A friend ran across this site...

http://www.damasteel.biz/index.html

Hi Guys,
I've known about this product for some time, and quite nice it is too, however I personally don't like the uniformity, I prefer randomness.
It's good if you can't make your own billets, or you want exactly the same knife/item.
Regards Charles P.S. You pay for it ;-)
John O. Kopf wrote:
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Chilla wrote:
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Really nice hammer though, almost too nice to use.
Charly

Charly the Bastard wrote:
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Never thought of using stainless steel tools for forging, would have thought it would be too brittle? :-\
Would you use the Damasteel, seeing it's for the wasted steel method, forging the stuff would screw the pattern.
What do you prefer random or uniform patterns?
Charles

Chilla wrote:
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Seems to me that brittle would depend on the heat treatment more than the content. I didn't really look at the site all that much, as I make my own. I can't see how using a tool would screw up the pattern all that much, unless you had internal flaws that would cause delamination in use. Every pattern is 'random', even if you try to get repeats. As long as you hammer you're going to get variance in the finished piece. Each stroke moves the metal around, and unless you use a robot you're never going to hit the work exactly the same twice. You can plan for tendencies, but in the end it's still a crapshoot. But that's part of the fun. Sometimes you get pictures. I had a bud that made a billet that had shamrocks running down the length; he's Irish. I had another bud whose billet had a wolfpack in it, he's a Biker. I've had dragons, Dwarves, mountain ranges, all kinds of stuff show up in the finished work. Magick, I tell ya. Magick. Maybe those olde stories about magic weapons aren't so far off after all. Fire is a Live Thing; blood and sweat get hammered into the billet during forging. Stranger things have happened, you've just got to be open to things.
Charly

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I'm generally a pretty skeptical of "mystical phenomena," but I could swear sometimes a piece of stock just somehow _wants_ to be a specific item, pattern, etc. And -- sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you just _can't_ duplicate a certain piece, even if you made the first one 2 minutes ago, until you settle down and just let it happen. (sometimes not even then. :)
It's a weird feeling, with no known explanation AFAIK.

John Husvar wrote:
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I know exactly what you mean. It's not all science, there's art too, sometimes 'black art'. I'm not advocating flowing robes and a pointy hat, but there are strange things in the universe that flat defy the 'immutable Laws of Science as we know them'. What a dull place this would be without the wonder of creative accidents. It's that possibility that keeps me going out to the fire and swinging the hammer. What's going to reveal itself this time?
Charly

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Charly,
You've rediscovered, for yourself, why Smiths had their own god - Vulcan - and their works were considered more arcane than those of the Alchemists and Wizards of their day.
I've long suspected that there was as much telekenesis as hammering involved in both smithing and sculpture. [The main difference is the material which has, in side it, some thing.]

RAM³ wrote:
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Vulcan??? (live long and prosper :-p ) Heretic!
Hephaestus made much better gear, come on forging lightning bolts can't be an easy job :-)
Regards Charles

Chilla wrote:
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It's not that tough, you just need to watch the polarity of your tongs.
Charly

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Toughest part is getting all those electrons lined up and moving together. Herding cats is simple!

Charly the Bastard wrote:
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Hi Charly,
I'm glad it's not all science, it'd be really boring. Oh and why not suggest flowing robes and a pointy hat? Funnily enough there is a guy on the net somewhere that does just that... just goes to show standards in safety equipment differ a bit :-)
The one that blows me away is that copper takes a certain temperature to melt, however if you add a little tin the melt point lowers dramatically. If you had never done casting before you would logically assume the melt point would remain the same, but this is not the case... weird... 42 :-)
The surprises keep me playing also ;-)
Regards Charles

Chilla wrote:
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I hope they're made of nomex, I've set my clothes on fire more than once from slag splatters. I don't even want to think about the entanglement issue; the powerhammer can be a nasty dancing partner.
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Charly the Bastard wrote:
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The gent concerned seems to use a bonfire to forge his swords, and has a musician playing in the background... well from the pics on his site it seems this is the case, although it may just be an elaborate show... it guess.
Regards Charles

Chilla wrote:
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It's gotta be staged for the camera. We both know just how potentially dangerous this stuff can be. Besides, I doubt that you could even hear the musician, given the anvil chorus and the roar from the fire. Mine sure drowns out the shop radio when I light it off. When I first set it up, the neighbors thought I was running a jet engine in the garage. If I wasn't already deaf, I'd need earmuffs. (Years of LOUD engines, LOUD machines, LOUD music.)
Charly

John Husvar wrote:
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Sort of like staring at clouds or drill injuries, with clouds you can see lots of things (more so when you've had a few ;-) ), with the scar on my left pointer I can swear it's shaped like a little man :-D
Regards Charles

Charly the Bastard wrote:
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The damasteel billets are incredibly uniform, take some time to look at the site and you'll see this. I was saying that forging a piece of damasteel bar stock would screw the uniformity that their product is known for.
I'm not sure how they achieve this, unless they have a computer involved somewhere in the manufacturing process.
I make my own billets also, and like how no two blades are the same, sort of why I haven't use the damasteel product.
As far as magick is concerned it's like sh*t... Magick happens :-)
Regards Charles

Chilla wrote:
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They probably use presses or a rolling mill. Hammering would take too much time in production. It's most likely a continuous process setup; stock goes in one end, billet comes out the other. Chop to length, sell on the internet. It would certainly be easy enough; feed the stock, manipulate the pattern cold, induction heat in inert atmosphere, run through the roller to weld it, allow to cool, cut to length. Fast, clean, effecient, BORING. I'll stick to my hammer, thanks anyway.
Charly

When Charly the Bastard put fingers to keys it was 11/2/06 7:19 AM...
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Nope. Check the description of how they do it: http://www.damasteel.biz/images/Laminating_stor.jpg
Powder metallurgy. How much variation? Dunno, but more than automated rolling.
- CW

Carl wrote:
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Geez, I suppose that if a customer wanted something exactly the same then this would be the way to go, but personally I like randomness :-) Charles