Jason Fry Posted April 11, 2023 Share Posted April 11, 2023 I was given some good scraps of Aletai meteorite to forge into damascus in exchange for the source guy to get a billet back. He needs a 1.5 by 6" by 3/16 billet, and I can have/use the rest. Googling and looking on youtube for "meteorite damascus" yields mostly stories of crumbling and failure. Reported compostion of this meteorite is: Fe-76.76, Ni-13.28, Co-.56, Ti-059. With that high of nickel and some cobalt, I expect it to be brittle and red short. To deal with that, and because I have small pieces put it in a can with 1095 powder. This should do several things. First, it'll add some carbon to the mix since the meteorites don't have any. Next, it'll fill all the tiny gaps and holes. Even so, I expect cracks and bad spots. To deal with that, I'll take whatever billet I get out of this and re-stack it with some more 1084 and 15n20 as many times as it takes. I figure three or four restacks at least, but maybe more. If I can get a billet out of that, I'll likely twist it, or maybe san mai it over a core, TBD. I'm thinking this time I'll also do mostly videos, not just pictures. I mixed up the layer count in this video. I originally thought the first re-stack was a 5, but pictures confirmed a 7. Ended up with 560 on the billet in the video. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George N. M. Posted April 11, 2023 Share Posted April 11, 2023 Jason, if you can get a complete chemical analysis of the material, including the non-metallic elements you will have a better idea of what to expect. Sulphur is present in many meteorites and really contributes to the red short and breaking apart issues. You do know that going through this process will eliminate any Widmanstaten patterns don't you? The resulting metal will look like any other iron or steel. Your word and chemical analysis is all there is to distinguish it from any terrestrial iron or steel. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Fry Posted April 12, 2023 Author Share Posted April 12, 2023 Correct, goal isn't to maintain the Widmanstatten, but to have some visible meteorite element in the final product. It always comes down to the smith's word in the end. That's part of why I document things like this in public ways. My billet ended up 1123 layers. I intentionally didn't include any 15n20 in the mix, so that whatever nickel bright lines etc there are in the billet are from the meteorite. Here's the as-forged bowie. As noted above, I messed up the layer count in the videos. It'll be a bit before I get to work on it again, but I should have it at Blade in Atlanta. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted April 12, 2023 Share Posted April 12, 2023 Use the meteorite for a butt cap and you could preserve the widmanstatten patterns. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Fry Posted April 12, 2023 Author Share Posted April 12, 2023 I'm pondering butt cap and/or guard out of plain meteorite to show the patterns, but I want to get the blade ground and hardened first before I decide to invest a few hundred more in material for fittings. Y'all blacksmiths may be made of money, but us knifemakers are broke lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Fry Posted April 17, 2023 Author Share Posted April 17, 2023 After grinding and heat treating the meteorite bowie, there are some inclusions/bad welds in the billet. TBD what I'm going to do with it. Probably grind it as much as possible to get around the funk, then finish it out. But with an obvious flaw, I won't be shelling out a few hundred more bucks for meteorite fittings. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George N. M. Posted April 17, 2023 Share Posted April 17, 2023 Too bad, Jason. Using meteorite for anything but fittings is always a gamble. Maybe you can get a couple of smaller blades out of it. Some meteorites do well under that hammer but from all I have heard and seem that is kind of unusual. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Sells Posted April 17, 2023 Share Posted April 17, 2023 Since portions of meteorite cost 50cents a gram and up, I found buying scraps ( shavings chips etc ) from jewelry makers is the cost effective way for me to gets it for making damascus. I paid about $100 for a pound last time I bought some, only issue is there were 4 different falls of rock, not just one. but I dont have a problem with that. I had a thread here somewhere about a blade I made as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Fry Posted April 17, 2023 Author Share Posted April 17, 2023 I have it all ground out to finished dimensions. There's one bad spot on the blade flat and a couple of shallow ones on the spine, but nothing that challenges the integrity of the blade. I'll finish it out at least. Outcome TBD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
templehound Posted April 18, 2023 Share Posted April 18, 2023 The billet from the 2nd video looks very good, nice and very natural! ....but I am struggling with the short terms in English....what is TBD?... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeeJustice Posted April 18, 2023 Share Posted April 18, 2023 To Be Determined. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Fry Posted April 18, 2023 Author Share Posted April 18, 2023 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted April 18, 2023 Share Posted April 18, 2023 On 4/17/2023 at 4:38 AM, Steve Sells said: I found buying scraps ( shavings chips etc ) from jewelry makers is the cost effective way for me to get it for making damascus. Good tip Steve. It occurs to me a person could partially separate different falls with a magnet. None are the same iron content so a DC electric magnet set at different powers could lift by rough iron content. Might be a way to get more contrast. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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