damascus look

[gmarc]

No feathers ruffled here....just trying to save you some time

 

[ny griz]

:v Not ment for you gblacksmith.Thanks for your input.Griz

 

[ny griz]

:thumbsup: Birdman,got it,understand it.Thanks.If my wife hadn't had her hip replaced last week id'e probably met you at Dixon's i usually go every yr.Griz

 

[Birdman]

:thumbsup: :hatsoff:

 

[bdhutier]

... some times I get double posts some times none :idunno: :idunno:

You've outdone yourself this time with a five-er! You should be proud! :blah: :grin:

 

[Stumpkiller]

Somewhere I came across a suggestion of wrapping a blade in gauze with mustard on it. Produced something not quite entirely unlike a Damascus feature but mostly so. It did serve to make a new patchknife look like an old abused patch knife. :idunno:

Or at least one that had been used to stab a mummy and left to rust.

 

[LRB]

I agree with Claude on this one, plus the fact, that it would be extremely unusual to find a damascus pattern welded knife in early America. Though they were made in Europe at the time, it would be just as unusual for a commoner to be in possession of one.

 

Actually I believe there were a lot of "damascus" knives around. Early America didn't waste steel. I've read accounts of blacksmith apprentices who's job it was to weld up all the scrap pieces of steel into a bar for forging the next day. I've seen some early examples of wire rope forge welded into knives, the earliest didn't have an etch to revel the pattern though. But a savvy blacksmith wasn't going to waste cheap high carbon steel. There were a lot of horses that were walking around on damascus shoes and didn't know it. I don't know of any early American ones that had any pattern development though. A good many of them had simple wrought iron spines with a high carbon edge welded on.

A friend made some interesting fake mosaic damascus. The way he did it was with paint pens and drew what he wanted resisted on the metal, it was bolsters for folders. Then etch and wipe down with acetone to wipe away the paint pen pattern. You might try that, I've never tried that method before.

Just about all my carbon blades get a etch with ferric chloride, mixed with 4 parts distilled water. It's a slow etch, normaly takes about 15 minits, then clean and neutralize with windex and baking soda. It'll stain your hands but is a very mild acid. you can normally find it at Radio Shack, it's used for etching circuit boards.

Hope this helps.

 

[LRB]

Early American, or common Euro knives were not Damascus. the steel was often layered as a laminate, as in sheared steel, but not pattern welded and etched. Neither were common knives from Europe. The difference is very small, the principals are the same, but the result differs. It becomes laminated against patterned. Patterned on purpose simply was not done. Anything resembling a pattern that may be found on relic blades was through accident, and not purposely done.

 

True, but what is damascus? The original damascus was a cast steel, what we know today as wootze. If by damascus you mean welded steel or layered and welded steel that covers a wide spectrum. The definition is changing all the time. I remember when there was a big discussion and arguments about wether wire rope pattern welded was "real" damascus.

One of my favorites is "frontier damascus". It's got everything including the kitchen sink. I make it when I want to screw around at the forge and not make a specific pattern. The pattern comes up as a random pattern but with different thickness of layers and because of the multiple different steels it etches out with some odd results. What's the difference between this and something a blacksmith welded up to save on steel? I do a little more pattern development and a nice etch, that's about it.

By the early American definition there really wasn't much damascus. Though it did exist, and some American smiths were making it it was far from common. I've seen examples of knives from the late 1700's and early 1800's that were finely finished but when held to a light you could see the weld lines and patterns in the steel.

 

[LaBonte]

the steel was often layered as a laminate, as in sheared steel, but not pattern welded and etched.

Wick with all due respect you still do not understand that shear steel was not just a simple laminate like Swedish blades.
It was made by cutting blister steel into short lengths and then stacking them in bundles of about 18" square. This was then heat and beat turned heat and beat some more until the entire bundle was welded together.
This was single shear steel and it was not a simple laminate - and yes I have made enough pattern welded as well as laminate to know thew difference. There was also double and triple shear steel in which the single shear stack was cut and or folded and rewelded
This is the same basic method as that used to make random pattern Damascusm which is at least today considered a bonafide type of pattern welded steel.
As for Damascus in period, both 1780's L'Art du Coutlier and the 1813 Circle of Mechanical Arts describe "faking" Damascus - apparently there was enough of a market that for the real thing that folks were faking it.

As for the "common knowledge" regarding Damascus in the New World - the problem is that there have been no definitive studies (that I know of anyway) so that common knowledge so often heard regarding the subject is IMO lacking in any real scholarship in eitehr direction.

No that does not mean that everyone should run around with a pattern welded blade and no it was not really used for cheap trade knives, so for those wanting to stay with documented materials as much as possible then a simple steel such as 1075 is more appropriate - I say a simple steel since deliberate alloying of steel was not developed until the early 1800's and then was used for specific items, but not knife blades.
One other note - not all period Damascus blades, made in Europe anyway, were etched to show the pattern - it ws often polished like the more common steels so a visual inspection alone may not be enough.

 

[LRB]

Yes Chuck, I understand what shear steel is, and it isn't what we call damascus today. Any way you want to cut it, shear steel is pretty much layered steel plates or bars, of the same basic composition, forge welded into an integral lamellar constructed bar, or mass. Any pattern other than distal waves would be accidental. Yes, it is much the same as damascus, yet not damascus in my opinion. Next time you are at a knife show and see a beautifully patterned blade, be sure to compliment the maker on how nice his shear steel looks. As far as patterned damascus being so highly polished as to not see the pattern, what would be the point? Let's end it here. If you want to call shear steel, damascus, fine with me. I would still call it a laminate. I'll allow that it is a fine line of difference, but that's the way I see it. I would relate the difference to nudity, and pornography. Much the same, but yet different, and where one draws the line between the two can be vague and subjective. As far as alloyed steel and simple steel, how do you look at it and tell the difference? I don't fully understand your point with that. Well, I think maybe I do, and that is also fine with me.