Lateralus Posted October 6, 2022 Share Posted October 6, 2022 Hi everybody, I hope you can help me with this question. I have already made some stainless damascus on my little 20 ton hydraulic press (33mm/s ramspeed), I succeeded but I had to make the stainless so hot that I got too much grain growth so this is not the way to go. At normal colder temperatures (1100 degrees Celsius max) the press won´t forge the steel. Years ago I bought his 150kg Beche LV4 powerhammer. I never installed it because I was in a rented building. I am 100% sure this hammer is strong enough to forge the stainless, you can see Devin Thomas using the exact same hammer. Recently I bought a new workshop so I might install it, but I am not 100% percent sure I will stay here so I don't really like the idea of putting 6000 euro's worth of concrete etc in the ground. The alternative is a 100-200mm thick steel plate on special air inflated machine dampers but the steel plate with current steel prices will be +/- 15000 euro and the dampers +/- 4000. I can do a lot of other things with that money.. So I was looking at this 100 ton Berrenberg – RSPW 125/100 screwpress, I attached a photo. Do you think press will be strong enough to forge 120*40*120mm stainless blocks? I know Marco Guldimann used a similar but smaller press for his carbon damascus, you can see him working with it in the video. Thanks for you input! Kind regards, Johan van Zanten www.vanzantenmessen.nl/galerie/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lateralus Posted October 6, 2022 Author Share Posted October 6, 2022 Oh, I forgot to mention why I like the screwpress, the flywheel accumulates a lot of energy, so with a relatively small (7,5kW) motor, you can have lots of forging impact. The beche powerhammer also does this to some extent but has a 18,5kW motor. I got 3x25A electrical mains so the 40A motor is a bit on the larger side. Further more, the screwpress won't need a big and heavy fundament. I think I should also mention I only need the machine (powerhammer of screwpress) for drawing out stainless billets. Most other operations can be done by the small hydraulic press. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JHCC Posted October 6, 2022 Share Posted October 6, 2022 Wouldn't grain growth problems be mitigated by heat treatment anyway? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lateralus Posted October 12, 2022 Author Share Posted October 12, 2022 I know methods of grain refining by normalizing carbon steel by heat treatment, but these methods would take hours and hours in stainless, so I don't think this is an option. My metallurgy is not completely up to date, but I did investigate this: https://japaneseknifereviews.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/reducing-grain-size-in-pattern-welded-damascus-steel.pdf If anybody knows a method to do this in stainless, I'm all ears Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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