Thread: The Mokume Gane Straight

Originally Posted by will52100

That came out great! First time I've seen a san mai done like that. Bet it took some careful forge work to avoid liquifying the copper! Hmmm, got me to thinking, wonder if brass shim stock alone would work, would have to look the melting points up, but should be fairly close to critical temp for the high carbon steel. Possibly able to forge braze the high carbon center in, would have to be careful during heating to critical to avoid the soft brass from popping loose, but might be doable. In any event, very well done, and very interesting look, that's something you don't see every day for sure, thanks for sharing.

Thank you very much!

Brass shim stock absolutely would! They key is in watching the temp of the forging very, very closely. Brass melts out at 1650+F and that is right at the lowest temp you can possibly forge weld at. You would need to go light and steady on the welding process as well. Upside, is that once you have it, that temp is below carbon heat treat temp, (Above 1425F for most high carbons) so you can harden it without worry of the brass melting. out.

Originally Posted by 32t

They sure look pretty but have some reservations about galvanic corrosion in a shaving environment.

I was in the same boat there and had reservations about that at well. The smith that taught me the process of Mokume Gane (Jay Burnham-Kidwell) addressed the question for me as he trained me. In the Galvanic series the most noble metals are the most resistant (With gold and silver being near the top of that list) and the least noble being more prone to it. This becomes a greater issue the farther the metals are on the scale. That's why Mokume Gane rings made of silver and copper need to have special attention given to them, as those two metals are far apart on the scale. I choose copper, nickel, mild steel, and high carbon steel specifically because of how close that fit on the scale. Copper being the most noble, steel being the least. As Jay explained it to me, the steel will start to rust in a electrolyte before the copper or nickel begin to corrode. Keeping the blade clean and dry between uses should reduce the risk significantly. But shoot - in the long term, my warranty for my pieces is forever. So if it goes south, I'll just make a new one for my client, easy peasy.

I really liked the scales.

Interesting!

I have some experience making pattern welded steel, and am soon going to start playing around with mokume gane, but for some reason had assumed (without looking stuff up!) that fusing copper and steel wouldn't work very well. I imagined molten copper skooshing out of the billet at me when welding, and have enough experience with molten borax doing just that to have kept me from trying it. You have me reconsidering...

Looks great.

Originally Posted by Cangooner

Interesting!

I have some experience making pattern welded steel, and am soon going to start playing around with mokume gane, but for some reason had assumed (without looking stuff up!) that fusing copper and steel wouldn't work very well. I imagined molten copper skooshing out of the billet at me when welding, and have enough experience with molten borax doing just that to have kept me from trying it. You have me reconsidering...

Looks great.

I say give it a shot! Some interesting things with the process - no borax is used. No flux at all. I built my forge specifically for blade making and forge welding. So it runs very, very hot and keeps a good atmosphere. MY teacher of Mokume Gane said time and time again, that you can fuse darn near any set of metals together. Then he went on to prove it, by putting some metals that are normally really tough to get to stick together. I think I was most impressed with getting stainless steel and copper to fuse. That one really surprised me! I would say that the single most important thing, is clean, clean, CLEAN surfaces to the metals that you are fusing together. Aside form removing any oxides, go several steps further and acetone off any and all oils. Don't even touch the facing surfaces once they are clean, and use gloves when handling after cleaning. So many times that has been the key to success for me in the process.

first thing, very cool idea, quite unique, i was wondering a while ago why nobody does something like that here, the layered design on the grind.

second, very interesting read! i enjoyed it, thanks!


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I don't see anything about heat treatment. How did you accomplish that?

Originally Posted by skipnord

I don't see anything about heat treatment. How did you accomplish that?

Kiln w/ pyrometer & warmed pure/clean peanut oil. 1095 is the type of high carbon steel I use for the edge, so that is the metal I heat treat to. It can be finicky for heat treat, then throw in the fact that there are dissimilar metals in there, some with a much lower melting point and it becomes very important to have exact temperature control. So I don't even consider doing heat treat in the forge. The process has me take the piece to 1475F and soak for about 10 minutes. Then an immediate quench in peanut oil, that is warmed to 120F. The piece is them pulled from the oil and allowed to cool to ambient temperature, then immediately tempered at 400F for two cycles, two hours each cycle. Final edge hardness tests at 62-63 HRC.

Thanks. Sounds pretty much what I do with 1095. My oil is recycled McDonalds fry oil.

Originally Posted by JohnGlueck

Kiln w/ pyrometer & warmed pure/clean peanut oil. 1095 is the type of high carbon steel I use for the edge, so that is the metal I heat treat to. It can be finicky for heat treat, then throw in the fact that there are dissimilar metals in there, some with a much lower melting point and it becomes very important to have exact temperature control. So I don't even consider doing heat treat in the forge. The process has me take the piece to 1475F and soak for about 10 minutes. Then an immediate quench in peanut oil, that is warmed to 120F. The piece is them pulled from the oil and allowed to cool to ambient temperature, then immediately tempered at 400F for two cycles, two hours each cycle. Final edge hardness tests at 62-63 HRC.