What happened to this damascus?

T

toobit

Joined
Apr 13, 2020
Messages
44
I have no clue what went wrong. Has anyone ever seen these stridations?

I etched and lightly sanded to see if they were stain streaks but they are not. Does this have to do with the cooling process in the quench?

If it layered, they would not be strait patterns. No clue?

Thanks!

jD9ngNY.png
 
Probably from the buffer/ buffing compound used by the 'smith to put the final surface finish on the blade.
 
It's a decent looking blade. I wouldn't worry about it, if it were mine. Did you make that?
 
Yes this is my knife. I'm not sure what Went wrong. I did not buffet I just gave it a light sand after the edging and I noticed this line. It is very prominent and there's a couple other smaller lines. I'm going to reheat and require inch and see what happens. Maybe that part of the steel cold fast or not fast enough?
 
I was looking at the fine lines, thought the center line was intentional. Is it just on the one side?

By any chance, did you scribe the center-line of the blade
 
Serious reply time, you might want to check in the kmifemakers section here, there are a lot of people there who have better, but less fun answers.
 
Did you make the damascus or buy a billet?
Which are you referring to, the prominent longitudinal line down the center or the striations crossing the blade? I assume its the longitudinal line as that is what seems out of place. Is the line flush (as in just a discoloration) or is it noticeably lower than the rest of the surface?
 
I made the damascus. The prominent longitudinal line down the center that is circled. The other lines are just from a finishing belt. I looked at the line through a zoom lens and it there is a very very slight bump. I have tried to sand it down and it does not go away (pre etch). Comes out during the etch only.

So my thought is, it is flat when ground, but then when etched something in the metals is softer.

I am going to try and re-heat evenly tonight and re- quench and see what happens.


Not a great pic but this is what it looks like coming out of an etch. Barely feel it.

223YIq3.jpg
 
toobit said:
Is there a way I could move the thread?
Click to expand...
Discussions like this often get moved by mods all on their own. If you want it to go faster, press the Report button, the small grey triangle with the ! at the bottom of your original post. It will open up a field for you to type in a reason, and you would ask for a mod to move it to the Makers area
 
That line is not from heat treating. I would put my money on a contaminant from sanding or something else.
 
I think that it is pure ONE layer of steel i mean on larger surface, darker layer ...
 
The reasion for my thinking is as fallows. If it was that layer of steel then it would fallow the curve of the edge as I’m guessing you forged the point to shape. If it was from heat treating then it would also fallow the edge. That line is just about perfectly straight which is the motion of hand sanding.
 
JTknives said:
The reasion for my thinking is as fallows. If it was that layer of steel then it would fallow the curve of the edge as I’m guessing you forged the point to shape. If it was from heat treating then it would also fallow the edge. That line is just about perfectly straight which is the motion of hand sanding.
Click to expand...

I cleaned the blade with nail polish remover. I will put it back on the jig and resand without moving the angle at all. That could be it, movement of the angle in some way. I will update you all later.
 
Could you give a detailed explanation about how you made the billet and blade from scratch? I was thinking that it could be a joint of 2 bars during the billet makeup, but It'd be hard to have that straight of a line from the forging process, even if it was a seam where two bars met. Another thought was a line from using a surface grinder but because it is both on the bevel and the tang, that'd be tough to accomplish as well.
 
In the first set of pics the line appears to go through each layer, the later pic it seems the line is predominately on one layer and may affect another layer but the line is not necessarily on every layer.
I’d guess it’s on one of your bars from the extrusion process when the steel was made.
But that’s a college drop outs guess based on limited questionable information.
 
What alloy of steels did you use?
 
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