Hello all, 

I'm very new to this but have been interested in metal work and forging/blacksmithing for a very long time. I've been researching like crazy and pouring over forum posts here and around the web, youtube has been a great help and I just finished building a foundry. I've got parts on the way to build a ribbon burner forge like ones I've seen online, tools and materials to make a forge press are on the way too. 

I have a random question that I can't seem to find anything on that I thought I'd throw up to the online gurus. 

Here's the scenario - Using a press, perhaps with dies that fit whatever billet length you need, you want to make a small pattern welded/Damascus billet but are worried about getting the layers to stick, has anyone tried getting their layered stacks up to temp and then simply placing that in the press under full compression until the billet cools? Basically ensuring that the entire billet is under equal load through a complete thermal cycle?

Like I said, I'm a noob but this has been bouncing around in my head for a while and I figured I'd risk looking like an idiot. Thanks in advance. Great Forum BTW. 

its heating your dies, possibly ruining them,  many metals do not like to be worked at the wrong temperatures O1 is a great example  of a metal that gets ruined when worked too cold,   so NO its not a good idea

What Steve said. It is not a good idea.

I don't see where he heats the dies; so I see this as doing a "contact quench" most likely at a extremely fast rate and so liable to shatter many high carbon steel alloys.    Thermal cycling does not improve a forge weld: deformation/high pressures and high temps improve a weld.

Forget Youtube as a research tool, you need a good working handle on things before you can sift out the useful info. Hit a library and read up on diffusion welding. At welding temperature it's over and done with in a split second so NO letting a weld cool under pressure is as bad an idea as leaving your cookies in the oven while it cools.

Frosty The Lucky.

Thank you all for the responses, I appreciate the info.

Definitely makes sense and it's a process I've never seen or heard about that's why I was curious. 

Read up on diffusion welding more too, it's part of where the original question came from. I had seen that fusion between metals can occur at room temperature if given enough time and pressure so I had the thought, obviously wrong, that by leaving the heated billet under pressure would be an ok thing to try.

Thanks again!

Welcome to IFI... I always suggest reading this to get the best out of the forum. READ THIS FIRST

To give a slightly simpler (and perhaps a hair more practical) answer, the success or failure of the weld is determined in the moment of the initial contact. If the layers don’t stick at that moment at welding heat, they’re not going to start sticking as the billet cools. If they do, then a prolonged squeeze is irrelevant. 

He is heating his dies by the action of heated steel in contact until that steel cools, those calories gotta go somewhere,  I assume much goes Into the dies that they are in contact with, or did I  miss something about cooling and heat transfer ?

Unless he's welding Hrisoulas sized billets there won't be enough heat in them to warm up the dies to make any difference to the steel with a 1 squash cycle. I've demonstrated contact quenching/cracking  using some spring stock and a gracile 4" postvise before.

Now if I was patternwelding with a press I would probably spring for a high alloy dies and preheat them to 1000 degF, just to encourage the billet a bit. Fast press would be suggested too.