This is my first patternwelded blade and my third time doing any kind of forge welding. Made it a paring knife present for my dad.

48 layers of 1084 and 15n20 with curly maple and cocobolo wood and a little bit of brass.

 

In a word...... beautiful i like the lines the handle evrything 

Very nice profile.  a real beauty.

 

Ooooh PRETTY!

Frosty The Lucky.

Thanks guys. I got a question though.

The 1084 I have is .25" and doesn't want to stick to the 15n20 which is .065". I'm pretty sure Im getting up to welding temp. But they just don't want to be together on the first weld. After I get it together and fold it, it's fine and I can do it just fine. I do grind the mill scale off perpendicular to the bar before stacking too. I guess my question is: should I get some 1084 that's a bit smaller like .125" so that there's a better chance of the metals the same temp all the way through?

Lovely little knife.  Sure he appreciated it.

As far as your weld, a bit of soak time to equalize the temperature in your billet is your friend.  If you clean and flatten all surfaces to be welded carefully before tack welding, then keep as scale free as possible during heating by a  combination of good atmosphere and use of flux the differing thicknesses shouldn't be too much bother.  You are being careful to just lightly tap to set the weld before trying full force blows, right?  It sure looks as though you have a successful pattern weld...

I'm wiring the billets together and only starting with 3 layers because I don't have a welder. Plus I only have a coal forge to work with so I can't really control the atmosphere all that well. 

I try to do medium light blows to set it. This one had a little delamination but I was able to grind it out thankfully.

Coal forges are great for forge welding.  Try to stay in the reducing zone of the fireball.  Very light blows to set initially, then a pass with medium light blows after brush, flux and reheat.  Try before you come out of the forge to have hammer in hand, get right to the anvil and be ready to hit as soon as you touch down.  One trick I learned to forge weld in a coal forge is to use a beehive construction of the coal pile with hot coals radiating all around the billet, then just before coming out of the forge turning off the air for 10 seconds or so and let the billet soak at that hot yellow/white temperature.

Another thing you might try that I've heard of, but not used as I have a mig, is to use stainless steel band clamps instead of wire for holding your initial billet together.  Reportedly they don't weld on and will just slide off after you get the billet tacked together.  That way you can use a good stack.

Very nice work!

Ok thanks latticino. I'll look into the band clamps and see if they work and turning the air off to soak the billet.

Great knife. I love the low count layers like that. The handle compliments it wonderfully.

Great job!!!

I start with 20 to 25 layers of bandsaw blade and pallet strapping wired together and weld in a coal forge.

My suggestion is that when you start up; bring the fire up HOT and then kill the air and place the billet in the hot reducing center of the fire till it comes up to fluxing temp---I often go get a glass of tea or something if I feel I'm too eager.  Once it's been fluxed well then bring up the fire for forge welding Don't over do the O2!

Well, here's another one in the works.

Latticino- I tryed turning the blower off and it seems to have a better effect. Thank you for the tips

I like this knife a lot, the thicker layer in the center looks great.  Did you have problems with the brass delaminating from the handle after epoxying?  That always seems to happen to me, can't get anything to stick brass to wood properly.  What epoxy are you using? 

I haven't had any problems yet. I left it pretty rough on both the brass and the wood for good gripping surfaces. I used the five minute epoxy by Loctite, seems to work ok.

Both turned out nice. I made my first pattern welded blade the other day it was a cable San mai but it diddnt turn out. It had a bunch of cold shuts in one side that I tried to grind out but got to carried away and wrecked it. Oh well try again.