The damascus process

D

Dozeren

Joined
Apr 26, 2007
Messages
13
Hi folks
Can any one explain to me the process of making proper damscus from the forging to the finished fisnish, or point me to a good site with corretct info?

In advance thatnk:)
 
Stack, heat, flux, heat, tap, heat, whomp, pattern, whomp....

Not to be a buzz kill but if you don't understand forging, forge welding or how to etch the pattern then telling you how to make pattern welded steel is a bit like showing a young child trig.

Google "pattern welded steel" "how to make damascus"
 
Thanks guys. This is really helpful:) Will look at these sites. I have tryed googleing this alot, but there are so much different and half desent info out there. So I thought, why not go to the people I _know_ know about this stuff.

Will Levitt, thanks for the kind explenation. Do you really think that was _any_ helpful at all!!?? Politeness gets you a long way in life.
 
I'm a very helpful person.... when you start your first billet then you'll find out how helpful I actually was.

I've been down enough roads in my life to know that different approaches are required to convey information the same as a different tool is needed to perform a function.
 
Well, thing is, I'm not goinng to make it. I dont have that equipment. It was just as research for a buy:) Thats why details were important. As they always are. I'm an artist by trade, and pride myself in good detail learning when I have students myself. Would be as if I should say: Squeese paint, mix, stroke, mix, stoke, squeese, mix, stroke..... not realy very helpful.
 
 
My answer would have been very different if you said you were researching damascus for a buy or report. We have people every week wanting to race Formula 1 before they have a karting license. There are baby steps in forging just like in painting. My teacher gave me a similar explanation of damascus when I first asked him how to make it, 2 years later he told me to come to the shop to learn how to make billets. I actually came back on the forum to further explain my answer.

If your damascus purchase is from a well known maker then I would say there's not much concern.... lesser known (not that it's an indication of quality) but look for cold shuts and other defects. A couple of considerations:

If it's not a full tang blade ask if the hidden tang is damascus or if something's welded on, welding on a different piece of steel for a hidden tang is considered acceptable.

A lot of damascus blades are ground out of the billet rather than being forged into a blade shape to preserve the pattern of the steel. This is noticeable by looking at the pattern from the cutting edge moving towards the point. The less pattern distortion or if the pattern gets "cut" then it was ground.

The reason damascus is expensive is fuel costs for welding forges and that up to 80% of your steel winds up on the ground during patterning.
 
Dozeren said:
Well, thing is, I'm not goinng to make it. I dont have that equipment. It was just as research for a buy:) Thats why details were important. As they always are. I'm an artist by trade, and pride myself in good detail learning when I have students myself. Would be as if I should say: Squeese paint, mix, stroke, mix, stoke, squeese, mix, stroke..... not realy very helpful.
Click to expand...

If you want it for an art piece that is not a blade, the cheap India, or Pakistan stuff may be OK for you.
If you want good blade quality material, you have many options available here on BF, Deker, Delbert Eley(spelling) Alabama Damascus, Chad Nichols, Eggerling, come to mind first
 
12345678910 said:
If you want it for an art piece that is not a blade, the cheap India, or Pakistan stuff may be OK for you.
If you want good blade quality material, you have many options available here on BF, Deker, Delbert Eley(spelling) Alabama Damascus, Chad Nichols, Eggerling, come to mind first
Click to expand...

Thanks for the free plug count! :) The fact that you mention my name in such skilled company means more to me than you can imagine.

Delbert's last name is spelled "Ealy" in case you want to take a look at his stuff. He's a great guy all around.

To the OP, If there are any questions I can answer for you, feel free to drop me a PM or an email. I'd be interested to hear about what you're planning in your art that would use pattern welded steel. I love seeing pattern welded steel used in something other than knives.

-d
 
Just to muddy the waters a bit, you can also research "Mokume Gane"
It's the Japanese name for the more or less same thing, but in nonferrous metals with much more variety in materials and colours
 
Again, thanks for the answers. I have now bought a knife at ebay. I dont know the name of the smith, but the seller is Umer Jawaid and its his uncle and a friend of his uncle that makes the knifes he is selling. Mine is made from 1095 and 15N20 steel. I dont know about the hardening process in this knife. Its a quite beautyful knife I think, allthough the etching has been done uneven. It has a shallower etch int towards the handle then the rest. I will take a photo and post it.
damas.jpg
Untitled-1.jpg
 
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I have now re-etched the blade. Unfortuonatly the blade was not polished proporly by the smith (not cool of a craftsman), so the result could have been much better. And I didnt want to risk to much so I just lightly sanded it up front. Well, here is the result. As you can see the pattern is much clearer now. Anyway, its supposed to be used so it will get scatches in the end:)
damas2.jpg
Untitled-2.jpg
 
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