- Joined
- Mar 26, 2004
- Messages
- 1,617
Hey folks,
I'm almost done remodeling my shop, so I'm taking 15 days off that tedious work to keep making new knives and fullfill some orders. I'll be posting more finished knives and process pictures soon!
I've been asked how I made a mokume using iron, steel and copper, so here it is!
One clarification before I start, though. I'm referring to 1010 as "iron" because of its low content of Carbon. The proper term for it in English would be Low-Carbon Steel.
If I'm mistaking terms here, please a fellow knifemaker correct me
The concept between this is to use steels with different Carbon content, as that will make the difference in the final colors after etching, just as on a regular damascus blade.
The first pictures are a recreation. I just took some pics to clarify this process, as I didn't take any of those stages when I was really making it.
First I bend a 0.8mm thickness piece of steel into a "U" shape. If you use a galvanized or stainless steel plate you can remove the resulting mokume piece more easily. I just use a regular steel and then grind it off.
Then I fill that space with 0.3mm thickness layers of 1010 and 1085, alternating them. Not too tight as I need space for the copper to get in between.
After that, I place a lot of borax on top of the layers and place some pieces of copper there. (Remember this is a recreation, so I didn't actually place borax there for the picture)
Then I take that to the oven at 1200C and when I see the copper gets into liquid state and flows in the spaces between the steel layers, I add more copper pieces to ensure this melted metal fills in all the free spaces between the 1010 and 1085 layers.
After I've attained that, I took it off the oven and press it on the hidraulic press.
(When you rotate the U shaped piece with the melted copper between the steel layers you won't spill it all as it's not that much liquid and due to superficial tension it tends to remain there)
When pressed, some copper will drip away, but it's not much.
This is a piece of the resulting ingot, after pressing it and cut to aprox desired size.
Now this is how it looks after I take that piece and grind some section and etch it like regular damascus to show the contrast generated by the different materials.
This is a final piece of this mokume, ready to be used for whatever piece you want to make out of it.
And this beautiful guard is what knifemaker and friend Ruben Calo made out of it!
I hope this helps, any further questions, please don't hessitate making them!
Regards,
Ariel
I'm almost done remodeling my shop, so I'm taking 15 days off that tedious work to keep making new knives and fullfill some orders. I'll be posting more finished knives and process pictures soon!
I've been asked how I made a mokume using iron, steel and copper, so here it is!
One clarification before I start, though. I'm referring to 1010 as "iron" because of its low content of Carbon. The proper term for it in English would be Low-Carbon Steel.
If I'm mistaking terms here, please a fellow knifemaker correct me
The concept between this is to use steels with different Carbon content, as that will make the difference in the final colors after etching, just as on a regular damascus blade.
The first pictures are a recreation. I just took some pics to clarify this process, as I didn't take any of those stages when I was really making it.
First I bend a 0.8mm thickness piece of steel into a "U" shape. If you use a galvanized or stainless steel plate you can remove the resulting mokume piece more easily. I just use a regular steel and then grind it off.
Then I fill that space with 0.3mm thickness layers of 1010 and 1085, alternating them. Not too tight as I need space for the copper to get in between.
After that, I place a lot of borax on top of the layers and place some pieces of copper there. (Remember this is a recreation, so I didn't actually place borax there for the picture)
Then I take that to the oven at 1200C and when I see the copper gets into liquid state and flows in the spaces between the steel layers, I add more copper pieces to ensure this melted metal fills in all the free spaces between the 1010 and 1085 layers.
After I've attained that, I took it off the oven and press it on the hidraulic press.
(When you rotate the U shaped piece with the melted copper between the steel layers you won't spill it all as it's not that much liquid and due to superficial tension it tends to remain there)
When pressed, some copper will drip away, but it's not much.
This is a piece of the resulting ingot, after pressing it and cut to aprox desired size.
Now this is how it looks after I take that piece and grind some section and etch it like regular damascus to show the contrast generated by the different materials.
This is a final piece of this mokume, ready to be used for whatever piece you want to make out of it.
And this beautiful guard is what knifemaker and friend Ruben Calo made out of it!
I hope this helps, any further questions, please don't hessitate making them!
Regards,
Ariel
