Triple-T #140 - Forging stainless steel damascus - Part 1

#tyrellknifeworks

In today's Triple-T (tools, tips and talk) #140, I'll be discussing my first attempt at forging stainless steel damascus. This is part 1, there will be others!

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[jakubptacek]

I love that you are aiming high and are not afraid to share this epic failure. Also we can finally see the direct comparison of difficulties in stainless damascus with ordinary carbon steel. When someone like you who normally makes incredibly intricate stuff, now fails in the first forge weld. And also having Josh Prince is cool as f..., he's my favourite damscus maker and his work is incredible! Looking forward to future attempts! Thanks!

[lewgriffinknives]

Great to see stainless Damascus getting a breakdown of process, thanks for sharing. Looking forward to seeing the results!

[RainyDayForge]

What a great community! To be able to reach out to someone like Josh Prince and pick his brain is immensely valuable. Best of luck on the next billet!

[judcargile]

We are so blessed to have such talent in the bladesmith community!

[JPsBladeworks]

Glad to see im not the only one who has failure in his videos 😅. Ill be learning a lot through your mistakes because i want to try this myself soon as well.

[chewyakarieckenicholas]

Thanks for showing that we are all human and proving that we're all human and we make mistakes

[danwerkman]

Very interesting.. argon is definitely a great idea . Such a interesting video. Thanks Denis.

[HeavyForge]

That’s was awesome! Peter Burt has giving me some good tips on stainless Damascus. No doubt in my mind you will prevail!

[rhodie]

Mr Prince is a fantastic knife maker and a very smart guy.

[bobgore]

Thanks for sharing my brother! You are a huge part of me becoming the best version of myself! You sharing your educational experiences is such a valuable gift, and I appreciate it very much! 😎👍🏻🔨🔥🔪

[Echowhiskeyone]

The best thing about failure is what you learn from it. If you learn nothing, then it's a big waste of time and material. Never be afraid of failure, be afraid of not learning from the failure.

[brycehampton]

Oh my gosh 😮I know that guy he do in forged in fire 🔥 with tiger claw knifes so keep moving forward 😊

[frankcuba]

I fill a canister with argon and drop them in one by one as soon as i done a surface grind. Then I top off again with some more argon just to be sure and seal it up! 20 layers restack with the same process. 120layers.
Also do semi with 15N20 and AEB-L. then a san-mai over a core of AEB-L. they get really nice.

[LittleGreyWolfForge]

Ohhhh heat treating is gonna be hell…. Ps first!

[vrillionaire]

I thought that oxygen might be the issue, mostly because steel will weld itself in a complete vacuum. I don't smith, I'm in a completely different field, but every time I find issues in my own field, it's always a lack of understanding on a chemical or photo-physical level. Innovation is paid for with failure, keep on keeping on

[rebelyell]

I definitely fee ya, stainless damascus is my white whale! Can't wait to see the argon trick. Works great for stainless in my kiln. Thank you for another great video!

[brysonalden]

I may never try stainless damascus, especially after learning from your video how technical it needs to be (sheesh, Argon through the handle???). Kudos for trying it.

[gaspermihelj]

i successfully made some stainless damascus. from my experience: dont put the stainless on the outside couse it will develop cracks. i usually make a thick weld all around the billet to prevent air, but be careful couse if u heat the steel too much it may oxidize already and not weld. i use stick welding, mma? i dont know how its called. and i think stainless might require a bit higher temperatures then high carbon, since im using a coal forge. im mostly using 1.4034/X46CR13 stainless and file or bearing steel. cheers

[krissteel]

About 4 years ago I picked up some Balbach SS which was a combo of N690 and Nitro-B, it was on special and I was making a lot of stuff with N690 and the time so it was something easy to process. Well, it turned out beautiful but getting the layer count out of it meant some long soaks in HCL.
In terms of DIY'ing your own SS pattern welds, your friend's advice is probably on point as I've heard of the canister process with gas stream, but its so out of my tooling and pay grade that I haven't touched it myself. I've seen a lot of combo's out there for the materials including some 300 series steels mixed in with the high carbon, but that won't make for a very good knife unless its clad to the sides of a high carbon centre. There's a few other companies out there who make it on an industrial scale like Takefu in JP who use VG10 and something else, being VG10 is more or less N690 its close enough not to matter. In terms of spending, the N690/VG10 with Nitro-B is probably the cheaper end of the scale that will also make for a pretty good blade, mostly because N690 doesn't need a cryo cycle and more or less completes its process by the time its room temp and straight into the tempering.
Anyway, wish you best of luck but I've not got much else to help you out with :)

[MuppetSlayer]

Saw those on your desk and meant to ask about them lol - Dan