A 5/8 custom coming to life.
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A 5/8 custom coming to life.
Pretty pretty!
Mike
Nice one. Congrats! Can't wait to see it finished.
What steel did you use for damask?
52100,5160,203E and 15N20
Cool, how did you layer them? You hammer by hand, power hammer, or press? Interested in your process...
I make my own using old fashioned arm power.I purchased this particular piece as a billet due to some time constraints.Here is a picture of a similar blend stacked forged out into a long square bar twisted then hammered flat.Attachment 228939Attachment 228940
Looks like fun :<0)
I know how fun forging can be, but there is also a short cut to get close to where you are now:
Alabama Damascus Razor Blank / ADS0073-DKB - Alabama Damascus Steel & Cutlery
Still fun to beat steel into submission, especially if you have had a bad day at work!
I'm liking the pattern! That's going to be a nice looking razor.
What is the resulting carbon content in that razor?
203E is mild steel though. Only .2% carbon.
(S)A203 Grade E (S)A203 Grade F Pressure vessel steel plate--YUSHENG STEEL
The Damascus has a fairly low layer count so not a whole lot of carbon migration yet, and the nickel layer is running through the edge a lot. So I am wondering about how many low carbon boundaries will be criss crossing the edge.
There was no mention of pure nickel. That would stop carbon migration entirely. 15N20 or 203E doesn't have enough nickel to prevent it. Carbon migration has probably maxed out if this is run through four welding cycles.
There are 3 other carbon steels used in the makeup,15N20 is 1070 with nickel added .There are 10 layers of carbon steel and 3 layers of 203E with a finished layer count of if my memory serves me 416 layers.If you mix it with a high carbon steel and fold it a few times the carbon content will equalize through the blade. This last statement comes from a paper on using 203E in Damascus from a metalurgest and I wanted to link to it but the link is broken.Back in the day when pattern welded Damascus made its debue 203E was what 15N20 is today.It's added by some manufacturers of Damascus to give a high contrast.I won't be back in my shop for another week and a half when I will finish this razor up but I'm hedging it will turn out excellent.
If austenized below the saturation point, say at 1475F, 52100 is going to have finer grain and more toughness than O1 at the expense of some abrasion resistance. If austenized at the "industry standard" temps designed for bearings, it will have a lot more primary chromium carbides.
Just looking at the layers that are specified, the carbon content will be low. The pivot hole is kinda large as well.
Now, looking at the economics of the situation: there are a couple of dollars of steel in this blank. Then follow forge welding and 5 folds, cleanup, grinding. And then there has to be a big enough profit margin after VAT and income tax... It may not come from Pakistan but probably comes from some other faraway-istan where labor is cheap and ohsa and QA nonexisting. That's the only way they can end up at 38$ retail.
That people have reported it is worth the money means as much as people liking gold dollar razors or zeepk razors.
It comes from Alabama, not Pakistan or any other low cost location. Jacksonville, Alabama to be specific which is about halfway between Birmingham and Atlanta right north of Gadsden. . He provides all of the damascus that Bear & Sons uses, plus some to Blue Ridge Knife works for the stuff they have Kershaw make for them. IIRC, Brad Vice, the guy who owns the company, bought all of the power hammers and other equipment from another company. He has a few big Nazel and/or Chambersburg hammers in the shop. The reason hat he can sell if for $38 is that he makes a LOT of sheets of the stuff and has the blanks laser cut. You can see a video of his shop on YouTube. I counted 5 guys in the shop of which a 4 were clearly employees forging the product. When Brad shows up even at our small regional knife show, he typically has a like 3 8 foot long tables full of product including billets or sheets that are maybe as wide as 8 inches. If you figure that a razor blank probably has he equivalent of a bar 1/4 inch x 1 inch by 4.5 inches, that works out to a bit over $8 per inch and there is no sales tax on that unless you have an Alabama address.. Cheap, but not like the Pakistan stuff where $38 all get you a 12 inch blade bowie blank or a finished knife not much smaller than that and that is AFTER it has been imported and the local seller has added his cut. According to their website, the guys at Smederij Atelier Alkmaar get like 4.50 Euros per centimeter or US $12.50 per inch for their 4.3 x 29-33 mm stuff, but of course, that includes a 20% premium for VAT. Unless you are really famous, you are lucky to get $10-12 an inch for random pattern 1 inch x 3/16 over here. That is the same premium that guys like Bill Moran and Bill Bagwell charged for it over regular carbon steel in the late 1970's when only a few guys made it. The American market is awash with guys making pattern welded steel and most of them don't have to make a living doing it.
Thanks JDM61 I am confident the billet I purchased from them is of great quality and should produce a fine razor ! Will it be better or worse performance wise compared to my own O1 - 15N20 blend I can't say and that would probably be subjective anyway.I'm willing to give it a go and the individual that ordered the razor wanted it as soon as possible and was fine with me using someone else's damascus.And just to set the record straight I wouldn't make a letter opener out of Pakistani anything .
I am somewhat agnostic when it comes to the quality of the stuff because I have met a goodly number of people, including some high end folder makers, who say they like it and and a few who, well, didn't. I am saying that it is inexpensive damascus but not CHEAP damascus. They stand behind their product and that is a good thing. Would i use it? No, but I make my own, Would I use it if i didn't make my own? No again, but I am a steel geek so I have no problem overpaying for something that appeals to my geekiness. :p I would pass on the stuff for similar reasons as to those Bruno raises, specifically the use of 203E and 5160 in the mix, but I don't think that it makes it a "bad" steel per se, just not one that I am interested in because I want a steel that I can send out the door at 60+ Rc. . Another reason for that would be that 52100 and 5160 have a fair amount of chrome and that will result in what I consider a less than attractive gray etch. So there you have my honest, complete and unsolicited opinion.
All good points,The only other Damascus I've used from other makers is from two fingers and they make some good stuff out of 180 and 15N20 I just wasn't able to lay my hands on any at the time.
10XX and 15N20 is the old standby. The only "problem" that you might run into is that some of the 10XX steel you get may not have the higher percentages of manganese which means they won't etch quite as black. I still have a little stash of old Schrade 1084 that has like .8% manganese. i would love to get hold of some of the 02 that Bruno and the other European guys use because it has a LOT of manganese and therefore the potential for really good contrast. But alas, we don't have it over here. Hell, the 1084 that many of us use here in the USA is actually made in Germany :D
Edit. I have seen some of the European guys get O2 based damascus almost as black using strong instant coffee as a post FeCl etch treatment as what we see over here when guy use stuff like the Oxpho cold blue solution, but with the added benefit of using a "food safe" liquid to do that final "etch" That might be a good thing with things like razors and kitchen knives. Who knows?
This is 1095 and 15N20, etched with ferric chloride first for the depth, and then strong instant coffee second.
It is important to use the coffee cold, for several hours, instead of hot. Hot coffee will turn the nickel steel blue.
Attachment 229911
The steel I use generally costs quite a bit more. I wouldn't go for the cheaper stuff for the simple reason that in a razor, I want all high carbon steel. Plus the makers are friends of mine, so I buy their steel regardless of the price.
Those are the kind of results that I saw on other steels using the coffee method, even those with a highly buffed finish which is sometimes trickier. I want to try that out on some W2/15N20 damascus when I fire up the forge in the next few weeks after I finish my current halfway done batch of 1084/15N20 stuff. I will be interested to see if I can still get that "3D" shimmer with high layer count ladder pattern using the coffee.
Well so much for that ,ran into a cold shunt.To say I'm ticked is a understatement ! First and last time I buy a piece of steel from them ! Attachment 231269
Wow I would be hacked too! That is disappointing to say the least...
Are you going to try again with steel from someone else or maybe give those blanks a try?
Yup getting some damascus from a source I've used a lot in the past.
Yeah even if the guy would replace it, by now you've sunk so much time and effort in it that that is the least of your worries.
I think that this is going to extremes here. There should be an acceptable failure rate. A factory rejects X amount and it is part of the game. As an individual your time is worth a lot to you. When thinking of it overall as a business it is part of the equation.
I digress but a good example to me is if a country sends 100 soldiers to war and one gets killed, as far as the country is concerned that is no big deal. If you are part of the individual soldiers family it is a big deal to you.
If you are going to make things out of custom or unique materials and are not accepting that failure is part of the equation then it is not for you.
Actually they guarantee there steel to be free from defects thuse a refund.As I said I hate wasting time.