First ladder pattern

[Freds Edge]

1084 and pure nickel

 

[Mister Coffee]

Wow. Very beautiful.

 

[opaul]

View attachment 814281084 and pure nickel

Wow! That’s a beauty!

 

[J. Doyle]

View attachment 814281084 and pure nickel

Looks great.

Do you mean that all the silver layers are true pure nickel?.....as in unable to be hardened nickel?

 

[Haines Custom]

Looks great!

 

[Freds Edge]

Yes, that is pure nickel, I went by Jim Hrisoulas book (The Complete Bladesmith), he said that a blade of a min of 70 layers and an excellent edge with 175 layers.I went with 260 layers. When I am done with the blade I will test and post the results.

 

[J. Doyle]

Yes, that is pure nickel, I went by Jim Hrisoulas book (The Complete Bladesmith), he said that a blade of a min of 70 layers and an excellent edge with 175 layers.I went with 260 layers. When I am done with the blade I will test and post the results.

Thanks for replying.

Yeah, I was just curious why you chose that for that pattern? I wonder how old that book is? Maybe things used to be done awhile ago that we wouldn't do now.

Personally, I wouldn't want soft spots all across my edge no matter how many layers I had, especially when 15n20 is such a viable option with nearly identical results.

But it looks really nice and I hope you do test it and report back. I wasn't at all trying to criticize, was just curious. I appreciate you discussing it with us.

 

[vlegski]

Just went back and reread the damascus portion of that book. Copyright 1987. At that time he was using a high carbon/low carbon welding. He used thin pure nickel of he wanted contrast.

 

[KenH]

I'm betting with the small sections of nickel in the cutting edge it will work pretty good for kitchen work. Sure does look good, and that ladder pattern is just right.

 

[jmforge]

In the future, I would avoid pure nickel at the edge. 300 layers is where you really start seing the "chatoyance" with ladder pattern in my experience. Anything under 180 doesn't look all that great IMO. I know that a lot of people are gong for "bold" patterns these days, but to my eye a bold ladder just doesn't work. I also think that pressed and ground ladder looks better than cut and forged out. pics are 300+, 250+ but with some forging on the edge after the fact. I have a 180 layer knife pic, but the file is too big.

 

[opaul]

Learned a new word - ‘chatoyance’. ;>}

 

[Freds Edge]

Tomorrow I will put an edge on it and do some 2x4 chopping, let's see how the edge holds up.

 

[KenH]

Looking forward to the results - I'm betting the edge holds up just fine