What is Bottle cap damascus - and how is it made?

WinDancer

WinDancer

Joined
May 15, 1999
Messages
720
I have seen three references to "Bottle Cap Damascus" in the past couple of days. I give up--- what is it and how is it made?

Thanks, guys!

Dave Evans
Tenino, WA

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Take 500+ beer bottle caps and flatten them and burn all the paint and stuff off, poke a 16 pd nail hole in the middle and run them through a charcoal burning adobe tower to carburize them until they are as brittle as egg shells. Thread them all unto the nails and flux them thoroughly. Forge weld them flat and sprinkle cast iron chunks on top of that. Then lay another layer of bottle caps and more cast iron chunks and more bottle caps until you have a tightly welded billet. Forge a blade to shape with minimal stock removal and finish and heat treat. Neo-Tribal Bottle Cap Damascus. It ain't easy. Tai Goo did most of it and I just helped. Its not something thats done on a regular basis. It was just a side journey thing but it worked fine and took a great edge. It can be endless if you want it to be.
smile.gif


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http://www.livelyknives.com
 
i hope Tim posts a link to a pic of it. It is awesome!! somewhere is a series of pics showing how it was done. Somewhere on a neo-tribal site/forum. I don't remember where. It is a mind blower!!!

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~~TOM~~
 
Tim,

So you've got the bundle of bottle caps on the nail with the paint burned off. What do you do? Bring it up to temp and sprinkle some borax on and hammer away? Then what, sprinkle more borax and fold in the next heat? How many times si it folded and in what ways?

This stuff is pretty cool!

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Peter Atwood

email:fountainman@hotmail.com
 
Check out the first nine photos on the link that Achim posted. There wasn't much if any folding as I recall. This was a few years ago. Mostly it is a lot of work at welding heats. Very sloppy and juicey mix and if you hit too hard it squirted hot slag out all over you. It is doable but difficult. There are a lot of different mixes worth trying. We also did a concrete nail/wrought iron/cast iron taco. It's not something that we care to repeat because it took a few tries to get it to work but it will work with a lot of patients. You have to get everything very hot so that it welds tight and the carbon migrates into all the layers and becomes fairly homogenous.

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http://www.livelyknives.com
 
This is the billet of concrete nail/wrought iron/cast iron taco.
<img src=http://www.photoloft.com/view/exportImage.asp?s=xpag&i=5324573&w=545&h=408></A>

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http://www.livelyknives.com

[This message has been edited by lively (edited 01-10-2001).]
 
It is hard to do and the results are not reliable without lots and lots of trial and error. But this is the kind of experiments that will take you into uncharted territory

[This message has been edited by lively (edited 01-10-2001).]
 
Here's one of the knives made from bottle cap damascus. Like I said this was done by Tai Goo. I was just helping out as usual. Tai gave me this knife for helping out in the process.and because he is just one cool mentor. He had another knife made of bottle cap damascus that took best art knife at the Arizona show one year.
<img src=http://www.photoloft.com/view/exportimage.asp?s=xpag&i=3583994&w=545&h=354></A>



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http://www.livelyknives.com
 
Wow, Tim! That is a beautiful blade and you are one lucky man! I think that the bottle cap thing sounds like more work than it's worth, at least to me, but it is a fascinating process nontheless and I thank you for sharing it with us.

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Peter Atwood

email:fountainman@hotmail.com
 
Tim, Every time I see that knife I just shake my head in wonder. That is a work of art. The skill level and dedication needed to make that knife out of bottle caps and scrap copper is so high it boggles my mind. i'll never look at a bottle cap the same way.

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~~TOM~~
 
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