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HTRN wrote:
It's called "Wire Damascus". Typically, they use a welder on both ends to hold the bundle together whiled it's being forge welded.
And that's the only easy part about it...
The trick is to get it up to forge welding temperature without the individual strands of the wire rope burning away, it takes some considerable skill.
A skill I haven't managed to achieve yet
One interesting thing about the wire\cable damascus, or whatever you want to call it, is that you are welding strands of the same kind of steel together, so in theory it shouldn't show any pattern when etched. Turns out that the welding temperature burns some of the carbon out of the outside strands and creates a lower carbon steel. Kind of. Which is then distributed throughout the billet once it's gone through the folding process.
Some bladesmiths seem to look down on wire damascus, but it's pretty much my favourite pattern.
All my life I been in the dog house
I guess that just where I belong
That just the way the dice roll
Do my dog house song
Highspeed wrote:The trick is to get it up to forge welding temperature without the individual strands of the wire rope burning away, it takes some considerable skill.
A skill I haven't managed to achieve yet
I wonder... if you had two forges going with one just under the temperature you needed so you could get the entire bundle to just under the temperature you need, could you then move it to the hotter one and goose it up to the right temperature? Maybe the cooler forge is just under the "burning away" temperature?
Note to self: start reading sig lines. They're actually quite amusing. :D
Weetabix wrote:
I wonder... if you had two forges going with one just under the temperature you needed so you could get the entire bundle to just under the temperature you need, could you then move it to the hotter one and goose it up to the right temperature? Maybe the cooler forge is just under the "burning away" temperature?
That's an intelligent suggestion, but it can't be done like that. I could show you why but I can't really explain it...
All my life I been in the dog house
I guess that just where I belong
That just the way the dice roll
Do my dog house song
The problem with making a damascus blade from two different carbon grades of steel is that the carbon tends to migrate from higher to lower levels. Thus, is you start off with 1095 and 1020, you wind up with something in the neighborhood of 1055-1060. My son-in-law, who is a professional knifemaker, uses very thin layers of nickle (usually about 0.005 in.) between the different grades to prevent carbon migration.
Cable damascus is really pretty, in part because you already have two different grades of steel in the cable. After forge-welding it, you can still see the different layers (especially after you acid-etch it), but the carbon grade is still the average between the two different grades you started with. (Using a 1.5 inch crane cable, you finish up about 1060, but the different alloys in the cable is what makes it look so neat.)
I snagged a 20-foot long piece of 1.5-inch crane cable for him a few years ago. He still has some left, because some people are more concerned with "pretty" than with "practical."
But there ain't many troubles that a man caint fix, with seven hundred dollars and a thirty ought six." Lindy Cooper Wisdom
I have about 20 ft of 5/8" or 3/4" stainless braided cable.
I say it is stainless because it is shiny after living randomly outside for about 10 years with no sign of rust or rot.
Would this be good knife material?
"Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not." ~Thomas Jefferson
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Stainless is usually (always?) ground to shape, since it doesn't seem to do "heat-it-and-beat-it" well, if at all.
(Basis for that opinion is that I know a number of professional knife makers, and none of them forge stainless, so I don't know if it's impossible, or just too damn much trouble.)
But there ain't many troubles that a man caint fix, with seven hundred dollars and a thirty ought six." Lindy Cooper Wisdom
