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Making Damascus Steel Pattern Welded Style

damascus knifeI’ve been working on improving my skills.  Making Damascus steel pattern welded style. Various different layers stacked on each other.  Taking a flat bar of high carbon 1084  and layer it with a high nickel steel, 15N20, stacking up the bars, usually 1/8 of an inch or so, and at least a few inches long for the starting billet. Some of it comes down to what I  can work with easily.

Surfaces have to be clean and joined together by welding the corners to hold all the layers together. Next,  the billet is heated, treated with borax (a flux) and put under a press to forge weld the layers together, as one.  Billets can be drawn out, making it longer and thinner, cut up and re-stacked with the same process of cleaning, welding and forging.

billet

As the pieces are stacked it multiplies the layers, 10 to start becomes 30 with the piece cut in thirds and stacked again.  Creating more  layers in the process.  With no limit to

layers, and the compounding factor,   say starting with 11, they are forge  welded and compressed, drawing out the bar of steel, and thickness decreases.

Once that is completed, the bar is cut in 3 pieces,  forge welded again, making it 33 layers,  again the bar is cut up, forge welded and the count is 99.  Again the process is done with the next step producing 297 layers.  As the layers are added they become denser and denser. closer and closer together. Any distortions in pressing upsets the layer randomly, which causes the paisley like pattern vs. straight lines in parallel.

pattern welded

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Flamberge Blade

flamberge knife

The flame blade, or Flamberge is a cross culture an undulating blade or wavy blade resembling a flame.  Often confused with the Kris, a Indonesia style with ether a straight blade or curve.  It has other elements to it, magic, pistol grip style handle.  I find it very interesting to forge.   Its a process of preforming the blade, as if a dagger, and then hammering, swagging in the waves. Too thin and the blade bends over.

Flamberge blade forging

Flamberge blades provide a few advantages:

1: they’re bad ass

2: the blade does far greater damage in a thrust

3: In slashing the blade presents multiple curves as if a serrated blade.

4: it can be used to catch a blade with a wide guard.

 

 

This one is handled with Bloodwood and brass pins, guard.  Handle surrounds the hidden tang. High carbon forged 1095

flamberge knife

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Rigging Knives

handmade rigging knife with sheath example

The lore of old suggests blade points being broken off to keep crew from stabbing one another but the actual use is much more mundane. In a pitching sea a pointed blade is dangerous in tall ship rigging and even on a modern yacht. Usually set up with a lanyard so the rigging knife can be kept from falling from the rigging and hitting someone below.

In fact custom rigging knives come in folding knives and fixed blade selections. A modified Sheep foot pattern blade and a marlinespike (a tool for pulling apart knots) in the case of folders. With a handmade fixed blade knife a marlinespike is an extra tool. This needs to be fitted with the knife sheath to provide easy anchoring of the knife and the spike. in heavy seas. As convenient as folding knives are, its hard to deploy a spike and blade with one hand. The straight blade typically found in rigging knives provides a very rigid blade designed to cut through the thickest of rope, or line.