Thickness of nickel layer in go mai?

L

Leon Husock

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Jul 17, 2019
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Is there a minimum thickness for the nickel layer in a go mai billet? I want to make a wrought iron/nickel/W2 knife, but nickel gets expensive very quickly as the thickness goes up (at least where I'm looking). Alternatively if anyone has a good source for reasonably thick (1 mm??) nickel plate at a good price that would also be awesome. Thanks!
 
I use 1mm thick nickel sheet for mokume, I think that would be plenty thick for the type of billet you’re doing.

I can’t for the life of me remember where I ordered my sheet from, it was so long ago. If it comes to me I’ll edit my post. But I’m sure most online knife supply stores will carry some nickel sheet.
 
Here's a Bowie knife I'm working on I used .001 inch nickel shim "shim in a can" the can was labeled Mcmaster Carr, I think I found it on eBay. I don't see the seller now it was 2 cans 6x25 inch for $12.00. I was worried about the size of stock but it worked fine, beginning sizes were 1/4 inch A-203E,.001 shim and 3/16 52100 the blade is about .259.
pxiBTk1m.jpg
 
You can get by fine with .010".
IIRC, Chris Marks used to put in .020" nickel between the damascus sides and the core on my billets for swords. It hammered out to make a nice faux-mon.
 
To give another idea on use of Nickel in San Mai here's a small folder blade I did with SS cladding, .008" nickel, & 1095 core.
Slip-Joint.jpg


And a low layer Damascus with 1095 & 15N20 with .008" nickel spacer between each layer
Right-Side.jpg
 
.oo8" vs .010" - at that small difference I think we are talking the same thing.

The OP was asking about 1mm (.040") sheet and I was saying .010" would be fine.

When placed between the steel layers of damascus billets, .002" will make a nice bright line, and as you said, even .001" will show well. Once hammered out and re-stacked to get 500+ layers the nickel is so thin it does not affect the edge hardness. It does create a micro-serrated edge that cuts aggressively.
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
.oo8" vs .010" - at that small difference I think we are talking the same thing.

The OP was asking about 1mm (.040") sheet and I was saying .010" would be fine.

When placed between the steel layers of damascus billets, .002" will make a nice bright line, and as you said, even .001" will show well. Once hammered out and re-stacked to get 500+ layers the nickel is so thin it does not affect the edge hardness. It does create a micro-serrated edge that cuts aggressively.
Click to expand...

This all sounds extremely cool! I did end up ordering some .03" from OnlineMetals but not a lot of it, so if this works out maybe I'll drop down to thinner stuff since I think I like the thin bright line look better than the wide streak.
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
.oo8" vs .010" - at that small difference I think we are talking the same thing.

The OP was asking about 1mm (.040") sheet and I was saying .010" would be fine.
Click to expand...
Stacy, I did not mean for it sound like I was disagreeing with you. I was showing what I get with .008" which is so close to .010" I doubt there would be any difference in the use of them.
 
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