billyO
Well-Known Member
Hello all. I hope everyone is staying as healthy and happy as possible.
I'm on my second attempt at an explosion pattern based on Mic Maxxen's pictures in Gunther Lobach's book Damascus Steel: Theory and Practice
Unfortunately, I'm not quite good enough with the press yet and here's what the 2 ends of my billet ended up looking like (1"+ square billet that ended up being about 10" long):
As is obvious, I didn't do a great job of forging on the 45 degree bias throughout the entire billet (I did see this happening during the forging the last couple of inches towards the handle).
My original plan was to end up with a 2" dia cylinder that would be about 3" tall, then use the press to squish it into a 3-4" dia cylinder and then cut off slices to turn into the round discs. Because of my poor forging, I won't have enough material for that, so I'm trying to come up with a plan B.
I'm now thinking about cutting the bar into 1" - 1 1/2" pieces instead of 2 1/2" pieces, forge weld the 4 pieces into what I can get and then forge out individual rounds, or maybe have enough material to get 2. Would this be a good idea? What's the smallest (narrowest?) I should try cutting the pieces to make the 4 pieces for the square? Could I get away with 1/2" or 3/4" pieces to weld up in the squaring dies?
Thanks.
I'm on my second attempt at an explosion pattern based on Mic Maxxen's pictures in Gunther Lobach's book Damascus Steel: Theory and Practice
Unfortunately, I'm not quite good enough with the press yet and here's what the 2 ends of my billet ended up looking like (1"+ square billet that ended up being about 10" long):
As is obvious, I didn't do a great job of forging on the 45 degree bias throughout the entire billet (I did see this happening during the forging the last couple of inches towards the handle).
My original plan was to end up with a 2" dia cylinder that would be about 3" tall, then use the press to squish it into a 3-4" dia cylinder and then cut off slices to turn into the round discs. Because of my poor forging, I won't have enough material for that, so I'm trying to come up with a plan B.
I'm now thinking about cutting the bar into 1" - 1 1/2" pieces instead of 2 1/2" pieces, forge weld the 4 pieces into what I can get and then forge out individual rounds, or maybe have enough material to get 2. Would this be a good idea? What's the smallest (narrowest?) I should try cutting the pieces to make the 4 pieces for the square? Could I get away with 1/2" or 3/4" pieces to weld up in the squaring dies?
Thanks.
