Regrind into a 1" blade!

Aloysius wrote:

Geland, quenched in water or oil? .

Ah yes, sorry did not answer this earlier.. must have been day dreamin again.

I was trying to raise hamon on the 1095 steel. and the only way I could do that is by very quick quench.
"HAMON" or clay hardening lines are commonly viewable in japanese swords. They do not represent much but decoration for the otherwise plain blade.
While I have fast synthetic quench oil (Haughton K) they are not fast enough to raise hamon on 1095.
And so for this type of steel, I have to quench onto water, brine actually, in a controlled quench sequence.
Usually I would use W2 steel for this, but the client insist on 1095 because it is "purer" and less alloy than W2 .. doh..

To those that are interested the knife is made of 1095 in Ray Mears' Bushlore pattern, hollow ground with distal taper.
It was partially covered with satanite clay to promote art hamon.
Heated in temperature controller furnace to 810 C and (supposed to be) interrupted quenched in brine.
The finished knife would then be tempered, polished and then soaked in Ferric Chloride until the hamon line is nicely visible, then soaked in baking soda to stop the acid.
Then red gum burl scales with red and silver liner is to be attached on it with resin and mosaic pins.
Well that was the plan anyway...


I talk to the client and now we are going to make damascus steel blade rather than hamon blade.
More work to hammer and weld the blade but less chance of failure.. except for slag inclusion ,, and uneven hammering .. and more work,, argh..

Why not contact Karim at Tharwa valley forge and see if he has some damascus billets ready to go? Might save you a bit of work, you know what his workshop is like.
Just a thought.

Pete, do you know that Karim do not sell his damascus?
He made me a few lengths of san-mai last year but he would not sell damascus.
I could go to his workshop and use his power hammer, or a few other blade smith with power hammer around sydney.

Nevermind, Just got back from the shed for lunch.
I just make a cable damascus, easy and pretty good result.
The steel is made, shaped and heat treated, and it is tempering right now.
Muscle powered hammer.. who needs to go to the gym LOL.

Actually I made 2 blades of the same shape this morning, one in cable damascus and one in D2

Picture later, they are in the oven right now.

No I didnt know that.
Glad to hear you're having success with the next one.

Thanks for the answer on the water quenching.
When you make cable-damast, at what temperature do you start hammering and how do you see/measure this? Do you always have to start with 1 thick steel cable or can you forge several thin cables together while making the damast?

you know that 1 nut can ask more questions than 10 wise men could answer...

Although I have high temperature thermometer, I do not use it for welding.
I observe the borax coat, when the borax runs the welding temperature has been reached.

I have used all sort of material to damascus, large and small cables, chains, fencing wires etc etc.
All you got to do is to bunch them together, flux, heat and hammer.

And here are the result for today's sweat.
No cracks

Mobile phone photos..

I'm humbled Gelan...the blade work you are doing is magnificent mate...absolutely beautiful.

What sort of steel are the cables mate...stainless or high carbon or some sort of a weird mix? I don't have an anvil or forge so I can't make a damascus blade...yet. After you have hammered them into shape, then done the necessary grinding and shaping, I take it you heat treat then anneal the blade. Do you need a special sort of heat treatment and quench for the damascus?

Vince, you can make you own anvil... or even just take a piece of rail (don't take it away from a railway that's still in use, just have a walk and find a piece coming from a repair or so).

And Geland makes everything sound so easy that you just want to try it...

LOL my anvil is an old forklift tine chopped up and welded together.

I use old elevator cable for this job, just because I have some at the moment.
I reckon it should be made of some alloy like AISI 5160 spring steel. it austenize at 800 C and temper at 200 C for approx 58 HRC from past experiences.

This is the sequence of how I do it.
1. weld the ends of the cable
2. heat the cable red
3. clamp one end on the vise and twist the heck out of the other end to compact the cable white it is red hot
4. sprinkle borax on the cable
5. heat to welding temp
6. Light tap on the cable with hammer to set the weld
Repeat #4, 5 and 6 until all the cable are welded together, you will feel the steel "harden" up and do not move as much when this happen.
7. draw and shape the steel to the shape you want
8. anneal
9. grind
10 normalize
11. heat treat.
12. Temper

You are a talented man Gelandagan.

And patient too you might add.

LOL.. I am just stumbling along and found that I like making knives..
Nothing special