I'm making a rather large blade of damascus and thought you guys might want to see a few pics along the way. I will be taking more photos as I go so this will be one of those that will have to develope and will be a few days till it's complete. Right now the blade is partially ground but I will be working along to get it done soon. The blade is an accomplishment to me in that it's damascus, it survived the heat treat, and the pattern needs to be right.

I'm learning to make lemonade from lemons. The first weld was good but the pattern was not exactly the way I intended but I'm trying to out smart it by turning the pattern around to get things back to an even keel. This works well for me. Karl said this once and it applies to me. This is a "how I do", not a "how to".
     

I made the above weld, cut into 5, restacked, and welded again, then forged a crude, thick blade from part of the billet. It has to have these grooves ground into it before the final forging to shape. Man this is ugly!
   

Ugly indeed.     You say the grooves were ground into it?  Using what?

BTW, the reason I'm assembling a forge (hopefully this week) is a thread you posted a while back titled "forged Integral Caper".  When you showed the "ugly" piece of spring steel you started with followed by the thing of beauty you crafted from it, I decided then and there that I wanted to start forging knives.  So thanks for posting this "ugliness".  I can't wait to see the work of art it will become.

Rusty

Thanks Rusty. That's great to hear.

I used a side grinder to cut them in. It does "waste" some material but I like the pattern it leaves. If you'll notice the spine of that grooved blade, you can see the layers though the scale. After that is heated and pressed or hammered flat, those layers will be zig zagging the length of the blade.

This is going to be one of those GOOD ones

This is the very rough blade that comes from flattening the piece in the earlier picture. Pretty rough. Makes you want to throw it away. But, it's my job to find a blade in it. It still has remnants of the grooves on the surface. That will go away in the grinding.

 

I rough ground it and did a quick etch to see if the pattern was ok. It looks consistent, so I know I can go forward. This is right after the light etch.

 

Lin, in the last photo had you already harden and tempered the blade?  I think I see some temper color left in a few areas.

Did you grind the false edge in the clip before or after hardening?

Steve
--------
Potomac Forge

I filed and smoothed one side of the clip. It's (the clip) still not finished but has a good start.


 

In this blurry picture, you can see right up the choil. I tried to get the plunges too. I'll admit it's not a good picture.

 

Steve, I had not hardened and drawn it back at that point. Once I had done that and it survived, I knew I could start showing pictures. The photos below your post is after the heat treat. To answer your question, I do grind the clip in , about 75%. Now I'm refining the clip. Those colors are from the ferric chloride I use to etch with.

That ziggy-zaggy "stuff" adds a new dimension to the laddering.
That's super-cool!

Thanks for the explanation, Lin.  At first look, I hadn't noticed that the grooves alternated from one side to the next.  Now I see how the pattern is created.  You'd want the grooves to be "ugly" to an extent so you get more "character", right?  You get a pattern but not an exact pattern, if that makes sense...

It's turning into the beautiful work we are accustomed to seeing from you. Thanks for taking the time time show us your process.

I was talking to John Perry MS Saturday and he stated that grinding the pattern in on a ladder pattern always comes out uneven for him. So the different methods work for different people.

Chris

Lin that is so nice - I just cannot help thinking of all the steel going back into the water bucket below your grinder.  I have to take my damascus up a notch!!

Is there a name for that pattern - it looks great!!

Bob Urban

Thanks. Here's another picture of the grooved blade showing the whole thing. Sorry it's blurry, but I just wanted you to see the general shape is established before the grooves are cut.

 

Bobby, The name is "Laddered W".

Here is the plunges ground and filed about the same.
 
 

This blade is 11 inches long from where the guard will be to the tip give or take a fraction.
I have some finishing to do so it will be a couple days before there will be any noticable changes.
 
 

Lin,

I really like this one's pattern.  Looks like a lot of work.  

Steven

Thanks for posting these pictures Lin & I like How You Do.

REALLY nice... cant wait to see the end product.

Got started back on this blade after a hard week of regular job. I'm refining the clip which takes quite a while for me to get things just right. This one is sharp and when you think about the geometry of a sharp clip, it has to be "right" from several angles, all meeting up in one gentle curve. Plus it has to be straight if you look up the spine. Notice the burr curled up on the clip edge.