will deliver a blow that welds with the most force in the middle of the blow. Overlap blows as you "walk the weld".
Quit when the billet drops below welding heat. By 2000F, the billet is getting too cool to weld. Brush it odd, give it a sprinkle of flux, and stick it back in for another heat. Hammering down into the red zone will only make the weld harder to get.
 
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