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I just finished a five-day class on Japanese-style temperlines - taught by Don Fogg.   So here is my second knife blade ever:
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Aug 27, 2008 00:29
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dv6speed posted:Nice! Anything good you've ever heard about him is most likely true. He's incredibly knowledgeable, very friendly and approachable, and a great teacher to boot. Anyone who's into bladesmithing and has the chance to take a class with him should do it.
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Aug 27, 2008 02:03
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Slung Blade posted:You son of a bitch GIVE ME YOUR SECRETS! Okay! I'll type up my notes when I have the time, hopefully tonight. Slung Blade also posted:But seriously, that's awesome man, it looks absolutely beautiful. Was it a clay temper? Yes, we thinly coated the blade with clay to help prevent scale, then painted on ashi lines and a thicker coating along the back.
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Aug 28, 2008 17:25
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Okay, so. Temperlines. The most important element is the steel you use, as if you pick something that's prone to hardening all the way through you naturally won't get this to work. Don suggested 1050, 1095, W1, and W2. 1080 usually contains too much manganese to work. He apparently mostly uses 1095, but that's just because he acquired a large amount of it all at once and has yet to run out. W1 is apparently easy to get, as it comes in nicely-sized round stock for making drill bits or something like that. The knife I made is W2. Don's suggestion was to pick one steel and play with it until you know exactly how it will react in order to get consistent results. While forging the knife into shape, you want it above 1375 degrees or so, but not beyond 1550 as the internal grain starts to grow. I don't know how relevant these measurements are, since high carbon steel will just go sparkly if it's too hot and crack if you forge it too cold, so you should probably already be within these temperatures anyway if you're not ruining your material. Normalize the knife blank before moving onto filing or grinding. Once you're ready to do the heat treat, you can apply your clay. Firstly, clean the blade off with a degreaser (Fantastic or something like that) to make sure the clay will actually stick to the blade. We used something called ATP-641, which is made by a company called Advanced Technical Products in Ohio, but clay made from satanite powder also works well - you can get this from pottery supply places as it's used in making kilns, I think. Don't use an air-setting cement. Anyway, apply a thin clay undercoat to protect the blade from scale. Then you can apply ashi lines, which run perpendicular to the blade, and a layer of clay along the back to try to convince the blade to stop hardening there. The ashi lines are what effect the final shape of the hamon, apparently - the clay you put on the back doesn't do much, if anything, to the shape. The hardening process simply involved bringing your clay-coated blade up to about 1400-1500 degrees (don't go over 1550, and make sure the entire thing up to the tang has been brought up to temperature), then quenching it. For the W2 we quenched in water for one second, then immediately moved the blade to canola oil. Whether you need to use water, or can just go straight into oil, or whatever, will depend on the steel you're using, your furnace, and a million other factors - you have to play around to see what works best in your setup. Incidentally, Don suggested first hardening the blade with only a coat of clay to protect against scale, and without the ashi lines or back-coating. Then you can clean up the blade an etch it to see where the hamon falls naturally before you try to influence it - you can re-heat-treat the same blade pretty much over and over until you're happy with it, as long as you're careful. Mine was done twice, and the first time using only the oil quench - we added the water because only a tiny line along the very edge actually hardened in the oil. Once the heat treat is done and you're happy with where the hamon formed, the blade should be tempered at about 400 degrees - we stuck ours in an oven for an hour, let them cool off, then put them back in the oven for another hour. This would be the easiest step.  Once tempered, the blade can be sharpened (but take the edge back of a bit before polishing!), and sanded to at least 500 grit (you can go higher if you prefer a shiner surface). Then you apply your etchant of choice for about twenty seconds (depending on its strength, but don't just let it sit for a long time), neutralize it thoroughly, sand with continually higher grits, buff with whatever you please (we used pumice powder and iron oxide powder, with cotton pads as even paper towels can effect the polish at this stage), re-etch, etc. until you get the appearance you want. This last stage requires a bit of messing around until you get the hamon to be clearly visible, and once you like the way it looks, for the love of God stop before you rub it away again! Oh, and the very last step is to oil the blade obviously. Don brought some "Japanese sword oil" that came in a bottle with moontongue on it, and he claimed not to even know what it was made from - he uses it because he likes the smell. You can use whatever the heck you want of course. This is all just fired off while flipping through my notes, so let me know if it looks like I missed anything. Medenmath fucked around with this message at 03:15 on Aug 29, 2008 |
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Aug 29, 2008 03:13
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Slung Blade posted:Oh man, that's great, thanks for sharing. How about the initial grinding, how did you do that? Just on a normal wheel? The knife was forged to shape, then filed by hand. This is slow as poo poo and teaches you that you suck and need to learn better hammer control.  edit: But to clarify, you can grind it however you want, as long as you get out any hammer-marks and get the thing to the shape you want. You can even make the entire blade purely by stock removal if you prefer (but why would you God grinding is so boring). The edge shouldn't be too thick at this point, or the hamon won't travel very far up the blade. Before moving to the heat treat, use a file to make sure the marks are running lengthwise down the blade - I don't know how important this is but I suppose it might effect the hamon in some way. Medenmath fucked around with this message at 04:22 on Aug 29, 2008 |
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Aug 29, 2008 04:00
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That's a very nice leaf, Slung. I've always been bad at leaves.  dv6speed posted:That's nice stuff Slung Blade! How do you get the leaf texture on the steel/iron? Whacking it with a cross peen, most likely.
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Oct 18, 2008 17:20
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Slung Blade posted:My new habanero forge. Let me know what you think of this thing once you get the chance to try it out; I've been looking for a nice pre-built forge and this one looks perfect.
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Jan 30, 2009 01:58
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I'm very tempted to buy one of those now. I'll have to start putting some money aside.
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Feb 5, 2009 04:16
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Slung Blade posted:Re-heat slowly, usually people use a big thick plate that's yellow-hot and then set the blade onto it outside the forge, with the edge away from the heat. Once the oxide color that you want reaches the edge, quench it again. FYI, this step is much easier if you just set a kitchen oven or toaster oven to the right temperature and leave the blade on a rack in there for a while. Much less of a hassle.
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Apr 6, 2009 01:43
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Powdered Toast Man posted:Howdy metalheads! Aw man, I made some stuff with brass a few years ago, but now I can't remember any of the specifics. The only thing I can say about a torch is that you'll probably want to take some kind of precaution to make sure that you're heating it evenly, as opposed to just melting a hole in it. I seem to recall heating it until it turned a nice rose color, but don't take my word for it. Question - do any of you guys do blacksmithing in a suburb? I've been wanting to put together a little forge of my own in my backyard (so far I've only done work at a nearby craft school), but aside from being broke I'm also always concerned that I'll irritate my neighbors if I'm hammering and such.
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May 21, 2009 17:17
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Thanks for the advice, guys! Slung Blade, while I remember. You bought that one prebuilt gas forge a few months back - how's it working for you? Have you had more time to play with it now that the weather's better? I've been considering buying the same one.
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May 22, 2009 11:51
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Did some stuff finally. Here are some practice leaves, a bracelet, and a leafy bottle opener: And here's a knife blade (third ever  ): 200-something layers, simple twist pattern.
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Jun 30, 2009 23:24
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Zquargon is correct, it is damascus and has already been etched. I want to get something to buff it with and see if I can get the nickel layers to be a bit shinier.
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Jul 1, 2009 22:44
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can of corn posted:If you use some really fine sandpaper and go over it lightly it should shine up the nickle layers better. All this assuming you gave it a nice deep etch. The etch is pretty deep - deep enough to feel the texture of it, anyway - so maybe I'll try this at some point. Powdered Toast Man posted:So, how many hours do you have in it? Is that your first damascus piece? Yes, it's my first. I made the steel about two years ago and never got around to doing anything with it - I don't have a forge at home, so I can only work once in a great while when I stop by a local craft school. I don't know how many hours it took to make the billet, but I made it over the course of three days, under the instruction of a knife guy who specializes in damascus. I could probably do it in an afternoon now that I know what to do - it's not very time consuming, assuming nothing goes wrong. I didn't find it terribly difficult, either - generally you just flux the hell out of the billet and make sure it's at a good welding heat before you smoosh it. If you have access to a power hammer or treadle hammer, use that - doing it by hand is certainly possible but would probably be very tiring. We actually did the welds by just squeezing the billet in a vice, and only used the power hammer to draw out the billet at a reasonable rate. Two years or so ago, I wrote up the method I used for Slung Blade, and I might still have those PMs in my outbox if you're interested. RealKyleH posted:Out of curiosity, if I wanted one of you guys to make me a Damascus steel block that could be squared to 1" x 1" x 8" for a project how much would that cost? Some quick Goolging tells me you might expect to pay around $50 from a professional, maybe more or less depending on how complicated the pattern is and so on. I don't have any way of making more at the moment, unfortunately, but maybe someone else here can help you out. Medenmath fucked around with this message at 17:37 on Jul 2, 2009 |
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Jul 2, 2009 17:32
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I checked and I still have the PMs, so I'll post them here later tonight. edit:  There are three things to keep in mind when making Damascus: heat, dirt, and scale. Heat is good - you want your metal to be in a good yellow heat whenever you're doing anything with it, because the welds can break at lesser temperatures if you put too much stress on the billet. Once the metal has cooled to an mid-range orange color, it needs to be heated up again. Scale and dirt are bad - if anything gets in between layers in your billet, the weld there will will fail to take. Furthermore, it is important to know that the amount of pressure you put on the billet when you are trying to get the layers to weld is not very important - as long as the metal is hot enough, they only need to touch properly to weld. The only tools you really need to make Damascus are the things you would normally find in a smithy - an anvil, a hammer, some tongs, a vice, and a forge. A power or treadle hammer is a huge advantage for drawing the billet out, but if you can't get access to one, just stick to smaller billets so you'll have less metal to move. I would suggest having a friend on hand to help you with your vice, by the way - they don't have to have any knowledge of smithing to help, you just need someone to close the vice for you while you're handling the metal; we'll get to that in a second. To start, you'll need to put together an initial billet. You should alternate pieces of tool steel and nickel (all cut to the same size, naturally), so that the pattern will be visible. For the billet I made, I used five pieces of tool steel, divided by pieces of nickel steel, for a total of nine starting layers. Note that my nickel steel, because it was scrounged form a saw blade, was thinner than the tool stock I had - this was solved by simply doubling up on pieces of nickel steel: any two pieces of the same kind of steel that are touching will become a single layer once the weld is set. Also note that the initial pieces of metal don't have to be ultra-clean; grind or file off any rust, obviously, but a little bit of factory scale or whatever will probably not be a problem. The first step is to find a way to keep the layers together until they are welded. If you have an arc welder, you can run a little weld down the middle of both ends of the billet, and you're done. You can even weld a piece of junk stock to one end as a handle, although this will eventually break off with repeated heats and can get pretty hot itself. Assuming that you do not have an arc welder, however, you can simply tie the metal together with steel wire. Once the billet is ready, stick it in the forge! You want it to get to a nice yellow heat, but as it's warming up, continually apply flux to the gaps between the layers. You'll want ot lay it on its side so that the gaps will face up, and thus the flux will flow down between the layers as it melts. Flux from both sides, and don't be afraid to be liberal with it. Don't leave the billet on its side too long, or the flux will run out the other side - let the flux melt a while, then turn the billet flat again. All this fluxing will help prevent scale from building up inside the billet, which would ruin your efforts. Once every layer has reached a bright yellow heat, and as long as you've been careful to use the flux to prevent scale building up between layers,you can set the first weld. If you've used the arc welder to keep the billet together, this step is pretty simple (see below for slightly different method if you don't have access to a welder) - just stick the billet in the vice so that the vice will be pressing the layers together, and squeeze it. Move the billet in the vice and squeeze again as neccessary, so that every part of the billet has been squished to force the layers to touch. You can probably do this step with a hammer instead of the vice, if you want, but the vice is easier if you have a helper or are working with a small enough piece of material that you can manipulate it with one hand, and you'll have less trouble making sure every part of the billet had been squished. Keep in mind that you want to do the squishing quickly, as the weld will only take while the metal is yellow! Once the billet is welded for the first time, turn it so you can see the edges of the layers and clean off any scale with a wire brush. Check all four sides (the ends don't count). You want to watch the metal cool a bit, and see if any layers (especially the outer ones) cool at a different rate than the rest of the billet. If this happens, it means that that layer did not weld properly. See below for a possible way to fix this. If the whole thing appears to be glowing a uniform color, congratulations! Your first weld is complete. If you do not have an arc welder, you can use steel wire to hold the billet together. Tie it at three for four locations evenly spaced out, and then heat the thing up as above. When it's all up to temperature, take the billet over to your vice and clip off one of the wires. Squish the part of the billet that now has no wire to set the weld, and check it via color as above to make sure it set okay. Then heat the billet up again, making sure to keep the gaps well fluxed, especially where they end at the welded section. Once it's up to heat again, clip off the next wire and vice it again. Repeat for each wire until the whole thing is fused, and always check to see that the welds are taking properly! Incidentally, as long as the first weld takes, you can probably clip all the wires off at once, since the weld should hold the layers together. If you end up with a tricky layer or a bubble (a darker spot on an outer layer), you can try to fix it by using a punch to open little holes in the troublesome layer. Punch through the entire layer so that you can see the layer beneath it as a little, hotter spot - a little jet of gas may shoot out when you break through as you release the stuff trapped inside. Make a bunch of such holes all over the darker area, and then flux the holes liberally, heat the thing up again, and pound the bad spot down to try and set the weld. I did not encounter this problem, so I can't give you too much specific information beyond this, except that when you go to fold the billet over you'll want to keep the troublesome layer on the outside, so that if it never really gets fixed you can eventually just grind it off. Sadly, if the weld never takes properly you may have to start over from the beginning - not everything is salvagable. If it looks really bad from the get-go, and you can't seem to get the errant layer to weld, it might be a better use of your time to start over immediately rather than try to salvage it. Next, folding. This part is a bit less complicated than the first step, and is technically optional. Now is the time to make sure you know how many layers you want, because each time you fold the thing over, the number doubles. When I made my billet, I started with nine layers and folded five times, so the number of layers went 9 -> 18 -> 36 -> 72 -> 144 -> 288. Naturally, the more you fold the thinner the layers get, which is important. If you have only a few layers - say, if I had stopped at 72 - the pattern will be large and very bold. If you have lots of layers - say, if I had gone on to 576 - the pattern will be small and fine. The thickness of the layers determines how thick the lines of your pattern will be, so more layers means finer lines. If you fold it too many times, the pattern may become invisible, the lines will be so thin. Make sure to always keep track of how many times you've folded the metal and how many layers you have - since the number doubles each time, one fold can make a monumental difference in the appearance of the finished product. First thing you'll need to do is heat up the billet - again, a yellow heat, both to make it pliable and to ensure that the welds don't pull tricks on you - and draw it out until it's long and not too thick. When you work on the sides where the gaps used to be, there will probably be some overhang where the metal wasn't quite the same size or shape. Be sure to flux these parts while heating it and maybe just before hitting it, so that when these overhangs fold over and touch the rest of the billet they weld to it rather than just fold over. Once the billet is a good shape - this will depend on what your intent is, I guess, so use your best judgement - even it all out so it's nice and regtangular (don't worry about the ends) and let it cool a bit. Once it's in a black heat - or totally cold if you want, I guess it doesn't matter - you'll want to grind off all the scale from one of the flat sides (not the sides where the gaps were visible!) - this will be the inside surface when you fold the thing over. I used an angle grinder to clean the thing off, but you can do it by hand or however else you want. Just make sure not to make any deep gouges in the metal, or you'll risk a bubble or a bad weld. You want the metal to really shine here - get as much scale off the thing as possible. Technically speaking, removing all the scale like this may not be necessary, as once it's hot again the flux should take care of it, but I watched one guy try to do a fold without removing the scale and it didn't work (he had to pry the thing open again to grind off the scale), so I would suggest taking your time here and doing the extra work. Once one side is nice and shiny and clean, find the halfway point on your billet and cut a little groove into it, going almost all the way through - the shiny side is the side that needs to stay connected. The shop I was using again came to my rescue with a nice power saw, but a hacksaw or anything that will cut steel will work. I don't know if a hardy or normal chisel would produce a clean enough cut, but it might. Once you have a billet with a clean side and a gouge in it, you can heat it up again. Keep the shiny side as fluxed as you possibly can in the forge. Once the whole thing is grey-going-into-cherry (NOT YELLOW THIS TIME!) take the billet out of the forge, and fold it over. The easiest way to do this is to strike the billet softly agaisnt the anvil with the shiny side facing down, and then once inertia gets it started do the rest of the work with the hammer. Again, I will point out that the metal should NOT be yellow at this point, or it may be too soft and simply break on you at the fold. Before you fold it over competely, flux the hell out of the shiny side. Once it's folded over, stick it back in the forge and bring it up to a yellow heat again. Flux the new gap the same way you did the first time you welded the billet, and when you're ready, do the same thing you did before - stick it in the vice and squish it to weld it, then check its color to make sure it's even, etc. This step is identical to the first weld, except there's only one gap this time so there's actually a little less that can go wrong. Once the weld is set, draw the thing out again the same way you did before, and repeat the whole thing as necessary - grind off scale, cut groove, fold, weld, draw out, grind off scale, cut groove... Again, make sure to keep track of how many times you fold it. Once you reach the desired number of layers, just draw it out into whatever shape is most useful to you. Now, patterns. There are many different patterns, but I only know how to do a few of them, and of course, I have only actually MADE one of them. Feel free to look around on the internet for more ideas, but here are two to give you some ideas. NOTE: Further forging beyond this can distort the patterns sometimes, so it's always best to form your billet into a shape you actually like right after you do whatever is needed to make the pattern. The risks of this depend on the pattern and luck, and of course it may actually end up cooler looking in the long run anyway, if your luck is good. Just keep all this in mind! Twists: Twists look like flowing lines, such as the maiden's hair (loose twist) or the star twist (tight twist). To make a twist pattern, even out your billet so it has a square profile, and then stick it in a vice and twist it (a monkey wrench or something can help act as a lever for this - have the billet standing straight up in the vice and stick the wrench on top to all you have to do is turn it around). Very simple to do. Make sure that you try to keep the twist even, and (especially if you're going for a tighter twist) only twist the thing when it's yellow hot - this puts a lot of stress on the metal and can break your welds if the billet is too cold. Rememebr that the part of the billet in the vice will obviously cool faster, so keep reheating the billet and change where you put the vice to keep the twist even. This is the pattern I did, as it sounded the least likely to mess something up, and it worked out quite well. Once you have the twist the way you want it, flatten the whole thing and make the corners as close to 90 degrees as you can. What used to be the edges of your billet now wrap around the thing, so when you etch it the layers will be visible. Incidentally, if you grind fairly deeply into the tighter "star twist," you'll get little star-shaped things in your pattern, hence the name. Pool-and-eye: This pattern looks sort of like ripples in water, and is also called the raindrop pattern. This one is simple to do but pretty labor intensive- you'll need a drill press. Basically, on each flat side of your billet, and generally while it's still nice and fat (i.e., dont really draw it out after the last fold, just even it up), you drill little holes all over the surface like Swiss cheese. Make the holes overlap, have some go deeper than others, do them in different sizes, etc. Don't go too deep, as the final billet can never be thicker than the thinnest part you make here! You want it to be pretty random looking. Once you're happy with it, just draw out the billet and make it all flat and even. The layers that were drilled away will reveal layers beneath, naturally, so that you have roundish ripples when you etch. Be careful: due to how this pattern is made, it exists only on the surface layers; if you file off too much stock or something later, you can actually grind away the pattern! Note that there's no reason why you can't combine things like this - say, do a pool-and-eye, and then twist it. Now the etch! This would be the easy part. This should be done after all shaping is finished - and in the case of a knife, after heat treating and tempering. Ferric chloride is generally the etchant of choice, but keep in mind that, even though it is fairly mild as acids go, it is still very nasty stuff so don't breathe it or drink it or pour it in your eyes or whatever other retarded poo poo you were going to do with it you idiot! Getting the stuff on your skin won't hurt you immediately, but make sure you neutralize it ASAP if you spill it. If you want you can use a milder acid (even vinegar would work - eventually), but then it will take much longer. Firstly, sand the item going from coarse sandpaper up to at LEAST ~300 grit sandpaper - you want it as smooth as possible, so go to as high a grit as your patience allows. Clean off the item with acetone or ammonia water or something to remove any finger-grease or whatnot form your filthy, goony hands. Mix a soluion of 1 part ferric chloride (you can get this at some Radio Shacks, by the way - it's used for etching circuit boards) to three parts water (distilled, if possible) and fill a jar or bowl or something (something made of glass or plastic, so the acid doesn't eat it) big enough to hold the item. You don't have to be too picky about how you put the item into the acid, but make sure there are no air bubbles stuck on it that would prevent a spot from etching - I just jiggled my knife around a bit with a pliers (so as to avoid sticking my hand in the stuff) and made sure to turn it over once in a while). Take the item out every few minutes and take a look at how it's coming along - if you want a deeper pattern put it back in, or if you're happy with it just take it out and neutralize it. If your item is going to have a non-wood handle, don't etch the part that will be in the handle - if you're using wood go ahead and etch it. I think this has to do with the grip the handle can get on the etched metal somehow, but I forgot to write down the exact explanation, so I could be talking out of my rear end here. You can reuse the same solution over and over again, by the way, but remember that it must stay clean, so if you plan to reuse it keep it tightly shut (also it's still pretty dangerous stuff!). When you remove the item from the solution, rinse it with water and then douse it ultra-liberally with a base to neutralize the acid - Windex contains some ammonia and works fine. Slather the item in oil to prevent rust - olive oil, WD40, whatever - and go at it gently with 600 grit sandpaper again, while the item is coated in a thin layer of oil. Don't sand too agressively over dark parts, as you can rub out some of the pattern. Ta da! You're done. As far as long term treatment goes, just put a little drop of oil on the item and rub it all over once every few months or so to prevent rust. Keep it clean and don't leave the item in a bucket of salt water for a week or something. If you want to see the pattern right away after you finish the billet, clean the scale off of a small section and apply ferric chloride for maybe twenty or thirty seconds, then spray it with windex and cover the newly etched spot with oil to prevent rust. This will allow you to see how the pattern turned out without having to wait. Oh, and don't bother to clean all the scale off the billet until you're ready to work with it, as it can actually help protect the metal beneath from oxygen. So that's it. Please keep in mind that I'm not an expert here, so forgive me if I've missed anything. P.S. If you do it right, if should look like this  http://www.jloose.com/forumpics/langseaxblade3.18.08.jpg Medenmath fucked around with this message at 06:12 on Jul 3, 2009 |
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Jul 2, 2009 23:01
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| # ¿ May 5, 2024 18:44 |
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I saw a guy do wire damascus once. It might be sort of "faux" damascus but it still looks pretty cool. edit: I don't think I've thanked anyone for all the praise I've gotten, so thanks guys.
Medenmath fucked around with this message at 03:43 on Jul 5, 2009 |
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Jul 5, 2009 03:16
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