for making damascus steel

[Patrick F]

does it matter what steels you combine?
could you combine stainless with non stainless ?

[Phillip Patton]

does it matter what steels you combine?
could you combine stainless with non stainless ?

You should try to use steels that are very similar as far as forging and heat treating properties. 1084 and 15n20 are great together. Stainless and carbon are going to be a big disappointment, unless you use a non hardening stainless and heat treat it for the carbon steel. Even if you get it to work, performance isn't going to be good.

[Steve Sells]

I partially disagree with Phillip, but its not easy to forge weld stainless steels. D12 and 420 or 440 will make a usable blade. If you worry about covering the cost of a real forge, as you stated in your other posts, then the stainless steel prices will kill you.

Start with the simple things and not attempt the high levels until you have some skills developed. I was taught start with mild, then do high carbon, then use low alloys, then higher alloys like D-12, then 200 or 300 series (bad for blades, but good for learning to forge weld stainless) then play with 400, after that go for others....

Remember in many cases, as the steels change so does the flux needed. Forget the "NO flux" welding here, and plain borax is not going to be enough for high alloys.

[ThomasPowers]

Also what you use depends on what you want from the finished product! You can make a beautiful billet from pure nickle and wrought iron---won't harden no matter what you do but it will be beautiful.

So asking about what alloys to use without giving any information on intended use results in rather broad answers. (My current long term pattern welding project is making a spangen helm.)

Ditto the part about learning how do do it well with simple materials before worrying about the hard ones---much less frustrating and a much cheaper learning curve!