September 14, 20178 yr Hi. What Damascus combinations do you guys suggest? Remember I'm in South Africa so no lovely 10** steels for me. I've got a plentiful supply of 5160 and bohler uddeholm bandsaws (nickel bandsaws and carbon). i'm going to have access to some mechanical power hammers in a few weeks so I I want to start getting some billets of Damascus ready for then, please leave your suggestions and opinions. Regards.
September 14, 20178 yr Sort of depends on what you are going to do with the damascus. Pure nickel and low carbon wrought iron makes a beautiful combination that will NOT harden but you don't need it to harden for ornamental work. Now if you will be making blades....I like using hardenable pallet strapping and nickel containing band saw blades.
September 14, 20178 yr Author 10 minutes ago, ThomasPowers said: Sort of depends on what you are going to do with the damascus. Pure nickel and low carbon wrought iron makes a beautiful combination that will NOT harden but you don't need it to harden for ornamental work. Now if you will be making blades....I like using hardenable pallet strapping and nickel containing band saw blades. Well I just want to get better at forge welding for now and not worry too much about HT and proper edge holding capability, in other words I just want to end up with some damascus that looks good and could maybe make a "show" knife. Regards.
September 14, 20178 yr The only thing I can think of is I watched a video some weeks back by a guy doing a damascus billet using 15n20 and leaf spring. 15n20 has nickel and carbon in it as far as I know. Here is the link might help you out.
September 14, 20178 yr OK old files are usually high carbon; often very high carbon but no nickel or chrome so a stack of nickel containing BSB and file sections should weld fairly easily---or file and 5160 stacked. You have to watch the temps so you don't burn up the file. Also I would not do a 5160 to 5160 weld; either put in a piece of plain steel or make the billet with the outer layer you plan to fold over on itself not be 5160
September 15, 20178 yr Author I think I'll just stack up Some billets of: bandsaw (nickel) and bandsaw (carbon), 5160 and bandsaw (nickel), file and bandsaw (nickel), file and 5160, mild and 5160, circular saw and bandsaw (N), circular saw and 5160, circular saw and mild steel. Regards.
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