- Joined
- Mar 27, 2016
- Messages
- 13
Hi everyone,
Last fall I got a wild hair that i wanted to learn blacksmithing and knife making so i went about building a propane forge out of an old air compressor and turned an old press into a forge press as my goal was to make damascus. Anyway, I've made 7 knives now and the last one was my very first damascus blade. I started out with 2 large knives made from horse rasps and 3 smaller ones made from metal files and one from a railroad spike. In any event here is where the questions start. The only blade that didn't warp during the quench was the railroad spike. All of the other blades have warped. The first 3 aside from the spike i was able to tweak right out of the oil with good results but that's where the wheels fell off of the operation. I made a small hunter out of a file and out of the quench there was a warp towards the tip. When i went to straighten it the tip broke off. I did regrind that blade and salvage it but the next one wasnt so lucky. It was a decent sized hunter made from a large metal file. Out if the quench it had a warp at about the middle of the blade. When i tried straightening it it snapped in the middle. I had about the same luck with my damascus blade except i was doing a hidden tang and the tang broke off. Since that was a damascus blade that i had a lot of time into i tig welded the tang back on and ground the tang further up the blade to hide the weld completely and finished the knife out. Now i have looked into my warping problem and have heard about 3 different theories. The first group say pull it out of the oil still hot, straighten, and go back in the oil. I obviously have had mixed results with this so ill move to the next method. The next group say run the blade through a tempering cycle then c-clamp it to a straight bar with some shims at the apex of the warp and run it through another tempering cycle. And the final group say just prevent it by stress relieving the blade multiple times and also stress relieve it after your initial grinding. Prevention sounds great but i hate to do my initial grinding and scale up the blade again. Ive read about several coating you can apply and also the foil to prevent scale but one guy will claim a certain coating works and the next will claim its crap. What do you guys recommend for my warpage problem and also for preventing scale? My final issue is a question for the damascus guys out there. This was my first billet so i was very concerned about getting good forge welds. Due to that fear i used the cut and stack method to increase layer count rather than the folding method. My only problem was every time i forged the bar out long and thin i would grind the surfaces smooth to get the best possible forge weld and by the time i hit 156 layers i was only working with probably 60% of the steel i started with. Do any of you use the fold method and if you do do you have trouble with inclusions and delaminations? Sorry for writing a book on my first post but any help you guys can offer would be greatly appreciated thank you.
Last fall I got a wild hair that i wanted to learn blacksmithing and knife making so i went about building a propane forge out of an old air compressor and turned an old press into a forge press as my goal was to make damascus. Anyway, I've made 7 knives now and the last one was my very first damascus blade. I started out with 2 large knives made from horse rasps and 3 smaller ones made from metal files and one from a railroad spike. In any event here is where the questions start. The only blade that didn't warp during the quench was the railroad spike. All of the other blades have warped. The first 3 aside from the spike i was able to tweak right out of the oil with good results but that's where the wheels fell off of the operation. I made a small hunter out of a file and out of the quench there was a warp towards the tip. When i went to straighten it the tip broke off. I did regrind that blade and salvage it but the next one wasnt so lucky. It was a decent sized hunter made from a large metal file. Out if the quench it had a warp at about the middle of the blade. When i tried straightening it it snapped in the middle. I had about the same luck with my damascus blade except i was doing a hidden tang and the tang broke off. Since that was a damascus blade that i had a lot of time into i tig welded the tang back on and ground the tang further up the blade to hide the weld completely and finished the knife out. Now i have looked into my warping problem and have heard about 3 different theories. The first group say pull it out of the oil still hot, straighten, and go back in the oil. I obviously have had mixed results with this so ill move to the next method. The next group say run the blade through a tempering cycle then c-clamp it to a straight bar with some shims at the apex of the warp and run it through another tempering cycle. And the final group say just prevent it by stress relieving the blade multiple times and also stress relieve it after your initial grinding. Prevention sounds great but i hate to do my initial grinding and scale up the blade again. Ive read about several coating you can apply and also the foil to prevent scale but one guy will claim a certain coating works and the next will claim its crap. What do you guys recommend for my warpage problem and also for preventing scale? My final issue is a question for the damascus guys out there. This was my first billet so i was very concerned about getting good forge welds. Due to that fear i used the cut and stack method to increase layer count rather than the folding method. My only problem was every time i forged the bar out long and thin i would grind the surfaces smooth to get the best possible forge weld and by the time i hit 156 layers i was only working with probably 60% of the steel i started with. Do any of you use the fold method and if you do do you have trouble with inclusions and delaminations? Sorry for writing a book on my first post but any help you guys can offer would be greatly appreciated thank you.
