A huge, huge billet of damascus steel

A

AchimW

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Oct 14, 1999
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After 3 years of preparations, discussions, steel research and more preparations, finally the kick-off for our BIGGEST project ever!!! A 2.4 ton damascus billet.

monster054k-728259.JPG


For more information, please read here:

http://www.7knifedwarfs.com/aw/2006/09/monster-huge-damascus-bar.html

Achim

:)
 
Bayoublaster, this billet will be soft annealed, ground clean and cut to pieces of about 20" by 12" by 4". Those will be heated and hot rolled to plates of 1/2" to 1" thickness that can be cut to strips for patterning, torsioning or other pattern manipulation. I will keep some 12" by 5" by 4" bars for huge art forging projects.

Achim
 
Germans are crazy! Nobody makes anything better than a German who has his mind set on something. That's a serious hunk of steel. I can't wait to see what you do with that beast.
 
Alright... I dig the idea... that's a huge chunk of steel... but I'm a bit confused here... Sorry I know I can research it, but hell why not ask the people who already know...

I thought damascus was formed by the redundant layering of a steel that had been hammered out to a paper thin piece then folded over on itself and hammered out again... over and over and over until you got several hundred layers in which to form the blade out of.

Obviously this is incorrect... or best I can tell it is, because how could a billet be damascus at the same time.

So who cares to shine the light on me?

Thanx, and sorry..

DM
 
Danbo, somehow lost your adress, but nice to hear from you again!!

DM, you can start with 3 layers and forge weld them and draw out and fold and repeat this 7 times to have over 300 layers. Or you can start with 20 layers and forge and fold 4 times to have 320 layers. Or you can put the 320 layers directly onto each other and forge weld them together and forge flat, like we did. The result is in all cases a billet with 320 layers. The problem is that with each folding of the billet you risk to incorporate flaws and material into the welds (flux, scale....) that lowers the quality of the damascus steel. Using our method this is not possible. No flux, no folding, just steel on steel and perfect welds. Besides, damascus steel is never forged out paper thin.
If you have more questions, just ask, please!

Achim
 
Hey Achim,

You actually went ahead and did this! Amazing :thumbup:
I look forward to see the final size bars ... and a blade or two!
 
Achim after posting that I went to your site and reviewed the process...> Very bitchin job. And thank you for explaining it to me. I was wondering when you had the sheets stacked out there of the different metals how thick each sheet was that you had started with... Maybe 1/8"??? Or 3-5MM's were they???? Or were they that much thicker??

Maybe Paper thin was a bit much but the folded stuff like the old days is what I was referring to.

Either way, thanx for the photos, the info and the chance to see some of your work. Can't wait to hopefully see some of the finished products of your endeavours.

Thanx again,

DM
 
Well, for finished knives you will have to wait somewhat longer, because we need to press the hot rolling somewhere into the schedule of the steel mill and this may take until end of october. But we cut off a tiny bit, about 40 kilos, after the forging and i will forge down a chip of it, maybe 5 kilos, next week and show some pictures.

The initial plates we used were 1,5 mm for the tungsten steel, 1,8 mm for the nickel steel and 2,1 mm for the O-2 manganese steel. Carbon content of the billet is about 0.9 % and we had about 320 layers on 600 mm billet thickness.

Achim
 
Got it!!!! I read the site that you have up but I didn't really link the sizes of the plates in thickness to it actually being the size of each sheet. I took it to read as being a "type" of tungsten, nickel, and manganese... Like 6061 AL, or 154CM or S30V... That's what I read it as.... sorry for the newbieness of the question. The pics made it look at first as 3 huge blocks of 3 differen't metals that you damascised into one huge chunk.... that's where alot of the confusion came from I guess. Wasn't til you said 320 sheets that I realized my mistake, but it still didn't process as to the thicknesses of the sheets.

Follow??? Sorry I know it dont' matter, just wanted to clarify for me as well as maybe anyone else who reads this and is confused about it as well.

Really looking forward to seeing a piece of the steel.... Out of curiousity... are you going to be selling slices?? If so I may be interested in the purchase of a small piece to maybe get a custom blade made out of. I love the look of damascus but ever since they did that lazer etched crap I haven't had the lust for it... it all seems so generic... this to me is the real stuff...

Anyway, thanx again.

DM
 
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