/diy/ - Do It Yourself

I'd look into makume gane. copper and nickel look rad. Don't try to buy nickel, just don't fucking do it man

You can forge-weld any (well, almost any) ferrous metals together. The stark contrast of black/silver is usually created by welding strips of iron and steel together, the iron being the black element, steel the silver.

You can weld ferrous and non-ferrous metals together, but it's not an easy thing to do.

Anyhow, after you've welded your stock together, forged it to shape, etc, the pattern is usually made to stand out with a weak acid (etching). Polishing won't make the pattern stand out, usually, it's just for refining the finish of the material.

You can weld many different kinds of steel together, etch them, and then heat-treat them in an oven for a range of dazzling temper-colors, but this requires tightly controlled, precise heat-treatment. Usually you'd need an electric/gas kiln, or send it somewhere to be treated. The effects can be great (pic related).

If you want those pretty black/silver patterns that people have come to associate with 'damascus' steel, use iron and a good steel. I would not suggest doing this with anything bigger than a 6" knife, as iron/steel together make a blade that is more brittle than a blade made of one piece of homogenous, factory-rolled steel. But then, people don't usually go to the effort of pattern-welding to make a beater knife.

>>667866
That looks interesting, and is definitely something I now have to try.

>>667908
That is beautiful, any idea which steels in particular give that effect?

>>667908
>steel and iron
Not really, I think it's more complicated than that, but the main alloying compound that correlates to brightness when etching is nickel. Iron and steel both etch pretty dark, unless they're alloyed with nickel (or chromium, but you can really only forge weld stainless in a can)

>>667908
Actually on read through a lot of the stuff you said, especially on that last paragraph, was pretty bullshit.

>>667953
Different steels temper to different colors because of their properties and alloy composition. I can't speak for what kinds of steels were used in those knife blades, because I don't know.

>>667959
>iron and steel both etch pretty dark
Yes, I know. Ultimately, it depends on the steel. Traditionally, blacksmiths didn't know what steel was, just that there was 'good iron' and 'not as good iron'. The process of pattern-welding was used in long blades in an attempt to create a more flexible, homogenous blade, with a lot of 'not as good iron' and a few pieces of 'good iron', with strips of 'good iron' forge-welded onto the cutting edges, because, surprise, steel (even soft steel by today's standards) holds a better edge than iron. Eventually it was practiced as functional art, until blacksmiths found out that incidental carbon (from charcoal exposure, mostly) somehow made the iron tougher. So, traditionally, pattern-welded blades were iron and steel. It wasn't even known until briefly before the Industrial Revolution that steel is an alloy of carbon and iron; it was coincidental and generally held to practice, at least in terms of bladesmithing.

Yes, nickel steels will etch brighter, but forging nickel steel isn't something that's easy to do, it's a lot like forging tool steel. Really tough stuff. The easiest way to create that contrast would be wrought iron and literally any kind of steel. It wouldn't look like OP's pic or be a great blade, but that's not the point at hand. Nobody pattern-welds anymore to create a functional blade; a piece of factory-rolled homogenous spring steel is going to have better qualities and properties than a pattern-welded piece of steel, every time. It's art.

Also, if we're just going to refute claims and toss around insults, Santa Claus isn't real and your mother can't poach an egg for shit.

>>667967
>toss around insults
I did no such thing. And of course people do pattern weld to create functional blades, just of course nowhere near the production levels in the past, mostly just custom/amateur smiths. Hell, I've got my first batch of 1084/15N20 waiting to get etched. It is art but it's functional art. Definitely up to the craftsman and buyer where on the "purely a tool" and "safe queen" spectrum they want to hang out on.

>>667968
Fair enough, but, honestly, few people are going to shell out $300 for a knife that a $30 mora can do just as well, these days. The vast majority of them are for looks.

Also, fuck pattern-welding without a power hammer.

>>667970
You are correct, just saying that your generalizations aren't quite that total. And yes, my elbow and wrist agree with you . . . . I had heard talks that my Uni's forge was considering getting a power hammer or hydraulic press. Sure beats beating it together with my anemic little arms like I did for that batch.
Anyways, as for the OP, two of the most common combos are O1/L6 and 10xx/15n20. As for "exposing the grain", you don't really have much of a "grain" on factory steels, they're too refined. Traditional stone polish (with a bit of hush hush acid on top that nobody likes to mention in public) for -waitforit-traditionally smelted steel for Japanese style, but for modern stuff it's mostly just "sand to at least 400 grit and hit it with some acid"

>>667787
very beautiful! its japan steel?

>>667973
No expert and your post seems like bait, but I'll bite. That's kind of the opposite style of Japanese. That's more Viking than anything else I think.

>>667971
Hah, yeah, I've got killer carpal tunnel in my right wrist from forging. It's be cool if your uni got a power hammer; lately I've just been borrowing the neighbor's kid and their sledge hammer.

That sounded wrong.

>>667976
Well, that'd be the "traditional" way of doing it then, right?

>>667977
With two other apprentice hammerers, yeah. Although that method was usually used more to take in a bloom.

>>667971
Thanks for the names and advice.

Also, am I the only person in the world who wants to make things OTHER than knives out of pattern welded steel?

>>668114
You're not the only one, but knives are honestly best-sellers. Making some mild steel/nickel sheet pattern welded pens is on my bucket list, but knives occupy that sweet spot of "romantic, dangerous, and sexy" and "actually useful and practical", hence why they're so popular. People make handmade spoons and forks, and scissors, but those won't sell as well as knives because they're not as sexy.

>>668119
I know a guy who makes scissors. He even forge welds steel to the cutting edges. They are also perfectly flush, to this day I can't understand how the hell he does it.

>>668255
I kind of wanted to try scissors at some point, either the regular two piece ones or like pic related. Either way, my point still stands, there are many more knife craftsmen than scissors. I sincerely doubt anyone makes pattern welded files by hand either . . . .

>>668271
God damn, now I need to make a pattern welded file... Hmmm, that's going to have to be immediately bumped up to number seven on my list of things to make.

>>667787
I'd always hear people say that 15n20 and 1084 is a good combination.

I see some people laminate carbon steel inside antique wrought iron, but wrought iron is expensive and all I can find is massive gates or stuff like that.

>>668917
A good place to find wrought iron is along old railroad tracks. I've found probably 150lbs of wrought iron window-weights laying around.

You can tell it's wrought iron because it has grain, like wood.

Forget about welding Iron and steel together.

I assume you want to make knives. And I assume you do not want a decorative layer on the sides while using a SanMai construction for having a middle layer of edge steel.

That means both steels used should be "blade material". If you combine iron or low carbon steel 50/50 with a blade steel of, say, 0.8% carbon and go to a high layer count, you end up with, well, let's say, a 0.5% carbon blade at best (carbon diffusion, high layer count). Not what you want.

Contrast is for the most part dependant on the other elements that are in your steel, because carbon content will even out through diffusion.

You want two steels with a carbon content in the range of 0.8% carbon.

One of these steels should contain enough manganese, the other one should contain enough Nickel.

Standard combi is 1.2842 (I believe similar to your O-1 or O-2) and 75Ni8. Great contrast.

>>669031
I have very little intention of making knives. I've made quite a few and I'm getting bored of them. I'm planning on making a file, a horseshoe, a candlestick and a new bottle opener.
So ALL I want is something that looks good. Except for the file. That actually needs to work.

Also, how long do you etch for?

>>669034
I'm >>667971 (and well like half the posts on this thread). If you're going to need high performance (knife/file) then go with the steels recommended by me and others (O1/L6 or 1084/15N20) but if you're just doing it for aesthetics, then nickel sheet + mild steel will give a beautiful high contrast for a lot lower cost (well, nickel sheet doesn't come cheap).

>>669034
Still have yet to etch my first but it's really just
>dunk it in there and check every few minutes
it's a pretty non-scientific process

>>669036
I'll remember to set a timer then. First time I etched I think I forgot about it for about an hour.

Are any of you blacksmiths members of ABANA? I really want to start blacksmithing and I've heard ABANA is a good place to learn, but anyone have firsthand experience being a member?

bump

always good to see a smithing thread saved from the last page

So... I want to start doing some stuff with metals in an amateurish way; have bought some books, and have a general idea of what I need to start practicing, an anvil, something to act like a furnace, some coke, etc...
but I have a really big problem, I live in Mexico, and all this stuff is nonexistent here, If someone could kindly help with directions you will be doing me a great service.

>>671860
>forge
Can either go propane or coal/coke/charcoal, but either way is probably obtainable in Mexico
>anvil
Go to scrapyard and find a big ass hunk of metal

1. Weld four bars of metal into a stack.
2. Heat.
3. Fold and forge into the same size it was before folding.
4. Repeat parts 2 & 3 from 40 to 300 times.

>>671860
I started using a pile of bricks, a metal pipe, a hair dryer and charcoal for my forge. And if you want a small anvil, get a big hammer and use that. Set it in a block of wood.

the actual metals you should actually be using are O1 and L6 steel.

bring out the pattern with acid.

>>672016
OP doesn't want to make knives. He'd be overpaying if he used those alloy steels for things that don't need to be heat treated

>>672039
Oh shit forgot to take name off from previous thread

>>669052
I'd say it's hard to overstate how useful it is to have someone who knows what their doing showing you how to do it. If that involves you joining them, it is probably worth it.

>>671887
4 layers folded 300 times would give you 4^300 layers = 4.15*10^180.
Assuming that your billet is 3cm think, this gives you a layer thickness of 0.03/4.15*10^180 = 7.2*10^-183m

This size of a single atom of iron is 126*10^-12m.
The 3cm think billet is therefore 238095238 atoms thick.

Put all that together and you find that EACH layer is 3.3*10^176 times SMALLER than a single atom of iron.

Please talk less rubbish.

>>672054
I'm pretty sure he was being facetious, but then again most people DO think grorious nippon katana is folded a thousand times

great resource i just picked up
New Edge of the Anvil by: Jack andrews

its pretty good if you're new or an amateur