Here is a blade I made for a fellow pen turner larry. Not sure which wood he used (Larry give us a shout and tell us about the wood). The blade is 144 layers of 1095 and L6 which came from a band saw blade used in a saw mill. It was hammered and folded several times. I am not sure why but can not get the pictures large enough to really show the pattern.
Thanks for looking
How do get the metal clean enough to weld together? I tried a few times to weld old ships chain with annealed tool steel using oxalic acid but the layers seperated during heat-terating.
John:
1) I clean the surfaces with a grinder to bare metal.
2)Then I stack the pieces (in this case the band saw blade and 1095) in alternating layers and tack weld togeather. I also weld on a metal handle so I can work with the piece easier.
3) I heat in a forge until a little red starts to show then flux with borax. Heat to welding heat (bright lemon yellow and the flux dances on the metal) then I put in a vice and tighten the layers togeather, this causes the heat on the outside to be sucked up by the jaws of the vice but not inside so you know the inside will be at the same heat when you reheat. This also forces the layers togeather and elimates any air spaces.
4) When the out side is black I reflux and heat again to welding heat and hammer solid, I do step atleast 3 times dependng on the size of the piece.
I hammer out the piece then cut it into 3 or 4 pieces and restack. Then start over until I have the number of layers desired.
Now you know why damascus is so expensive. I attached a few pictures of a chainsaw chain I did.
