Questions about 'river' pattern Damascus

[Leon Husock]

I've only ever seen this as the "river of fire" pattern where you do it on a piece of feather Damascus, but it seems fun for a lot of things. My main questions are:

-How deep do you grind the notches on the side/what diameter wheel?

-How do you avoid the pattern being stretched out as you forge it into a blade and becoming less dramatically river-y?

-Related to the previous question, what thickness billet do you start with when you grind the notches?

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

https://www.vevor.com/diy-ideas/damascus-patterns-feather-d_10049/?cjdata=MXxOfDB8WXww&cjevent=3b6153d7028e11ef80db00050a82b832&utm_source=cj&utm_medium=affiliate

 

[Leon Husock]

https://www.vevor.com/diy-ideas/damascus-patterns-feather-d_10049/?cjdata=MXxOfDB8WXww&cjevent=3b6153d7028e11ef80db00050a82b832&utm_source=cj&utm_medium=affiliate

So I saw this, and I gotta say I find their explanation very confusing bordering on useless. But it looks like from watching the video that he's using a 1" thick billet at the end and grinding the wedges down till there's about 1/4" left of the edge bars at the bottom of the notches and using a 2" wheel. He doesn't give specific details about the dimensions though.

I made a billet that's just fine-layer straight lined Damascus with big bars on the edges and rivered it, but now that I've forged it out lengthwise to 1/2" thick the waviness is stretched out a lot and I'm concerned that when I've forged it into blades it'll be barely there at all. So I was wondering if I needed to grind the notches deeper or make the billet closer to final thickness to start with.

 

[weo]

-How deep do you grind the notches on the side/what diameter wheel?

This depends on the look you want, the wider, deeper and more you forge, the broader (wider) the waves will look.
I've used an angle grinder with a grinding disc attachment (read- grooves less than 3/8" wide) and then forge them to stretch them out.

-How do you avoid the pattern being stretched out as you forge it into a blade and becoming less dramatically river-y?

Minimize the amount of forging you do after grinding the grooves. (There's no way to describe the exact steps, it depends on what the billet looks like up to this point on how exactly to proceed. You'll have to figure out what needs to go where when).

-Related to the previous question, what thickness billet do you start with when you grind the notches?

See the above 2 answers, in addition to whether or not you have access to power hammers or presses.

One thing to keep in mind when making damascus is that until one get into tiles and mosaics, how close the pattern gets to what's in your mind's eye will depend entirely on both your skill with forging along with your understanding of how the entire billet is moving and changing throughout the whole forging process from beginning to end.
I won't claim to be a master, but I've been making damascus billets for about 7-8+ years now, and while I get close to what's in my mind's eye, I rarely 'nail' exactly due to the distortion that happens during forging.

 

[Leon Husock]

Thanks, weo! That's all about what I was expecting, honestly (which is to say it's basically just a matter of trial and error). I just figured maybe someone had a lot of experience with this sort of pattern and could offer some specific dimensions that give specific results. Like I said, I made one billet of it and I'm a little concerned it's going to get too stretched, so maybe next time I'll start with 3/4" thick instead of 1" and grind the notches deeper. I saw Zack Jonas who does a lot of this stuff cutting deep V notches on the sides and then rounding them out with a small wheel rather than hogging all the material off on the grinder, so that seems like a good idea.