Basket Weave Damascus in a Canister

Bruce Bump

Forum Owner-Moderator
Its been too quiet around here so time to start another thread.

This pattern is like one I did several years ago and always wanted to try it again.

I used 1095 and 15n20 and stacked them in 4 equal stacks and arranged them like this. The super glue is used to hold everything together and doesnt seem to cause any trouble in the forge welding process. (I hope anyway) Actually I've used super glue many times before in canister welding.

This is a reletively small billet as its only 4" long. I plan to draw it out at least 4 times its length, cut it up and restack it back into 4 parts. The next time I will draw it out 3 times its length and restack but will add the 4th piece as a solid piece of 1084 steel. This solid piece will be the edge. In order for it to be the edge I will need to re-orient the billet or aka re-square it. I want to do an accordian cut on the billet to show the basket weave pattern and also the solid 1084 edge will show up very similar to a san-mai.

Dang, I hope this all works. If it does it will only yield enough steel for a 2 blade folding knife I think. We will see.

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This canister is cut out of a 1.5 x 1.5 thin wall square tubing. I used some used stainless steel heat treating foil around the contents for ease of canister removal after the initial weld. The used foil is oxydized and wont weld to the contents.

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I clamped the canister together and mig welded the seams. Notice the canister needed to be cut down to fit very tight as there should be minimum air spaces inside. I'm not using powder metal to fill any gaps. I'm depending on the super glue and some residual wd-40 to burn off any air trapped that could cause the dreaded scale between the parts that will defineatly cause a bad weld. Again, I hope this works.
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The ends get folded over and closed off with 1/8" thick steel plates welded all the way around inside the canister. This method keeps the canister together when making the first forge welds.

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Now its ready to heat it in the forge. I like to let it soak at 2300 deg f. to be sure it is welding heat inside the canister. I will use squaring dies of the proper size so it will sqeeze from all sides at once. You can feel it stiffen up when the welding is completed. Canister welding is fun and the patterns are unlimited. This pattern is pretty basic but I think the basket weave makes an interesting knife pattern and with the added solid edge should get some attention. If this doesnt work............I can always delete the whole dang thread. :)

Stay tuned for the next episode.
 
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Suweet! I always love these threads. Thanks Bruce for posting this one.. Its great to see, and fun to follow. I always learn cool stuff from all your WIP threads.. God Bless YA!
 
Todays a new day so with the propane burning in the forge I put the canister in and ramped it up to 2300 degrees for about 10 minutes to be confident the ingredients are at welding heat. Man thats hot. It went right into the squareing dies and got squeezed down and turned 90 degrees and squeezed again several times and back into the fire for a second time. I like to make sure its welded. I can feel it stiffen up inside the canister. The can is floppy and wont weld to the high carbon steel because of the stainless foil remember? After its welded and drawn out some I take the can off with by grinding the two obvious edges and chisel it off, oh first I cut both ends off. It exposed a nice basket weave billet inside.

Notice the flames coming out of my bad welding job. Thats OK because those pin holes are letting fumes and pressure out and wont allow air in. Dont worry.

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After the contents are removed I threw it back in the fire and brought it back up to welding heat and sprinkled a little anhydrous flux on it to protect if from decarb while I am drawing it out to 4 times its original length of 4" long. It doesnt need very much flux but at this high heat it helps it stay welded together. I reduce the heat as I go so the grain is not huge. Its not neccesary to draw it out at welding temps for very long but it sure moves faster at that temp.

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Now I want to keep it square and uniform to re-stack nicely so I place 3/4" spacers on the short flat dies so it will be uniform. I also have some small squaring dies but this time they stayed very square during the drawing process and I didnt even need them.

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Approximately 4 times its original length now it will cool off and get the sides cleaned up and restacked into a "Four Way". It helps to cut all 4 sticks to exactly the same length and etch at least one end of each one so the pattern can be oriented correctly to resemble a basket.
 
Very nice Bruce,
wonder how you find the time to take this pictures while forging. Does someone thake them for you? If yes thanks to this person. I always want to make forging pictures for my website, but don't get it done because i'm so busy with the forging already.

Anyway no one wants to see a picture of what i forged today, it really was not my day today.
Regards schakaa
 
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I have bad forging days too, believe me.
I usually dont have anybody around to take pictures so I use the 10 second delay with my camera on the bench or a tri-pod. I sometimes miss the most important instant but nobody seems to care except me. Its really tricky to catch the knife blade at the right instant from the heat source to the quench with the 10 second window of time but for just forging theres no problem. Sometimes the flash makes the steel look too cold to be pressing so its not as good as actually being here to watch.
Very nice Bruce,
wonder how you find the time to take this pictures while forging. Does someone thake them for you? If yes thanks to this person. I always want to make forging pictures for my website, but don't get it done because i'm so busy with the forging already.

Anyway no one wants to see a picture of what i forged today, it really was not my day today.
Regards schakaa
 
Bruce,
I looked into my crystal ball and saw a volume 3 of the Bump Saga Book Collection on the horizon.
I'll get right on it, Boss.

By the way, it looks great so far.

Steve
 
Hi Steven,
Book 1 and 2 were a big hit at the Boise Show. People thumbed through em all weekend long. They really brought allot of people to my table and good "ice breakers" for conversations. Volume 3? Cool! errrr...you may want to wait to see if this all works first. :)
Bruce,
I looked into my crystal ball and saw a volume 3 of the Bump Saga Book Collection on the horizon.
I'll get right on it, Boss.

By the way, it looks great so far.

Steve
 
Hello Bruce,
interesting to hear how you manage it to take the pictures.
Think this wouldn't work for me. For short time i have my workshop at a company where 15 other blacksmith are working, i'm the only one there who makes damascus steel, the others do open die forging with pieces up to 3 tons of weight. If i would built up my little camera there surely one of them would run over it with the manipulator.

Helps me to hear that you also have bad forging days, since i have the new shop i first must get used to the circumstances there. When i forged a big billet yesterday not the future was wide open but the billet.

Unfortunately the material i use doesn't allow rewelding.

Lookin forward very much to next update and what you make out of the billet.:biggrin:

Regards Peter
 
Looking good Bruce.
I have yet to try a "canned" pattern, the way you are doing it looks to be the most straight forward way I have seen.
Question, is it a good idea to drill a small hole in the end to let out the gasses? Like the pic you have posted with the flames coming out of the canister.
 
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