My first post, I have looked in post and cannot find so, My first attempt at forge welding different metals to make patterned welded blade.
1st blade, spring steel drawn out, hot cut and folded and inserted a piece of 1095, welded and drawn out, hot cut and folded and inserted another piece of 1095. Hammered the bevel and shape, grind, heat treat, finish grinding and etch with Muriatic Acid. When I pulled it out the etching revealed cracks running from cutting edge toward spine.
2nd blade, 5)1" band saw blades, and 5) pieces of1095. This time I grounded the bevel instead of hammering, thinking it might give me a little better pattern. Same process as before, normalizing three times and quench. I am using canola oil without a temp gauge, but I heat another piece of mild steel and heat it up before quenching. Same results with the cracking. This blade was so hard before ht that I couldn't get a drill bit of any size to drill into the tang so I heated the tang up and hot punched it.
Sorry, no pictures.
I think it is one of two things or both. First the cooling rate of the different metals in the quench caused the cracks or I just screwed up on the quench. I have successfully quenched the spring steel and 1095 by themselves and got a hard blade.
I don't have power hammer or press so it takes a while using arm and hammer and have another 60 layer billet of band saw blades and strapping metal ready for shaping and don't want to make the same mistake on this one.