Patrick F Posted April 16, 2011 Share Posted April 16, 2011 okay some people are telling me its a special steel thats very strong while other people are telling me it's just a bunch of metals pressed twisted and what not to create patterns. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dablacksmith Posted April 16, 2011 Share Posted April 16, 2011 yup... it was originally done to make a better steel ... you need to do some research .. are you talking about wootz, pattern welded steel or cable forge welded together ...three different things and one of the reasons you get different answers . all three have been called "damascus" a. if your talking pattern welded steel it is 2 or more different steels forge welded together it can be manipulated many different ways to make wonderful looking knives or other items ..hope this helps Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patrick F Posted April 16, 2011 Author Share Posted April 16, 2011 also what kind acid can you use to bring out the diffrent steels Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeremy k Posted April 16, 2011 Share Posted April 16, 2011 Try the search tool here on Iforgeiron in the top right corner of the pages : Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WmHorus Posted April 16, 2011 Share Posted April 16, 2011 An interesting one you forgot to mention was powdered steel and ball bearings :P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted April 18, 2011 Share Posted April 18, 2011 In the old days of bad metals pattern welded damascus was an indicator of someone who probably knew what he was doing and it could help out the properties of non-homogeneous steels. Nowadays in the time of good clean steels you are more likely to introduce problems making the steel less strong than a homogeneous piece. However it's *real* pretty and most folks don't use their blades out on the "cutting edge" of their properties anyway---especially the real pretty ones. HOWEVER there sure is a lot of HYPE about all types of damascus steel. Just remember that a lot of it is from folks trying to *SELL* it or from buyers who bought it and need to rationalize the purchase. As for acids, pretty much anything can be used to show a pattern---I've used strong tea (tannic acid) or lime juice before and like hot vinegar ans salt for showing off the pattern in my usual billet materials. Ferric Chloride is ued a lot as it's fairly easy to get and works on a lot of alloys, HCl, H2SO4, HNO3, various mizes, etc work. Some things work better on some alloys than others. Some people want lots of topo, others do not. Just one other thing: we usually use the strong acids DILUTED as at full strength they just eat everything and we want a *differential* etch where some parts etch more than others. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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