Newbie: my eight year old son wants to make damascus.

M

MendoMary

Joined
Mar 27, 2015
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I have an eight year old boy who wants to make a damascus billet. I have 1084 stock 48" x 1 1/2 x 1/4" thickness

I was just given a piece of 15N20 .049 x 1 1/2 x 12"

Is the thickness of the 15N20 too thin to use it with the 1084?

Should I just buy a thinner metal for the 15N20? Or a thicker metal for the 1084.

My boy is tiny and it is hard for him to swing a large hammer.

I am open to buying completely different metal for him if it will make things easier. 😃
I asked him if I could buy a piece of damascus already made and he said no.
How many pieces should I cut and stack? Does anyone want to sell me a tiny stack of pieces already cut?

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1429137995.184899.jpg
 
Tell your son he needs to grow up a bit , first.
IMHO your son needs a few more years of watching and the basics.
Damascus is not the basics.
Good Luck,
Ome
 
So if I was going to make this damascus billet and have him assist me...... What should I get? 😀
 
That combination is excellent. The challenge is to master the technique of hammering and folding --that takes time. I would limit the number of folds and cut off some end material and take it apart to show unwelded areas etc.
 
So it is ok to go ahead and combine the thicker 1084 with the thinner 15N20? How long should I cut the lengths? How many pieces should I stack? Thanks for any help!
 
there are ALOT of risks in smelting steels together, not the least of which are working with a very hot furnace, very hot metal, wielding a heavy hammer, etc. letting an 8 y.o. boy do this - even mentored by 'experts' at a local art center - is pretty risky...

if he were my son, i'd first insist he OBSERVE someone else do it for at least 100 hours, and ask alot of questions, and take notes. why take notes at 8? because it will help you remember the details of what you are seeing. i'd also start him on making a simple 1-steel knife, hammering it out of a heated steel rod, etc. have him start with the simplest tasks, learn the SAFETY standards, FEEL the physical challenges of the work, on a BASIC level, before trying to tackle damascus steel smelting and hammering...but that's just my opinion...in other words, grade school even before high school, and certainly before college or graduate school, so to speak...

by the way, there are DVD's on ebay about damascus making - and youtube videos too. i'd have him watch a number of those on a large screen, as well, expanded to fill the who screen...
 
Ok. I get it! We will stick with forging for now. We have gone crazy with safety stuff. In the blacksmithing room, he has shade 3 fog free goggles and shade 5, noise canceling headset, p100 masks. I built him a tiny outfit for mig welding. I found a welding cape on eBay new, and I am cutting it down and sewing it with nomex. I cut down a leather apron to fit him. I found him Kevlar arm covers and Kevlar gloves safe for blacksmithing. He is so cute, I will send pictures now. ImageUploadedByTapatalk1429154865.103629.jpgImageUploadedByTapatalk1429154923.635305.jpgImageUploadedByTapatalk1429154937.135426.jpg
He forged a nice little knife but I was helping him and I started talking and I left the knife in the forge too long. 😞 a bunch of carbon burned off. It has a sharp blade and we are saving it anyway. He stand next to me the whole time. He is never left alone.

One last question I had.
If you use a gas forge, and you need to see the colors of the metal. What glasses have the best protection from IR? I know the green shade 3 protects about you from IR about 60%. Are there any safe glasses that will give better IR and UV protection? He is shorter so I am worried about him glancing into the gas forge. I thought I read about a grey color lens or a rose colored lens? I am not sure. But I am nervous about the infrared giving him eye issues later in life. I can tell he is crazy about bladesmithing. His Shade 5 goggles are so dark.
 
IMHO Safety is the most important, especially for an 8 year old who is still growing b
Protect his eyes, as the forge seems to beckon is to look at it.
I like the Uvex S213 Horizon flip - up shade 5.0 lenses , hardcoat. They are dark but give good protection from IR LOOKING AT THE flame in the forge.
They are dark for a good reason, protection.
Protect his young eyes.
If he is welding, it is wise to wear safety glasses or fog free goggles under the welding helmet, as well as a Miller half face mask with the OVAL p-100's that fit better under most welding hoods or helmets.
Also, get some 8" diameter flex aluminum ( at Menards) and a 8" ventilator( Harbor freight) and one piece gets connected to a steel (not galvanized) hood with a 8" connection and some large hose clamps and the othe end goes into the exhaust side of the ventilator, and the secound piece of alum flex 8" duct gets connected to the other end of the ventilator which takes the smoke and gases out a window or half screen with 8" hole so bugs wont get thru.
The hood (home depot ) should be about 12-16" away from the arc.
Keep the windows and doors open and put a small fan in the window to bringin more fresh air. (Away from exhaust out window).
Don't forget a fire extinguisher, bucket of water and bucket of sand , just in case of fire.
This is of course only if he is welding indoors.
I am sure others who are far more experienced than myself, will chime in.
Good Luck, Your son does look bery cute, just keep him safe.
Ome108
 
Thank you One108! Good ideas. And for any other boys getting into this stuff, the smaller size miller 1/2 mask fits his face perfectly and does not fog up his glasses. I will get going on building the ventilator system for him. 😀
 
What an 8 year old says is his desire is not always his reality.


The appropriate and biggest question is:
"How much experience do you have at welding damascus?"

Welding damascus is a far cry different from tapping out a small knife. It requires high temperatures, control, serious arm and upper body strength, and absolute concentration on what you are doing,.....it also has many severe risks. Besides the obvious eye risk of looking in a forge at 2400°F temps ( welders glasses are not the same as forge glasses, BTW), there is the 2400F steel itself, and the 2400F flux that shoots out for 10-15 feet in all directions. The flux showers would be right at chest to face level for an 8 year old. It sticks to skin like napalm, and burns through clothes in a flash.

To be frank, an 8 year old should not be within 20 feet of forging damascus, even wearing all the protective gear you have for him.

You are both brand new to this, so enjoy the fun of making some knives together. Damascus will come in its own time. Get a few bars of Alabama damascus and have a good time forging basic knives. If the bug bites him, in a year or so you will be ready to work on some simple billets.

Not to say t hat your lad won't be the next Bruce Bump, but realize that this week it may be all about making damascus, and next month it will be all about dinosaurs. That is the nature of young boys.
 
I would try to reach out to Alec Steele. I believe he started out when he was your sons age and he is in his late teens or early twenties now. He is also in involved in a group called young smiths. He is pretty talented and could probably provide you with some tips and pointers that may help your son grow and get more out of the hobby. Good luck!
 
I think I will not let him weld indoors. He will learn to weld outdoors in the future. Thanks for the heads up about damascus flying and burning. We will buy a bar of damascus already made.

I read this from the link below.
Didymium safety glasses will not protect you from IR emitted during torch work with borosilicate (pyrex; scientific) glass and during kiln observation. For these and other situations involving IR, you should augment your didymium glasses with plastic green IR clip-on flip-ups.

http://blog.phillips-safety.com/didymium-safety-glasses/


Has anyone tried this? Does anyone know of didymium with good wrap around protection? Then I could clip on a shade 3? Or is there something new on the market that does both so I won't have to buy a clip on.
My concern is that people might be forge welding way off into the distance and I don't want him to accidentally glance at it.

The comment about how 8 year olds behave, caught me off guard! I forgot to tell you all that my kid doesn't play. He 3d prints little things and reads about physics, chemistry, pyrotechnics, and is learning to write software. We are getting him set up with solidworks soon. He has a Mac and I need to get him a PC for that program. In the mean time, he creates stuff in blender 3d. I am hoping he will get into solidworks and that will become his main interest. His main interest in pyrotechnics. Not good! I am not going to let him get into that field. With bladesmithing, I felt like I finally found something risky with fire but had a lot of rules he had to follow. I was hoping this would take over his other interests. The other day, he told me that I could scrape the white powdery color off the rabbit poop below the rabbit cage to make potassium nitrate. So you could see how excited I was about bladesmithing being risky and controlled at the same time. I don't want to stop him from learning all he wants to know because he doesn't realize how much stuff he is learning in the process of reading. When he was six , he liked studying infectious diseases. The other day I saw a picture of carbon chains in a book and he told me it was propane. Then I pointed to another and he said it was Butane. He was right. He is a handful. But very cute. Thanks for the help everyone!
 
Yes, didymium is not the preferred glasses for bladesmiths anymore. Most now use AUR 99 glasses from auralens.
http://auralens.net/metalworking-filters



Keep up the good work with your son.
He reminds me a bit of myself at that age. We didn't have fancy equipment, electronics, or computers, just books and hand tools. I read as many as ten books a day on every topic I could. Medical technical, science, etc. My grandfather was a physicist and he taught me whatever I was interested in. He taught me algebra at age 5. I went through the pyrotechnic period, too. In my day you could go to the drug store and buy all the ingredients right off the shelf...at age ten. I made black powder regularly,..... and exploding rockets. Suffice to say that I kept my mom going all the time. I came into blacksmithing/bladesmithing from a book I read at age ten. I built a forge from scrap stuff I scrounged around the neighborhood, and made knives and weapons for every kid on the block. A year later it was kayaks. I built them one after another for several years. Thank God I discovered girls in my mid teens or my Mom and Dad might not have survived.
 
Stacy: You do sound like my little boy!

I just ordered him the AUR 99 glasses from auralens. Thanks 😀
 
Since I think we will hear from you regularly, we will make you an official insider ;)

1234567890 is The "Count".
 
MendoMary said:
I think I will not let him weld indoors. He will learn to weld outdoors in the future. Thanks for the heads up about damascus flying and burning. We will buy a bar of damascus already made.

I read this from the link below.
Didymium safety glasses will not protect you from IR emitted during torch work with borosilicate (pyrex; scientific) glass and during kiln observation. For these and other situations involving IR, you should augment your didymium glasses with plastic green IR clip-on flip-ups.

http://blog.phillips-safety.com/didymium-safety-glasses/


Has anyone tried this? Does anyone know of didymium with good wrap around protection? Then I could clip on a shade 3? Or is there something new on the market that does both so I won't have to buy a clip on.
My concern is that people might be forge welding way off into the distance and I don't want him to accidentally glance at it.

The comment about how 8 year olds behave, caught me off guard! I forgot to tell you all that my kid doesn't play. He 3d prints little things and reads about physics, chemistry, pyrotechnics, and is learning to write software. We are getting him set up with solidworks soon. He has a Mac and I need to get him a PC for that program. In the mean time, he creates stuff in blender 3d. I am hoping he will get into solidworks and that will become his main interest. His main interest in pyrotechnics. Not good! I am not going to let him get into that field. With bladesmithing, I felt like I finally found something risky with fire but had a lot of rules he had to follow. I was hoping this would take over his other interests. The other day, he told me that I could scrape the white powdery color off the rabbit poop below the rabbit cage to make potassium nitrate. So you could see how excited I was about bladesmithing being risky and controlled at the same time. I don't want to stop him from learning all he wants to know because he doesn't realize how much stuff he is learning in the process of reading. When he was six , he liked studying infectious diseases. The other day I saw a picture of carbon chains in a book and he told me it was propane. Then I pointed to another and he said it was Butane. He was right. He is a handful. But very cute. Thanks for the help everyone!
Click to expand...
IMHO Solidworks is reallly nice, but G-code is still the bottleneck.
Think God level control over machining or 3d printing. G code inbetween cam and cnc is limiting.
The power lies between cam and cnc talking directly to each other. Think way beyond not having to post process anymore. Very exciting. Good luck
BTW I do feel very much that your young boy is exceptional, and should be given all the best tools and software money can buy. Stay ahead of what is ground breaking in 3d technology.
I do believe your son is a very old soul in a young body.

Makes for unbelievable growth in all endeavors.
God Bless,
ome108
 
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