Nicholas--

To answer your question-yes Damascus can be made by hand. Forge welding is primarily temperature control and having clean surfaces. You will need to weld smaller areas when doing it by hand as well as reheating the billet more often but with practice you can be successful. I would recommend using 1080/1084 and 15N20 as they weld easily and make great Damascus.

I wouldn't say that canister Damascus cannot be done by hand but it will be more difficult. I would stick with traditional layered billets were I you.

If you have more questions as you go don't hesitate to ask as there are many great resources here.

Good luck.

Gary

Would you recommend I forge weld one layer at a time by hand? That's what I was thinking of doing. Or is it just easier to start with a stack and as you said, work a little area at a time and go down the layers until I have a billet to start folding?

I have seen a few recommendations to make sure I grind each flat clean because it will stick better.

I guess first I should experiment haha. 9/10 videos showing it go right to a press or a power hammer. I have neither.

Do I do light rapid taps to set it?

Nicholas, To weld a stack by hand I would start with say 5 or 7 layers. 1 1/4" wide by 4" to 6" long, when you get it up to temp. Weld it set it with overlapping hammer blows down the center of the billet then work down each side making shure you overlap the center hammer blows. This will force out the Flux and any unwanted scale or slag try to do this as fast as possible then reflux and reheat and repeat the same thing a couple more times this should give you a good starting place. Landon

A lot of folks comment about the tools in my hot shop (the Air Hammer and the Press)...and how they wish they had similar tools so they could make steel like I do. In reality, I can do anything by hand, that I can do with the power equipment.... I just have to start smaller, and work a lot harder.

Probably the biggest advantage to the power equipment is that the end product usually turns out better.... the reason being is that the work is exposed to fewer heats, and the time frame is shorter, drastically reducing the chances for errors/mistakes.

My first real billet/blade of damascus was a 320-layer raindrop pattern bowie that I made my brother for his high school graduation..... all by hand. It took me about 5 weeks of forging to make the damascus by hand, and then another couple of weeks to finish out the knife.

I would second Landon's advice concerning size and layer counts.

As far as "canister" welding goes.... it can be done by hand, but it is a long, difficult, labor intensive process.

Good info! Landon, how thick are each layers? do you use something like .072? Id like to try later this year when my garage isn't 1000 degrees. Mostly for fun.

Matthew, I use .125" 1080/1084 and around .080" 15N20. Make shure you have the thicker layers on the outside, when cut and re stacked or folded over this will give you a thick layer of the 1084, which I don't mind in most of my patterns but you can slide a piece of 15N20 between them to keep a more consistent look.

Once you get the feeling for welding by hand you can actually tell by feel when you hit the billet that it is going your way, and you don't have to hit it as hard as you think when setting the weld, just try to control your hammer blows and make shure you overlap them so you don't trap any Flux or slag inside the billet.

I have been disappointed several times when grinding on a blade that I thought I welded up good just to have a spot show up, then it's back to the drawing board. Landon

I made my first Damascus knives by hand. The things I remember most was the huge pile of scale around the anvil because of all the heats it took. If my memory serves me correctly, I lost close to 50% of my steel to scale.

I eventually found that using a 16 pound cross peen hammer worked best for drawing out the billet. I welded a handle on the billet and held the handle between my knees while swinging the hammer with both hands.

I remember those days, but never want to return to them <img src=' http://www.americanbladesmith.com/ipboard/public/style_emoticons//blink.gi f' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':blink:' />

Brian

A couple things to remember, most of the tutorials on damascus are done by people with presses or hammers, so the size they recommend for the initial billet is usually too big for drawing out by hand. I had best luck using steel 1" wide by around 6" long layered to around 2.5"-3". Any thicker and it becomes difficult to set the weld the whole way through.

The other thing I would recommend is a spring fuller to aide in drawing out the billet. Doesn't have to be anything fancy, I made one just by taking a piece of round steel a couple feet long and forging a flat spot in the middle and bending it over. After making the fuller, my speed for making damascus doubled.

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I eventually found that using a 16 pound cross peen hammer worked best for drawing out the billet. I welded a handle on the billet and held the handle between my knees while swinging the hammer with both hands.

Brian

If you would consider doing a demo of this in Branson, I might relax my ban on forge welding in order to watch. <img src=' http://www.americanbladesmith.com/ipboard/public/style_emoticons//smile.gi f' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />

Gary

one think to consider, working my hand is especially suited to "viking style" this style is multi bar and all low layer 10-25 seem to look best. the think that makes this so well suited to working by hand is that all of the patterns are additive rather than subtractive.

this photo is of some knives (seaxs) made in a class i taught, we did not have any power hammer or press for this class. we did do some team sleadge work to draw the billets but other wise this was all one person work.

MP

|quoted:

The other thing I would recommend is a spring fuller to aide in drawing out the billet. Doesn't have to be anything fancy, I made one just by taking a piece of round steel a couple feet long and forging a flat spot in the middle and bending it over. After making the fuller, my speed for making damascus doubled.

There is also drawing out on the anvil horn with a round face hammer. Difficult to control at first, but it works. When I first started making pattern welded steel, I worked all by hand. I stayed in the lower range as Matthew P. suggested. Started with 7 layers, and did a 3-way fold while hot. Cut through with a hot cut chisel and folded into 21 layers. Looks good twisted.

I took the advice of a couple of the smiths on here, namely J.d. Smith and Matthew Parkinson, and did my first damascus billet dry and by hand. For me, I started with 5 layers alternating 15n20 and 1084. The seams were welded on 3 sides and I started from the side closest to the handle that I welded on and worked towards the tip. After welding the first time, I cleaned each and every piece to shiney clean metal and rewelded together. It was all done by hand and was labor intensive, but it worked and made a perfect weld. The very first heat I welded all 4 sides and had a small air gap that got trapped in the middle. This was remedied by only welding 3 sides and working my way out to slowly force the air out, kinda like forcing toothpaste out of a tube. I am not nearly to the level of the other guys on here, but it can be done.

After making that billet, I decided it was time to make myself a small press. After working on that press, I have decided a better press is my next goal. But, it can be done. Keep it simple the first time and concentrate on getting the hammer blows right. I did not encounter any inclusions or failed areas, but did have a little wasted material on the end where it oxidised a bit. Biggest thing is getting it to the right heat and making sure it is ground flat, neutral or slightly rich fire and fit up right. Good luck on it!