Composite Damascus Kitchen Knife Sets WIP

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WillC

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At last I have made a good start on these commissions and fired into the damascus making stage.
To remind you all the design.....



I've been very exited about making these, they represent my highest end and most complex and challenging pieces this year.
A composite is a multibar pattern, made up of a combination of twists, or in this case a combination of twisted bars, with mosaic patterns as well as straight laminate which will later be laddered.
We have 3-5 bars of tight twists on the spine, then a bar of basket weave. All these will include pure nickel in the pattern for maximum effect. For the edge half of the blade we have a wide bar made up as a san mai with a high layer double carbon edge, layers going across the edge. Clad in a lower layer laminate in the same materials. The ferrule and end cap are a tight basket weave with pure nickel, which will be made from a separate billet.
So altogether five different damascus materials.

So lots of stock to prepare.....

15n20.....


01



With plenty of pure nickel....



I have about seven knives to make so I am making sure I have plenty of material. I may need to go back and make some more billets for twists later, will have to see....

All billets prepped, all pieces polished, then held in the press with the ends welded for convenience.



4 billets for basket weave, 2 for edge cladding and two for edge core, then two for twists, one will be twisted one way, the other.....opposing...:)

All enclosed for the first weld...









And repeat....



Can falls away as if by magic....:loll:



Solid clean blocks of laminate.





Now to draw out the edge and clad materials for the first stack....







Now for the basket weave parts with Nickel..... to be drawn out square...





Phew, good start, plenty to do:D
 
Thanks for sharing Will. No point setting the bar so low you can just walk over it. It's all about the challenge.
 
Most of the separate damascus billets are near completion now. By next week I will be forging and laying out the individual materials that goes into each knife.

Time to Email customers for these regarding wood choice and handle options. I will be making a 24 carrot gold spacer silver soldered to the damascus an option on these, or Silver or nickel silver. Hope someone goes for the gold:D

Basket weave for handle fittings and the two bar piece for the knives got completed today.
Making certain each piece is placed correctly for the last weld on these....



Mmmmm big chunk pure nickel/high manganese steel basket weave. It is sat on a furnace brick as an idea of scale...... This stuff will bling :bigeek:




Those are now forged out ready to be sliced into individual pieces.
 
Close up hot Basket weave.....Remembered my snazzy camera today.....

 
Pure Nickel is a wonderful element. It doesn't scale up at all like the steel which forms big flakey bits of steel which shed as you work it. The pure nickel just glows, gives you a really nice feeling of all the dimensions of the pattern as you squeeze it all together in the press.
 
This is so cool, it's almost scary. Can't wait to see it as it approaches completion.
 
I went through the scared stage......into a kind of precision trance. Been enjoying it this week as stuff starts to work. Cant wait to show you guys all the different bits that make up the blade. The prettiest and lowest layer count stuff is on the spine with the twists, then the basket weave with the most layers in the core of the edge material, 10,000 layers. Very much a sword type construction influence.
 
Awesome stuff. Great images . Im tuned in and cant wait to see this come together!

Blessings
Randy
 
Thanks Randy, from a man who enjoys the challenge,:D Keep your fingers and toes crossed for me ;)
 
Got this quick vid together from the Twisting stage last week. Not far off putting it all together now :)

[video=youtube;KVGHGjqNkC0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVGHGjqNkC0&feature=youtu.be[/video]
 
That's truely stupid awesome. What is the cotton looking material you put on the sides of the furnace to keep heat it?
 
Cheers, I built that little Jig to make twisting all these bars on my own a bit easier, seems to work well. The furnace I also built this year. Its lined in Fireblanket it may be called rock wool? in the states. Its rated to 1600 degrees C. The inside of my furnace is lined in about 3 inches of it and a skim of wet fire cement to stop it all falling apart and hold the heat a bit more. I have been ripping bits of what was left of the roll to use as doors.
 
Whoa. You are not kidding around. I cannot wait to see how this turns out Will.
Alex
 
Cheers Alex, getting there first one coming together, chose to do the Nakiri first as its the easiest one to work out all the forged lengths/slice size etc for each piece in the composite.

Plus I wanted to go through the whole process with one blade, before laying out all the materials and welding the others.
Pieces laid out 3 bars of twists, basket weave bar and the san mai of high layer laminates on the edge.



Lots of welding









Then cleaned up in acid before touching the faces....



A little more forging down then into the ladder dies :)



Will see what that looks like tomorrow;)
 
So here is where we are are after heat treat and a quick grind back. Showing 63hrc on the edge material, as the spine has 01 in the twists for contrast these parts are also very hard, so I flame tempered the spine back to around 55 hrc with the edge clamped between two plates..





But I can spot an issue with the san mai and the deep ladder dies. I got the percentage of core and cladding correct, but the dies are just too extreme for this is san mai and in this case where the material will be hollow ground on the faces I can tell we will loose the cladding and just have the high layer core exposed. looks pretty wonky as is, should still look good after grinding, but the plan for the rest is to make the cladding into a much higher layer and use this as a single laminate on the edge so we can get the most of the tight ladder pattern on the edge. So by mistake or evolution there will be a difference from the design here. But on a plus the deep ladder dies really work well with the composites and we will have a tight ladder on the edge.



 
Thanks All :) Bit of pause there but have been beavering away on various things.....

Well bit of a pause there, but finally got a different edge material done in all laminate very high layer, so we will have a uniform tight ladder on the edge rather than San mai.
So all bits prepped for 7 knives....











Got a couple welded up. They will all be picked clean before forging on the faces, so as to be sure not to trap any scale and waste as little material as possible to grinding before they hit the ladder dies.....
 
Thanks All :) Bit of pause there but have been beavering away on various things.....

Well bit of a pause there, but finally got a different edge material done in all laminate very high layer, so we will have a uniform tight ladder on the edge rather than San mai.
So all bits prepped for 7 knives....











Got a couple welded up. They will all be picked clean before forging on the faces, so as to be sure not to trap any scale and waste as little material as possible to grinding before they hit the ladder dies.....
 
Will, that is just freaking awesome übercool! Thank you for taking time for those photos and videos.
 
Will The Twister! Awesome, man.. Really cool. You put so much passion in it..
Hope you scream normally when twisting the bars?? You know the words, man :) :) :) !!
 
Thanks Guys, glad these are coming together, here is a further video for you on the forging stage....
[video=youtube;yRX922iojlU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRX922iojlU&feature=youtu.be[/video]
 
Here we go, final forging for the blades is finally under way :bliss:







All set to ladder the rest tomorrow, then I will have a lot grinding!
 
Your work is inspiring, keep it up. Thanks for sharing.
 
I can't wait to see where you go with these.
 
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