Question re: Wrought Iron San Mai

David W Babcock

David W Babcock

Black Metal Forge
Joined
Mar 21, 2018
Messages
80
Good Day All,

Well yesterday I forged my first wrought iron/1095 San Mai billet and in the evening and today forged out a knife. My camera sucks, but I’m quite happy with it aside from a couple spots that you cannot get a nail under, didn’t separate in heat treat and even add some charter in the wrought iron portion.

I’ve not run into this with 15n20/1084 San Mai, or some Demascus I’ve made except in earlier trials with mistakes causing oxidization and clear delamination.

I’m wondering from those with experience, is this more of an affect from the wrought iron? It has that fibrous wood grainy pattern to begin with so in thinking it might not be something I did wrong, but I’m not sure???

Any thoughts. Sorry about the crappy pics




M
 
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I’m not sure if my pics are posting, I copied them into the message but they didn’t appear so I’ve added a link to I cloud but not sure if others can see it. How do you just insert files from your camera roll? Lol
 
David W Babcock said:
I’m not sure if my pics are posting, I copied them into the message but they didn’t appear so I’ve added a link to I cloud but not sure if others can see it. How do you just insert files from your camera roll? Lol
Click to expand...

Paid memberships can upload photo's directly, if you don't have a paid membership you can use a photo hosting service like www.tinypic.com and upload it there. Then you copy the URL they give you and then you can click on the Image icon when posting and paste the URL into there to directly embed the photo into the post.

Your link works though, I can see the knife. I have no experience with forging or san mai though sorry.
 
Last edited:
Figured it out, lol I let my membership expire! Lol. Let’s see if I can post now

upload_2019-5-4_18-53-56.jpeg
Ocelot85 said:
Paid memberships can upload photo's directly, if you don't have a paid membership you can use a photo hosting service like www.tinypic.com and upload it there. Then you copy the URL they give you and then you can click on the Image icon when posting and paste the URL into there to directly embed the photo into the post.

Your link works though, I can see the knife. I have no experience with forging or san mai though sorry. Maybe @DevinT or @Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith can offer advice on that.
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thabks I just upgraded my account so I should be able to lost now
 
Looks good to me. I'm not quite sure I'm understanding what you're trying to ask, is there something you're seeing as a problem along the actual weld/lamination line to the core steel(s) or do you mean in the area with the wrought iron itself? If you mean the grain of the wrought iron, then yes, it's not a perfect material and there are some "grades" that much more refined from more folding and increasing the layer count, and then there is other wrought iron that will be less refined and/or have more impurities in itsuch as sulfur, which can make delamination (from itself, since it is made from many layers) a problem as well as forging with it a bit finicky.

Years ago I had a wrought iron san mai blade that I was up to my high grit finish sanding on and just about done when I came to what I thought was a small cold shut in the actual weld (though I might have sanding through the wrought iron in that spot, but I start picking at it with my fingernail and it kept pulling up from the blade until a large area was removed. It was actually just a single layer in the wrought iron that was delaminating from itself. I ended up regrinding the bevels to see if I could get passed that bad section and sure enough I was able to, although after removing that extra material the core steel was exposed high up the sides.

When I take some wrought iron round stock and forge it out into bar stock in order to use if for san mai or for guards etc. I also forge it at a hot welding heat (you don't really have to worry about burning it like you do with steel) and with lighter hits than I would when forging steel. Hotter heats with softer hammer blows will make is less likely to delaminate, especially if it's some particularly finicky wrought iron with more sulfur in it and such. Even some bars from the same batch of wrought iron I noticed can act differently and delaminate easier that the other bars, so I just try to treat them all as if they are likely to. It can be welded hack to itself fairly easily if it does start splitting on you, but I just try not to have to deal with it in the first place if I don't have to. Hope that helps.

~Paul
My Youtube Channel
... (Just some older videos of some knives I've made in the past)
 
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