Forge welding with Nickel sheet

SBranson

SBranson

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Oct 29, 2006
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I did a small kitchen knife this summer with 416SS outsides and a 1084 core. It was an experiment in many ways. All pieces started at 1/8" thick and they welded together well. I forged it very thin, down to I think just under 1/8" and I think the SS took too much carbon from the 1084 as I had to grind the profile back quite a bit to get to the good stuff.
Anyway, I made it a gift and the recipient likes is so no harm. I wondered if maybe I had access to a power hammer and could have reduced the number of heats then it might have worked better.

I had done this early in the year with 52100 and didn't have the same issues.


So, I got this idea of putting a thin layer of nickel sheet between the pieces of SS and the carbon steel core. I tried it out but I seem to have some ugly bits of delamination with the nickel.
It was forged very hot with the edges of the billet welded shut.

I didn't sand down the nickel as it is only .007" thick and think maybe I should have. All other surfaces were very clean.

I will try again but I wondered if there were any tricks to this.

Thanks,
Stuart
 
If at all possible surface grind your 1084 and 416. Then sandwich the nickel, weld up the seams. Can use lower temps and should get great welds.
 
Stuart,

52100 also loses a lot of it's carbon in this procedure. using nickel will work very well however you lose the shadowing effect that makes stainless carbon san mai look so cool. one way to get that back is to use a very thin shim of high carbon steel between the nickel and the stainless. This will give you the shadowing and protect the core from decarb. I would use .002 or .003 nickel and 1095 between the stainless and carbon steels.

http://www.bladegallery.com/pics/91898_2_b.jpg
 
Thanks guys. I have no access to a surface grinder though it's on my very lengthy list of tools I want/need.. right after a new grinder, power hammer, mill etc etc.

That's a great effect Bill. Hmmm.. I didn't seem to have as much trouble with the 52100 as I did with the 1084. I only used 1084 because I had some 1/8" bar stock handy.
This time I tried it with W2. I figured I'd lose that shadowing effect but I would rather that than lose the carbon in the thin core.
I'm trying to get my kitchen knives down to 2mm or less for the smaller ones so it's a lot of forging starting with 3/8". Without a power hammer, I thought that maybe too many heats was causing the problems.

I will look into putting that extra layer in and try really cleaning the nickel. Next time I'll order the really thin nickel, the 0.05mm stuff.
 
I'll try something. The main reason I didn't was that it was so thin.. Stupid, in retrospect I guess.
 
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