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Old 03-17-2018, 03:49 AM
epicfail48 epicfail48 is offline
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Location: Springfield Mo
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gblack View Post
As far as the Damascus part, it seems to my understanding that no “special” process is done for the pattern to show? It comes out on its own essentially?
Yes and no. Yes in that there will always be a visible pattern on the surface of hand forged pattern, no in that theres never a special process. Forging, by hand at least, is un-uniform by nature, and the un-uniformity of the blows will push the layers into each other and out of a flat plane. Picture the steel starting off as a flat sheet of pasta, then turning into something that looks more like a lasagna noodle. The layers will go all wavy, and the peaks of the waves of one layer poke through the other layers, resulting in the pattern showing up.

If you just forge-weld a bunch of pieces together with no real prep, you get a random patter. However, by upsetting the layers in specific ways, i.e drilling partial holes in a piece, then flattening it out, cutting in notches then flattening, you can manipulate the pattern. The 2 examples i just listen are how raindrop and ladder pattern Damascus are made, you can see examples here:

So, in short you get different patterns for different preparations, but no preparations still results in a pattern in most circumstances. Note i said most, theoretically you could get a bad of damascus with no pattern by keeping everything uniform, perhaps doing the forging with a press and flat dies instead of a hammer. No upsetting the layers, layers stay straight lines, no pattern
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