Forging Stainless question

T

TomNBandera

Joined
Feb 27, 2006
Messages
6
Ok, first I want to say hello to everyone, I'm a newbie here at bladeforums, last weekend a couple of friends and I had a small damascus making party. Since this was also a time for playing and experimenting, I tried to make a stainless steel damascus billet out of 440c and 416. After 2 failed attempts at setting a weld, I finally accomplished getting a good solid weld, however when the steel started to cool the 440c appears to have broken and cracked. Anyone have a secret to making stainless steel damascus they want to share? Or tell me what I did wrong? Thanks in advance. Tom
 
The 440C cracked ?? 416 is the free machining grade of 410 thus has high sulphur content which will limit workability both hot and cold . The temperatures for stainless are more critical and of course tougher to work.I don't know the compatability between 440C and 416.
 
Yes, I got the three pieces to weld together but the 440c in the middle is cracked and broken. I'm researching it to see why, but so far I can't find an explaination. Thanks for the input.
 
440-c has a very narrow range that it can be forged. By the time you pull it out of the fire, you have more than likely crossed its threshold. By the time you day it on the anvil, you definitely have cross. In other words, the cracks are more than likely a combination of thermal and shock induced stress. This is why the manufactures do not recommend the forging of 440-c, 154-CM, or ATS-34. There are those That claim to get it done, One out of mobile Ala, Years ago. He always wondered why he had knives returned to him with broken blades. Even if you can pull it off. There will be many hidden stress risers and crack in the steel that remain unseen. No mater how proud you may feel of the accomplishment, it will be by definition an inferior blade. Mike
 
I too have tried and failed. It will break your heart. I tried getting some super delux flux but I was told that was likely to poison me with the fumes so I gave up.

Good luck to you.
 
TomNBandera said:
Ok, first I want to say hello to everyone, I'm a newbie here at bladeforums, last weekend a couple of friends and I had a small damascus making party. Since this was also a time for playing and experimenting, I tried to make a stainless steel damascus billet out of 440c and 416. After 2 failed attempts at setting a weld, I finally accomplished getting a good solid weld, however when the steel started to cool the 440c appears to have broken and cracked. Anyone have a secret to making stainless steel damascus they want to share? Or tell me what I did wrong? Thanks in advance. Tom
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I remember reading an article in one of the knife magazines a while back, (maybe 10 years) There were a few makers forging stainless and the key problem is after you pull it off the heat you have a enough time for about 4 or 5 hits and it's too cold to work. (cold being a relative term) That is what stainless was designed to do. If you look up what the primary use for most hardenable stainless' is it's for making high speed berings and bering races. When people like Gil Hibben and Tom Enos started using 440c back in the late 60's you could only get it in round bar stock, because it was mostly used in roller berings. They had to pay to have it heated up and flattened and then have it surface ground. In addition to being able to withstand higher temperatures, Stainless throws off heat faster than other steels. Which makes forging a tricky operation at best.
 
I can understand the loss of heat factor, but I was using a hydraulic press, and if ats-34 isn't made for forging how does Thomas Devin make his stainless damascus? I'm bound and determined to make this work one way or another. Thanks for the website link, I appreciate all the input. Reg, are you the same ellery that knew lloyd harding? I just recently came across a website with a cd of his designs, he was an amazing man. Thanks again everyone, I'll keep adding to this as I find new things out about forging stainless.
 
Tom yes I did spend a lot of time around at Lloyds workshop he taught me
a great deal. I a probably repeating what you saw on the site but the majority of the images were scanned one to one so that they could be printed out and used as templates. I asked his son for permission and he said
anyone can use the designs. They came from a deep pile on his work bench they go bac to the 1980ies up until his death. The big stainless damascus bowie was Damasteel with elephant ivory that he had had from before it was banned.

I miss Lloyd one of the worlds true gentlemen. If you see anything on the site and can not get it to print true size send me the image number and I will email the drawing you want. Lloyd was always keen to help out new makers and his son is happy for that to go on.

I hope you can find something that can bring ss damascus to the back yard hobbie maker like me. I did look up one site and saw a artical on flourospar or similar spelling may have been the anvil fire site 5 % with the borax. I was told by another it is very toxic and I decided against it.

On a tangent sometimes it is just a case of having a go. Not every thing is going to work. You can get miss information from people you would normally trust. An idea becomes fact because he said so. A clasic example is chainsaw damascus. There was a group of keen amatures ( experienced makers) who had a problem getting chain saw chains to stick. They said it must be the shiny cutting teath have too much chrome so that is the problem. The problem was the heat and their ability. They were telling people to grind all the teeth of. Lloyd and I were making some beautiful big billets with all the teeth intact We could make them without loosing a single link. Whatch out for "it can't realy" meaning "I can't". I am not saying that to disrespect anyone I am not saying it can be done in a simple back yard set up but I do believe it can be done. But just not by me at the moment.

I am too cheap to buy stock to experiment with so I will have to wait and see what you come up with or someone else.
 
The fact that stainless steel can be rolled at the mill proves that it can forged !! HOWEVER Everything is much more critical !! Precise temperatures, precise times , precise forces etc . It's not like 5160 !!
 
Reg, I understand how you feel with your loss of Lloyd, the man that talked me into taking a swordmaking class, thus leading to blacksmithing and bladesmithing was killed in a car wreck last year. Even though he's missed, he still lives on through his friends and family, it still hurts to miss him and I still catch myself thinking I need to give him a call and tell him about something. Even though I never got a chance to meet Lloyd, he's become an inspiration to me, I've caught myself (especially after a failed attempt at something) saying why am I trying to learn this at my age? Then I think of Lloyd and him learning to make damascus in his 70's, and I think, if he can do it so can I.
I was in Perth almost...damn has it been that long? almost 30 years ago, had a wonderful time, was invited to stay but only had 6 months left in the Navy and didn't want to screw that up, always planned on returning but just never seem to have the money to make the trip. I hope to return again someday, see the rest of Australia.
I know what you mean about the it can't be done meaning I can't do it, a man I met in the swordmaking class was teaching me to make damascus, we worked at it for almost a year and I still hadn't turned out a knife, a single billet, but that was it...he finally got mad and stopped coming to the shop when I started going off on my own and trying different things. All of which he said couldn't be done. My wife really made him mad when she forge welded some cable damascus, something that he had tried and stopped when he couldn't get it to completely weld.
I've got a call in to a professor at one of the universities here, to see if I can get some input from him, I'm going to keep trying, I realize that if it were easy to do, then stainless damascus wouldn't be so expensive, drop me an email sometime, I'll post here when I get any new info or if I succeed in making a good billet.
 
Something you might want to try. TIG or MIG weld all your seems on you SS.billet. Weld a handle to it and bring it up to heat, hold a temp. for a few minutes . Your looking for a high yellow color to your billet(I realize color is so subjetive but thats what it looks like to me). Bring it out and do a light press or very rapid but light hand hammer blows. If using a press, first time out (if the temp and soak were right) should give you a good solid weld. If by hand I would bring back to temp. maybe one or two more times. Once you have your weld do all your forging at the high temp. you welded at. I wouldn't forge below a bright orange. S.S. doesn't like to be worked cold. Hope this helps.

M.V.
 
Thanks Michael, I'll give that a try, I think most of my problems steam from the forge I was using not getting hot enough. I'm going to give it another try with a different forge.
 
Tom you may be doing it already but something I noticed was I am two cheap to waist gas heating up the forge so I tend to make a couple of my letter openers or other such trinkets. Buy the time I have made a few things the anvil has warmed up. Then I start the damascus work. I have even a chunck of 60mm x 20mm x 200mm steel I put that in the forge also. when it is hot I lay it on top of the anvil same thing the surface draws the heat from the billet very quickly on a cold anvil. One last thing I can think of . As soon as you see a weld start to crak stop hitting. Hitting harder will tend to widen the cracks. Stop straight away and re heat and do a little each heat until you get the hang of it. If your already making damascus you probably have that worked out already it is as much for the others checking your thread.

Age should be no barrier to learning. It should give you more spare time to practice.

Good luck
 
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