Non-matching patterns on damascus blade sides...

weo

weo

Joined
Sep 21, 2014
Messages
3,116
Hello again, all. I'm wondering if this happens to others, and if there's something I need to pay attention to or do differently. I forged out this skinner from a billet I welded up and each side of the blade looks different. It may not bother others, but it kinda does me.
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as always
peace and love
billyO
 
I'm very unqualified to respond but first off I dig the spalted handle, it has beautiful potential.
As far as the blade that is very odd on the bottom pic it appears that many layers have been ground through near the spine, similar to what you normally see near the cutting edge. Could the billet have been twisted or warped in a way the throw the spine off center ?
 
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Yeah that's weird. Looks as if your spine got dragged over onto the mark side bevel, during forging.
 
I have some Alabama Damascus drops that look like that on the edge of the billet. I think Salem is right, but I'm no expert on pattern welding.
 
Your layers are shifted, happens with mechanical hammers and c-frame presses mostly. The layers are not parallel with the flat of the bar.

Hoss
 
Salem Straub said:
Yeah that's weird. Looks as if your spine got dragged over onto the mark side bevel, during forging.
Click to expand...

DevinT said:
Your layers are shifted, happens with mechanical hammers and c-frame presses mostly. The layers are not parallel with the flat of the bar.

Hoss
Click to expand...

That makes sense. I was using a friends power hammer to draw out the billets (this one and another) and on one of them, while drawing it out, I noticed that I was starting to trapezoid the billet, but I caught it pretty quick and re-squared. I'm not sure which billet it happened to, but probably this one. Thanks
~billyO
 
I see a lot of that in Alabama damascus. Other makers have it show up, too. It is caused by the layers being shifted in drawing and squaring up the billets.
 
Yes, shifted. Billet gets out of square a bit and what started out as part of the edge gets pulled over onto the top/bottom of the billet.
 
I personally think this looks awesome. I would have mad a separate scale for the opposite side and dubbed this knife two face!!
 
This brings back a favorite Bill Scagel story.

Bill was a staunch Republican, he hated Democrats. On night a businessman from town found Bill in a snowdrift in the side of the rural road that led to Bill's place. He bundled him in his car and took him home. Bill tried to resist, but was near death and almost frozen ... so he had to go. The man took him in the shop, built a fire in the stove, put on some coffee, and left ... all under a barrage of insults and curses from Bill. A week later Bill walked into the man's business and handed him a box with a pocket knife in it. The man knew it must have been hard for Bill to accept any aid from a democrat, so he just said "Thank You", and took the knife. Ones side had a white MOP scale and the other a pink scale. The man stopped Bill as he was leaving and asked why the two different sides? Bill responded, "Because you Damned Democrats want everything both ways." He left, and as far as anyone knows never spoke to the man who saved him again.
 
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