Setting up shop, may need advice on a few things

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A.McPherson said:
Id clean up the surfaces to be welded with an angle grinder or your belt grinder first.

The cleaner your weld surfaces, the more likely you are to not have inclusions and gaps.

Good luck!
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Thank you for the input - that is the plan, already cleaned one side on all of them.
 
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Thank you Sir
I am going to clean the 3 center ones on both sides really well, the top and bottom I will only clean on the welding surface.
 
Jesse Latham said:
Those look awesome!
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Thank you very much Jesse, hoping they will look as well once they been smacked into a singe piece.
If the weather will allow it, I plan to give that a try tomorrow.

Part one of the 400 layer video is up, where I make my first 80 layer mini billet.
 
All right, it could prolly have gone better today.
On the other hand, how much do crack sell for these days?

I had a few delaminations happen, not sure if that goes under the term crack or not.
But it don't look like it's a total failure, atleast not to my beginner eyes.



There should be enough steel, to try to make a small blade.
Gonna forge the tang in, maybe move a little more steel towards the tip.
 
Where to get good welding gloves and what to look for?

Im now patching up my 2nd pair of heat resistant welding gloves, from a local blacksmith supplie shop and it was their "best" and most expencive one.
They are trying to find something better for me, but any pointers on what to look for would be great.
 
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Got a bit of delaminations going on, worked some out I think and hoping the rest is more surface stuff.
Atleast it looks like it's heating and cooling evenly, with out dark areas or lines showing.
 
Got my blade hardend, without it pealing apart in 5 different directions.
Even the delam I tried to close in the tip, haven't cracked open.

knife-quench.jpg

Screenshot milliseconds before the knife hit's the oil, the thumbnail below if from heating the oil.



Another plus, besides the blade didn't split. I also managed to get it hardend, at least my files won't grip very well.
Now started to grind it down, to see how deep the surface delaminations are.
I think I will be able to get most of it out, but time will tell.

Tomorrow I will need to go buy some belt, as the grinder only came with one belt and a disk.
This is where im at now
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Before you do too much more bevel grinding I would clean up the profile shape a bit on the grinder. Don't try and compromise with a slightly odd shaped belly. Get the profile looking right even if the blade ends up thinner or shorter. A smaller but well shaped knife always beats a larger but odd shaped bade.
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
Before you do too much more bevel grinding I would clean up the profile shape a bit on the grinder. Don't try and compromise with a slightly odd shaped belly. Get the profile looking right even if the blade ends up thinner or shorter. A smaller but well shaped knife always beats a larger but odd shaped bade.
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Thank you very much, thats great advice sir!
I was planing on moving on, to save as many layers as possible.
But thinking about what you said, I figure it's better to loose some layers and make a good and usefull blade.

Grinding the hardend blade takes a fair bit of time, while keeping it cool at the same time.
I still havent moved to adding bevels, so i've tried to scrible a little on the blade and would love some feedback on the profile.
If I need to change something, it would be great to know now.

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That looks really good. It is exactly what I had in mind. Don't cut in the choil until after the bevels are ground. Sometimes things end up slightly different than sketched. In usually don't add it until the final finishing stages ... and you may end up not wanting it at all.
 
Might be a highly unpopular comment, but making damascus is easy!
When you compare it, to grinding and getting straight grind lines.

Everything get's better with practise right, so trying my best and will prolly have to accept that crips lines will be a future thing for me.
So far im happy that the blade, and bevel looks fairly straight. The tip of the bevel is down to 1 mm, im thinking its about time to get out the finer grits.


The tip turned out all right
 
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Started hand sanding, fading out the uneven look of grind lines.
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Still a few small delaminations in the blade, that I wasn't able to grind out.
Maybe the next damascus billet will be more solid, but this should still make a functional knife.
 
If it has delamination's chances are it will fail one day
 
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