Can There Be So Many Layers in a Damascus Blade That They Aren't Visible?

H

huntingsgr8

Joined
May 25, 2015
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I've been wondering, is it possible to create a blade with so many layers that they become too subtle to see? How many would it take?
 
I don't know about not actually seeing them, but they can get kind of washed out.
 
Not the nickel as far as I know. Don Hanson has done some high layer count "old school" damascus using W2 and iron. It is very cool, but different looking than most contemporary pattern welded pieces.
Lieblad said:
Sure its possible. Assuming all the material is not lost as scale,
Continued restacking will essentially alloy the whole mass.
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Yes, you can get too many layers. I feel that about 500 layers is right for a fine pattern, 1000 for a super-fine pattern, and 250 for a coarser one.

In folding the steel when making tamahagane, it may reach over one million layers. The hada ( grain) just gets finer and finer. Unless examined closely, it may look like a plain steel blade.
 
Stacy already mentioned it but I've seen a million layer blade before. The pattern was pretty much gone unless you got your face right on the blade. Even then you could hardly tell knowing what you were looking for.
 
Doesnt take long to get that layer count up. Even with tamahagane, they usually cut the billet into 3rds or quarters for restacking, in which case a '1 million' layer blade is only 10 restacks =)
 
Yep, it is the old ,"Give me a penny today, 2 cents tomorrow, four cents the next, etc. for a month". You will have several million dollars.
 
Connor McLeod's sword in highlander was folded over 200 times by a genius swordmaker. That would make it roughly 160000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 layers. Sure, that's more atoms than there are in the entire sword, or for that matter the sun. Basically, at a certain point you're just moving the atoms around, not folding them anymore.


:)
 
Atlas Knife Company said:
Connor McLeod's sword in highlander was folded over 200 times by a genius swordmaker. That would make it roughly 160000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 layers. Sure, that's more atoms than there are in the entire sword, or for that matter the sun. Basically, at a certain point you're just moving the atoms around, not folding them anymore.


:)
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Im going way off the rails here but yes, by masamune in 593 b.c...I did really remember that too :p
 
Kentucky said:
Im going way off the rails here but yes, by masamune in 593 b.c...I did really remember that too :p
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Masamune was 13/14th century CE (AD), not 5th century BC(E) ... but he could well have folded steel hundreds of times as he refined the tamahagane and made it more unified.
 
And then stuck 7 different pieces of varying carbon content together to made his blades. :eek: You look at the diagrams of how he made his swords and you figure out pretty quickly why most people DIDN'T do it that way.
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
Masamune was 13/14th century CE (AD), not 5th century BC(E) ... but he could well have folded steel hundreds of times as he refined the tamahagane and made it more unified.
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If you are referring to the Connor McLeod's katana in the Highlander movies, it was supposed to have been made by the real Masamune. He got the sword in the 16th century during the Scottish Clan wars. It was made for McLeod's teacher/friend as a wedding gift when he married Masamune's daughter a few centuries earlier in Japan.

I would have to research it to find if the movie gave an exact date, ... but I don't spend a lot of time on fantasy swords ... just real ones. Perhaps your 593 BC is supposed to be 1593 AD?
 
In the script of the movie, according to Ramirez the sword was indeed made in 593 BC. In reality is was made in 1984 by Marto of Spain, and was probably 4xx series stainless to more easily keep it clean looking for the movie.

[youtube]sZym6Ju5YDo[/youtube]
 
Correct. That was what the female lead playing the sword expert in the movie was so freaked out about. IIRC, her line was something like "imagine you dug up an archaeological site from the 5th Century AD and found a buried 747.
Atlas Knife Company said:
In the script of the movie, according to Ramirez the sword was indeed made in 593 BC. In reality is was made in 1984 by Marto of Spain, and was probably 4xx series stainless to more easily keep it clean looking for the movie.

[youtube]sZym6Ju5YDo[/youtube]
Click to expand...
 
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