Videos like this are great...they don't work out all the time, but as someone whose only metal working background was a machine shop, it's really interesting to watch, and better even for learning. I don't really have space to do this kind of thing, so watching you, and others practice their craft is enjoyable.
As much as I enjoy the complete projects, I also really love coming along for the ride with your mini-projects. I find it very inspirational in my jewelry making. Thank you and keep them coming.
@@liquidmidnight0748 Take it from another knife maker grain structure has to do with the heat treatment not the cold shuts in the steel so Cutting it up and re-welding in forging it back out would’ve been good.
@@Rosewayforge I agree. Through the restacking and reforging(under the proper heat), this billet could be reused to make useable blade steel. Though the original pattern would most certainly be lost.
Love the creative thinking! Just thinking out loud with a suggestion…maybe cleaning and welding the bars before cutting the tiger would have made it work better? It’s awesome that you allow “failure” of process to be part of the process. You do good work bro
A little late on here, but I'm sure having the solid steel san-mai type core may have been good! I'd love to see a re-attempt of this, definitely has potential.
Just came across your channel last night and subscribed. I enjoy how you take us along for your trial and error as well as how you aren't afraid to show errors and failures. It's all part of the process. And you show it.
As my father told me "You learn by doing and making mistakes". I love that you were willing to experiment and find out what works and what doesn't work. Your attempt at this found flaws in the process and now you can continue to try to find a method that gives you the results you want. Even if you discover the process cannot be successfully done that way, you learned from the experience. That's what real innovation is and I love to see it in action.
Thanks for sharing your experiment. It's always useful for me to see something tried that I haven't fussed with, especially when the result is less than hoped for.
There’s a lot of empty space (i.e. air) in a powder. Maybe try using strips inlayed into the cuts? That means you’ll need straight and uniform cuts. Do you have a mill?
I do like the concept of what you were trying to do. I'm not a metalsmith, but as someone with artistic skills, I think forge welding two types of steel first and then cutting in shallow lines on either face down to where the metals meet and then pressing the billet to stretch out the material, allowing both metals to be present on either side of your blank... like a raindrop pattern with lines instead of dots. and presumably less layers, though you could fold several times before cutting in your lines, which would give us the alternating dark and light steel layers exposed in the areas where material was removed and moved.
I am glad to see you doing ambitious canister experiments. To many smithtubers doing the same stuff. For this one i would say go bigger, thicker steel, wider curf, but also start with a thicker billet to have you more room to compress the material on all sides. The solid center design sounds cool but you would have to make the frame, add powder, weld on 1 face, flip the canister, add power and weld on the other face. Or not have your center stock be the same size as your tiger scales to allow the powdered steel to work through.
Great to see you try new patterns. Still would like to see the cheeta forge weld. (Medium darkness etching blank, drilled small holes (5-10mm) in it the diameter of some pipes (~1mm wall with bright etching meterial) and into the pipes some rods with dark etch. Then forgeweld them together and stretch it out a bit. Schould lead to the round geometry get a bit more natural looking.
Dang it! That would have been really cool! Try again. If don't mind I might try it and see what happens too. More cool videos please! Keep up the good work.
I made this comment on another of your projects, and thought I was posting it here. Oops. But the comment I wanted to post here was just something I was wondering as I watched. Combine rasp bars already have raised ridges for threshing grain, and the steel (no idea of what it is), sure is long lasting. Most any ag dealer might have a pile of used rasp bars around, and it might be a good source of unique material for your projects. Just an old farmer letting his mind ramble. I sure enjoy your site.
It’s great watching how you experiment. That will be a great pattern if you find a way to keep it together with those thin cuts. I’m not sure that wider cuts would achieve the Tiger stripe effect I think that you’re looking for.
What if you tried a ladder pattern cut, but just stopped short and alternated your cuts, that would look like the tiger stripe pattern but you should keep your integrity?
Suggestion: 4, 1/8” layers, 1070-1095 HC, randomly cut with the bandsaw. Clean up each layer and weld the cuts with a hard, high nickel bead, mill flat, repeat 4 times. Stack and edge spot weld the 4 layers, rip it down the middle, stack both halves onto a solid core of thin leaf spring and draw that out. 🤷🏼♂️
Glad I’m not the only guy that turns quality steel into garbage. I seem to have real gift for it 😋 Of course I’m just trying basic Damascus not fancy out of the box stuff like this. Hopefully you try again because that could turn out pretty cool looking.
Love the concept of the pattern! Couldn't the same pattern be achieved by normal stacking and grinding down (same pattern as the cuts) to the next layer and then drawing out into a bar?
A simple, light, and small vibration tool can be made with a simple battery powered motor out of a toy, added weight on one side of the shaft, in a hand held shell would work great for setting the steel dust.🤔. Or even a small speaker hooked up playing low frequency 🤔🤔🤔
I think if you went 2 short/shallow cuts then a longer cut in the steel then flip the middle piece you would get a rather interesting pattern. You could also try doing four pieces with the cuts and a solid middle for a five-layer billet. These are just some other ideas to try.
I have some old digger bucket edge from a bucket I had to replace the edge on Is this suitable to forge a knife from? If so is there a way to work out what the composition of the steel is ?? Love your work 👍
Nice concept, kind of like a simplistic version of ladder pattern. But maybe keep the can on until the shape is more formalized and keep working it at forge welding temps.
Nice experiment. I have seen both Steve Schwarzer and Jay Nielson say that canister needs to be forged at near welding temps, at least initially. Unfortunately 52100 red shorts so those high temps are tricky.
hmm there is potential there, perhaps building up a cube billet from your starting point then cutting it down and lengthening it out would give enough depth of steel to fully combine everything in a way that won't split.
When doing cuts like ya were in the beginning you gotta keep the bottom snug in a clamp all the way across, then you can cut down with pressure and the entire base takes that pressure.
Very interesting. I would try it with the pattern being a polar opposite of the one it was placed to. If the first is cut 🔺🔻🔺, the second is cut🔻🔺🔻, then the third is again cut 🔺🔻🔺 and so on. the pattern wouldn't really change and the holes in one piece, would be supported by the adjacent piece.
I think if you started with a single solid base piece, and used a cut off disc on an angle grinder to make larger stripes, it would go a long way in keeping things solid. I'm no professional, so possible that I'm missing something here. We'll done and I hope you try again. Seeing both success and failures is why I love this channel. More akin to real life.
just an idea for you. what if you used a canister and do what you tried in this video, but use 15n20 for the base and filling the cutouts with 1095 powder?
Cut the slots in each of the pieces on their own, they do not have to match, in fact, best they do not, each one will support the next layer. The difficult part would be the 10/80 powder, ensuring it fills all of the cut slots. Perhaps use 4 or 5 layers rather than 3 to build a stronger more complex support structure to start.
I second that. Put the layers in the box one at a time and fill with powder, stack another, fill with powder etc. I’m also thinking the stock should be no more than 1” wide and the layers should be about 1/8”, and maybe 6 or 7 thick?
Next time, clamp the porta-band saw and use it like a stand up band saw. As for the cracking, curious if you flipped the middle layer, so the saw cuts don't all line up would make it stronger like plywood 🤔❓
So why wouldn't you have just forge welded those together to begin with and started with a solid bar? I'm working on a project currently that I had to weld five bars at 1/4 in just to get the thickness that I needed.
rapid cooling in water also makes it brittle, especially if the water is too cold compared to the metal. Decarbonization and delamination of a blade both will kill a project in its tracks.
this is not unlike my comment on your "let's try drilling holes and filling with powder to make a pattern" video from a week or so back. I even used the phrase "tiger stripes." if this is just a coincidence, cool, if not, awesome! I haven't had the chance to learn bladesmithing yet and I am glad to see some of my harebrained ideas attempted 😁
Okay here's what I would have done. I would have used an angle grinder with a cutoff wheel to get some v gouges about 90% of the way through the steel. I would have done 1084 to fill. I would have not used primer as it off gases and can get into the gaps in powdered Steel and cause bad welds. I would have simply encapsulated in very thin sheet metal. As you forge the sheet metal should deteriorate through scaling. Using the V gouges I would have a differential in thickness to each line. That could give you a tiger stripe pattern. Furthermore on initial heat I would have got it much hotter. Look like you are around a 2200 to 2300 hundred degree range. I would have liked to see that up towards 2500
Maybe, after cutting, you could swap the middle one around (back to front), but this will mean putting the powder in on both sides, which could be a problem. Maybe you could leave the sides off and put the powder in from both sides, tacking the one closed after the powder has bee inserted. As they say, it is better to make mistakes and stay humble, than to have (constant) success and become arrogant. The important thing is to learn out of your mistakes! When I saw the small photo of your video, I thought they were nails (one up one down) fitted inside a cage with powder filling in the spaces.
![[TH] VCT Masters Shanghai Playoffs DAY 6 // G2 vs GEN | 100T vs TH](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/M6jxF80AajI/mqdefault.jpg)
that spray paint trick to keep the outer layer from welding was worth the price of admission! thanks for that awesome tip!
Videos like this are great...they don't work out all the time, but as someone whose only metal working background was a machine shop, it's really interesting to watch, and better even for learning. I don't really have space to do this kind of thing, so watching you, and others practice their craft is enjoyable.
I appreciate you watching!
I appreciate seeing the ones that don't work out, as well.
As much as I enjoy the complete projects, I also really love coming along for the ride with your mini-projects. I find it very inspirational in my jewelry making. Thank you and keep them coming.
great to hear, thanks for watching!
Live and learn.
Can't wait to see you try again.
Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for watching!
Break it and stack the pieces and forge weld those, still might be good pattern. God bless sir
The grain structure was terrible and became really brittle. No possible way to stack it and reweld it.
@@liquidmidnight0748 Take it from another knife maker grain structure has to do with the heat treatment not the cold shuts in the steel so Cutting it up and re-welding in forging it back out would’ve been good.
@@Rosewayforge I agree. Through the restacking and reforging(under the proper heat), this billet could be reused to make useable blade steel. Though the original pattern would most certainly be lost.
Probably not enough material left to build a new blade in that manner.
Actually that would be a good idea. Japanese sword makers do just that. Look at what they end with.
I guess that's how ya learn
. In all seriousness, thanks for posting that. 👍
I like that you show some of your experiments. Thank you
Love the creative thinking!
Just thinking out loud with a suggestion…maybe cleaning and welding the bars before cutting the tiger would have made it work better?
It’s awesome that you allow “failure” of process to be part of the process.
You do good work bro
I think you need to keep experimenting with this concept. I think if you figure it out it will make a really beautiful pattern
knowing what *NOT* to do is as good as knowing what *TO* do, in the end. No big loss... you learned something.
Really enjoy failed projects. Because even when they fail, you always learn something. :)
Welding the cuts seems like the best way to do this. Takes a lot more time to clean up but you remove a bunch of those cut stresses
A little late on here, but I'm sure having the solid steel san-mai type core may have been good! I'd love to see a re-attempt of this, definitely has potential.
Bummer. That pattern was looking promising. Great trial-and-error. Now we know and knowing is half the battle.💪
Always enjoy your ideas regardless if they always work. Never stop imagining things!
Just came across your channel last night and subscribed. I enjoy how you take us along for your trial and error as well as how you aren't afraid to show errors and failures. It's all part of the process. And you show it.
Thanks for always trying something new. Education for all of us and keep up the good work!
As my father told me "You learn by doing and making mistakes". I love that you were willing to experiment and find out what works and what doesn't work. Your attempt at this found flaws in the process and now you can continue to try to find a method that gives you the results you want. Even if you discover the process cannot be successfully done that way, you learned from the experience. That's what real innovation is and I love to see it in action.
For sure, thanks for watching!
Nice experiment - had an interesting beginning.
Love the creativity and effort! Keep at it, that's how breakthroughs are made 👍
Made me shout 'No!!!' when it came apart. Really love the concept though
I love when you go all mad scientist. Growing the craft!
Congrats!...you invented a new way to make chips!....sweet experiment, to bad it didnt work out the way you imagined!....keep it up!
Thanks for sharing your experiment. It's always useful for me to see something tried that I haven't fussed with, especially when the result is less than hoped for.
You bet, thanks for watching!
Can't hit a homerun every time you step up to the plate. Love your work
I think a san mai with a piece of solid steel for the edge & spine would work
There’s a lot of empty space (i.e. air) in a powder. Maybe try using strips inlayed into the cuts? That means you’ll need straight and uniform cuts. Do you have a mill?
Glad you show experiments that don’t turn out how you planned.
I do like the concept of what you were trying to do. I'm not a metalsmith, but as someone with artistic skills, I think forge welding two types of steel first and then cutting in shallow lines on either face down to where the metals meet and then pressing the billet to stretch out the material, allowing both metals to be present on either side of your blank... like a raindrop pattern with lines instead of dots. and presumably less layers, though you could fold several times before cutting in your lines, which would give us the alternating dark and light steel layers exposed in the areas where material was removed and moved.
I am glad to see you doing ambitious canister experiments. To many smithtubers doing the same stuff. For this one i would say go bigger, thicker steel, wider curf, but also start with a thicker billet to have you more room to compress the material on all sides. The solid center design sounds cool but you would have to make the frame, add powder, weld on 1 face, flip the canister, add power and weld on the other face. Or not have your center stock be the same size as your tiger scales to allow the powdered steel to work through.
Maybe forging 4 pieces together to start with your desired solid billet?
Cool concept!! What about leaving the middle piece whole, leaving some structural integrity, and the pattern just wouldn't go all the way to the edge?
I like where you’re going with this 👍 52100 is my nemesis…
I respect the imagination, and I always post my failures as well as my successes Great Job !!
Great to see you try new patterns.
Still would like to see the cheeta forge weld. (Medium darkness etching blank, drilled small holes (5-10mm) in it the diameter of some pipes (~1mm wall with bright etching meterial) and into the pipes some rods with dark etch. Then forgeweld them together and stretch it out a bit. Schould lead to the round geometry get a bit more natural looking.
Dang it! That would have been really cool! Try again. If don't mind I might try it and see what happens too. More cool videos please! Keep up the good work.
I made this comment on another of your projects, and thought I was posting it here. Oops. But the comment I wanted to post here was just something I was wondering as I watched. Combine rasp bars already have raised ridges for threshing grain, and the steel (no idea of what it is), sure is long lasting. Most any ag dealer might have a pile of used rasp bars around, and it might be a good source of unique material for your projects. Just an old farmer letting his mind ramble. I sure enjoy your site.
Neat idea, thanks for the comment!!
I appreciate your willingness to experiment and find "what if?".
It’s great watching how you experiment. That will be a great pattern if you find a way to keep it together with those thin cuts. I’m not sure that wider cuts would achieve the Tiger stripe effect I think that you’re looking for.
Maybe you could try getting inside the cuts with a little file, and then just giving it a little bit of vertical pressure when you weld
What if you tried a ladder pattern cut, but just stopped short and alternated your cuts, that would look like the tiger stripe pattern but you should keep your integrity?
Maybe solid core and then two saw cut plates with alternating cuts?
Would doing the stripes like they do a ladder pattern work to make a tiger stripe?
I would have like to see the finished pattern of the blade, good try. As you were saying the education continues!!
Maybe try with a narrower billet.
Weld on the two sides and grind those down then forge weld and do your thing. Great idea keep going.
Suggestion: 4, 1/8” layers, 1070-1095 HC, randomly cut with the bandsaw. Clean up each layer and weld the cuts with a hard, high nickel bead, mill flat, repeat 4 times. Stack and edge spot weld the 4 layers, rip it down the middle, stack both halves onto a solid core of thin leaf spring and draw that out. 🤷🏼♂️
Great idea. Next time
Glad I’m not the only guy that turns quality steel into garbage. I seem to have real gift for it 😋
Of course I’m just trying basic Damascus not fancy out of the box stuff like this. Hopefully you try again because that could turn out pretty cool looking.
Compress it like an accordion first when you set the welds not just on the sides. It will work.
Another way the accordian cut could have been done is using strips, and staggering welds along the layers and opposite on the other side.
Love the concept of the pattern!
Couldn't the same pattern be achieved by normal stacking and grinding down (same pattern as the cuts) to the next layer and then drawing out into a bar?
A simple, light, and small vibration tool can be made with a simple battery powered motor out of a toy, added weight on one side of the shaft, in a hand held shell would work great for setting the steel dust.🤔. Or even a small speaker hooked up playing low frequency 🤔🤔🤔
I think if you went 2 short/shallow cuts then a longer cut in the steel then flip the middle piece you would get a rather interesting pattern. You could also try doing four pieces with the cuts and a solid middle for a five-layer billet. These are just some other ideas to try.
I have some old digger bucket edge from a bucket I had to replace the edge on
Is this suitable to forge a knife from? If so is there a way to work out what the composition of the steel is ?? Love your work 👍
Man that was great! A way that didn’t work. So we try again
Nice concept, kind of like a simplistic version of ladder pattern. But maybe keep the can on until the shape is more formalized and keep working it at forge welding temps.
That’s a good try! Hope you get it next time
Nice experiment. I have seen both Steve Schwarzer and Jay Nielson say that canister needs to be forged at near welding temps, at least initially. Unfortunately 52100 red shorts so those high temps are tricky.
Definitely should add a solid piece for the core and make a San mai with your pattern on the outside
hmm there is potential there, perhaps building up a cube billet from your starting point then cutting it down and lengthening it out would give enough depth of steel to fully combine everything in a way that won't split.
You learn more from Failure, than sucess
How did you clean the inside of the cuts?
Do the same thing but drill different size holes...polka dot damascus.
nothing ventured nothing gained keep on venturing keep on gaining.
When I seen him fold it over the anvil and crack it with the hammer all I could think was Poopy
Make a crucible steel billet out of the scraps and do a wootz knife!
When doing cuts like ya were in the beginning you gotta keep the bottom snug in a clamp all the way across, then you can cut down with pressure and the entire base takes that pressure.
Very interesting. I would try it with the pattern being a polar opposite of the one it was placed to. If the first is cut 🔺🔻🔺, the second is cut🔻🔺🔻, then the third is again cut 🔺🔻🔺 and so on. the pattern wouldn't really change and the holes in one piece, would be supported by the adjacent piece.
I think if you started with a single solid base piece, and used a cut off disc on an angle grinder to make larger stripes, it would go a long way in keeping things solid. I'm no professional, so possible that I'm missing something here. We'll done and I hope you try again. Seeing both success and failures is why I love this channel. More akin to real life.
Wonder if you could make a Damascus billet out of a slinky or 2 with some powered steel???
Maybe!
What was the white paint u sprayed on it
just an idea for you. what if you used a canister and do what you tried in this video, but use 15n20 for the base and filling the cutouts with 1095 powder?
Where do you get your Metal from?
Cut the slots in each of the pieces on their own, they do not have to match, in fact, best they do not, each one will support the next layer. The difficult part would be the 10/80 powder, ensuring it fills all of the cut slots. Perhaps use 4 or 5 layers rather than 3 to build a stronger more complex support structure to start.
I second that. Put the layers in the box one at a time and fill with powder, stack another, fill with powder etc. I’m also thinking the stock should be no more than 1” wide and the layers should be about 1/8”, and maybe 6 or 7 thick?
Try the same operations except instead of the saw cuts drill a series of holes in the stack, fill with powder, etc. Polka dot damascus?
Next time, clamp the porta-band saw and use it like a stand up band saw. As for the cracking, curious if you flipped the middle layer, so the saw cuts don't all line up would make it stronger like plywood 🤔❓
What the hell! You never know until you try!
Did you quench in water? Doesn’t that induce further stress in steel?
@1:37 I would’ve had a friend off camera with 9-1-1 dialed in and just wait to press SEND!
I don't know a lot about forging, but, I wonder, maybe try solid steel instead of powder with the thicker stock....just a thought....
Why quench it in water?
Try again with a solid piece of steel and cut into it a bit less. As good as you are I am sure you can do it. God bless
Oh well. Still worth the try. Lesson learned. On to the next one.
So why wouldn't you have just forge welded those together to begin with and started with a solid bar? I'm working on a project currently that I had to weld five bars at 1/4 in just to get the thickness that I needed.
because I didn't want to anneal it again to make it soft enough to cut with the saw
rapid cooling in water also makes it brittle, especially if the water is too cold compared to the metal. Decarbonization and delamination of a blade both will kill a project in its tracks.
thanks for posting this. Most would not just deleted it. Good job.
mgs
just one question, why don't you use borax/flux to maybe weld the material better? But I like the idea of creating a new kind of damascus.
this is not unlike my comment on your "let's try drilling holes and filling with powder to make a pattern" video from a week or so back. I even used the phrase "tiger stripes." if this is just a coincidence, cool, if not, awesome! I haven't had the chance to learn bladesmithing yet and I am glad to see some of my harebrained ideas attempted 😁
Okay here's what I would have done. I would have used an angle grinder with a cutoff wheel to get some v gouges about 90% of the way through the steel. I would have done 1084 to fill. I would have not used primer as it off gases and can get into the gaps in powdered Steel and cause bad welds. I would have simply encapsulated in very thin sheet metal. As you forge the sheet metal should deteriorate through scaling. Using the V gouges I would have a differential in thickness to each line. That could give you a tiger stripe pattern. Furthermore on initial heat I would have got it much hotter. Look like you are around a 2200 to 2300 hundred degree range. I would have liked to see that up towards 2500
That would probably work
Why didn't you use the table bandsaw?
I feel like perhaps forge welding it lengthwise would prevent some of the cracking.
Do the cuts like you did and put it on a canister with powdered steel. It will give the pattern you were after without the cracks happening
Did you try this again?
I actually thought you used the axe heads to make a Damascus pattern, it would have been interesting, 15n20 in-between and powder steel to fill gaps
What type of paint did you use?
I believe most any white paint will do, this was primer/paint combo
Maybe, after cutting, you could swap the middle one around (back to front), but this will mean putting the powder in on both sides, which could be a problem. Maybe you could leave the sides off and put the powder in from both sides, tacking the one closed after the powder has bee inserted. As they say, it is better to make mistakes and stay humble, than to have (constant) success and become arrogant. The important thing is to learn out of your mistakes! When I saw the small photo of your video, I thought they were nails (one up one down) fitted inside a cage with powder filling in the spaces.
I just have a normal hacksaw. Good ol' fashioned elbow grease. Ps no grease left
The experiments are great, the planning and preparation need a bit more work