Identifying Damascus blanks steel

S

SS369

Joined
Nov 29, 2015
Messages
224
Good day All.

Scored some Damascus steel blanks at this year's Blade Show. What a wonderfully overwhelming event again.
Went on a spree to help some economies and purchased quite a bit of materials and supply goods.

I bought two small-ish Damascus slabs, roughly 1.5 inches by 8 inches, from two separate sellers. When I got home I went to looking at all the goodies and realized that I don't have a clue as to the composition of the metals used in those blanks.
Any way to identify them, or is there a way to get them heat treated without that info and have the final products as go0d as possible.
Feel kind of lame not getting the info or remembering where/who I purchased from, but, I had such a good time.

Thanks in advance.

SS
 
Could one of the sellers been Alabama Damascus? They usually have a pretty large present at Blade.
 
I feel confident one of them was Alabama Damascus, and yes it was a large exhibit, but which blank is theirs, I don't know.
 
Most of Alabama's billets are in the 3"x15" range. They do have ht instructions on theur website.
 
As I remember their booth, they had a wide assortment of sizes from very small to quite large. Even had profiles blanks and the cut out waste. I'll have to inquire from them directly I suppose.
But then there is the other blank from another seller.
 
The piece I suspect is from them, the larger of the two, I will use their HT info.
The other piece, I think I have a piece of a memory that it is (maybe) of stainless composition. Any thoughts of identifying?

Next year I'll have to do better.
 
Should be easy to identify whether one contains stainless by etching in ferric chloride.
 
Ferric chloride is for carbon steel and muriatic acid is for stainless. Be carful with muriatic acid its nasty stuff.
 
Thanks for that. I have used Muriatic acid for masonry clean up and it is nasty.

So, FC won't etch stainless and Muriatic won't etch carbon ?
I just want clarity so I can use either or both for identifying purpose.
 
Ferric chloride will etch both carbon & stainless damascus. A simple way to test if it is stainless is cold gun bluing like Birchwood Casey, the cold gun blue will color carbon but will not color stainless.

Perhaps a picture would help in identifying.
 
jdm61 said:
But those are two completely different heat treatments.........
Click to expand...


I fail to see how they are completely different:
1475-1500 range, soak for 10 minutes, quench in oil.
The only major difference would be a pre-heat with O-1, which would not be needed for damascus.
 
a>

Hopefully this picture shows well enough.
http://i1262.photobucket.com/albums/ii602/SS369369/IMG_4267_zpskylhp4dw.jpg
IMG_4267_zpskylhp4dw.jpg
 
The top one is Alabama damascus (wave pattern), heat treat info available on there site. The bottom one I am not sure, Markus Balbach makes a pattern similar but it does not look quite the same.
 
Thanks for the name Alan. I may have seen his booth Gastonglock 2017.
Also was a company that had some similar named Zladinox.
It does resemble a pyramid pattern though.
I just have a feeling that it is stainless for some reason, or piece of memory..
 
After numerous emails to likely suppliers I've not had any good luck.
Anyone have a solution to getting this piece identified well enough to heat treat?

SS
 
What is it that you need to know ? If you are wondering if it is stainless look back at post 14
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top