Latticino, 

this is my first pattern weld of any kind. Does the blade have to be heat treated for the pattern to come out? 

Soak it in an acid, that should bring out the pattern.

7 hours ago, BlasterJoe said:

Latticino, 

this is my first pattern weld of any kind. Does the blade have to be heat treated for the pattern to come out? 

I am hardly an expert in pattern welding, but the procedure I listed is one of the ones that is successfully used for exposing pattern welding "texture" on knives that are layered with high carbon and nickel steels (i.e. 1084 and 15N20).  It may be for Cable Damascus you can get away with just an acid soak as Iron Poet indicates, but I would at least finish the surface to get rid of the scratches.  Those will certainly reduce the effect of the pattern.

I believe heat treating can help with bringing out more contrast between the layers, don't know why though....

Contrast is a function of etching and etching differs based on the internal state of the metal---stressed areas etch more easily and the martensite transformation stresses the internal structure  (This is my take on it; perhaps a metallurgist/knifemaker like Patrick could weigh in with more authority?)

 

17 hours ago, BlasterJoe said:

Just did my first cable Damascus. It was a piece of an electric shovel trip cable. Turned out better than I thought it would. 

 

Nice work Blaster. I'd like to suggest you do the twisting before you do the drawing down or other processes. This will give you more even twists and a much nicer transition between the twist and blade or finial scroll. 

It's almost impossible to get an even transition between a long taper and a twist. However it's easy to square up a twist and taper it down or widen it into a blade, leaf, etc.

Frosty The Lucky.

So I shined up the blade and did a soak in vinegar for about an hour. I did it before I heat treated just to see if I could get a pattern. I think I will leave this one be and try another piece with a heat treat to see the difference. 

Frosty, 

Thats a good point about the twist. I wasn't planning on putting a twist in the piece at all. I was getting a lot of delam on the handle and thought I could twist it back shut. Still had to do a lot of filing to knock off the little flyers. 

Thank you all for the great info. 

Gary: very elegant work there. OK, so how did you get that handle pattern/twist?

 

You have a lot better hammer control than you do in your profile pic! Looks like the graphic artist isn't a blacksmith. Sorry, it just makes me cringe.

Gary, thanks for the vid. I really like that alligator twist. I reckon the pattern looks a lot like snake scales so I'll try one with a snake head. Thanks for the how-to.

By the way, I hope you weren't breathing the fumes off that nut you added. It looked a bit zincy to me. I get a headache straight away from that stuff.

This is only my 3 or 4th item that I've ever forged on my own. It's my version of a letter opener that doubles as a butter knife. Heh.

 

 

These were made during demo's some time ago. Excuse my sloppy picture taking please.

 

letter openersjpg

letter openersjpg

Nice bit of wizardry there Rashelle.

LOL thank you Aus. I do bottle openers the same way with leaves and wizards.

Here is one of mine with a pineapple twist variation on the handle where I did the standard pineapple twist procedure without first scoring any lines so that the resulting diamond pattern is less distinct, but still noticeable.  I think it makes a great handle and I am going to try it on larger pieces. 

 Won't hold the edge,  so when it dulls it'll become a bottle opener. 

 

Ya mean letter opener? I'm sure it could open bottles too tho. A little forging on the spike head and it'll do both easily.  

 

 

 

Here is my latest, It started as a small thing but just kept growing until it was about 15" long!

 

12 minutes ago, gary huston said:

Here is my latest, It started as a small thing but just kept growing until it was about 15" long!

Like it,  very clean bevels.  Is that one of your signature forge welded nut finials?

Yes, that's my cheat!

 

Mr Houston...Love your work and your videos!!!!

Great to see you on this site! Thanks for sharing!

55 minutes ago, Bhutton said:

 

Great to see you on this site! Thanks for sharing!

Not really the case anymore....as in he's no longer a member.

I unsubscribed once we saw his true colors and lack of knowing how to deal with people in a mature way.

                                                                                                                                      Littleblacksmith

35 minutes ago, littleblacksmith said:

Not really the case anymore....as in he's no longer a member.

I unsubscribed once we saw his true colors and lack of knowing how to deal with people in a mature way.

                                                                                                                                      Littleblacksmith

Me too!  Very disappointing.