I was given some good scraps of Aletai meteorite to forge into damascus in exchange for the source guy to get a billet back. He needs a 1.5 by 6" by 3/16 billet, and I can have/use the rest. Googling and looking on youtube for "meteorite damascus" yields mostly stories of crumbling and failure. Reported compostion of this meteorite is: Fe-76.76, Ni-13.28, Co-.56, Ti-059. With that high of nickel and some cobalt, I expect it to be brittle and red short.
To deal with that, and because I have small pieces, I'm going to put it in a can with 1095 powder. This should do several things. First, it'll add some carbon to the mix since the meteorites don't have any. Next, it'll fill all the tiny gaps and holes. Even so, I expect cracks and bad spots. To deal with that, I'll take whatever billet I get out of this and re-stack it with some more 1084 and 15n20 as many times as it takes. I figure three or four restacks at least, but maybe more. If I can get a billet out of that, I'll likely twist it, or maybe san mai it over a core, TBD. I'm thinking this time I'll also do mostly videos, not just pictures.
To deal with that, and because I have small pieces, I'm going to put it in a can with 1095 powder. This should do several things. First, it'll add some carbon to the mix since the meteorites don't have any. Next, it'll fill all the tiny gaps and holes. Even so, I expect cracks and bad spots. To deal with that, I'll take whatever billet I get out of this and re-stack it with some more 1084 and 15n20 as many times as it takes. I figure three or four restacks at least, but maybe more. If I can get a billet out of that, I'll likely twist it, or maybe san mai it over a core, TBD. I'm thinking this time I'll also do mostly videos, not just pictures.
