Pattern Welding Tutorial - Part 6 - Patterning the Billet

This is the sixth installment of the pattern welding tutorial. This video shows the process of creating the pattern within the billet of steel. The pattern is first ground in as a series of grooves. These grooves expose interior layers within the billet and when forged, the layers are brought to the surface creating a pattern. The pattern used for this blade is known as a Dog Star pattern. This consists of a series of grooves which move radially outward from a single point of origin. When the blade is complete and etched, it will have an appearance similar to rays of a star among the varrying layers. After the pattern is cut into the billet, it is forged in, which brings the lower layers to the surface. After the billet is finished being patterned, the blade will be forged to shape. For more information, visit www.fredeenblades.com

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Pattern welding
• tutorial
• damascus
• blade
• knife
• forge
• blacksmith
• bladesmith

[blacksmither1]

graham,i found your site ands saw that you also made ring of pattern welded steel,what would it cost for a size 10?

[FredeenBlades]

@blacksmither1 Sorry for the late reply, life has been really busy lately, and not much time for getting on the internet. I appreciate the interest in the damascus rings, however due to very limited shop time and the fact that I will be moving in the next couple of months, I'm not currently taking any more ring orders, not for a while at least. I'm not sure how long it will take to get my shop back up and running, so it may be some months or longer before I'm able to do rings again.

[blacksmither1]

@FredeenBlades ok then hope it all comes together soon

[FredeenBlades]

@azreal289 Finally as the water around the steel begins to vaporize the steel is surrounded by water vapor. The oxygen atom in the water vapor is already bonded to the two hydrogens, making it less able to react with other atoms (like the iron in the steel to form iron oxide or "scale"). So this vapor jacket will also help reduce the scale that forms on the steel durring the wet forging process.

[FredeenBlades]

@azreal289 When you introduce water to an extremly hot piece of steel the water vaporizes very quickly and when water changes from liquid to gas it expands a great deal. This rapid expansion can serve to help free stuck on scale. Additionally the water will rapidly cool the scale attached to the surface of the steel. As things cool, they contract, so if the outer layer of scale contracts and the steel does not, the scale can pop free.

[FredeenBlades]

@azreal289 There are a few main principles of why wet forging works the way it does: rapid expansion of vaporizing water, thermal contraction, and a "vapor jacket." Scale is a layer of oxide (think almost like rust) that forms on the surface of the hot steel due to increased rates of the oxidation reaction at high temperatures.

[azreal289]

@FredeenBlades wet froging acts like droping cold water on obsidian heated in a fire? the surface which is the scale, flakes off, due to the steam?

[MrIronman1979]

Very good tutorials. Props to you for sharing the knowledge in an easy to understand format.

[aprice2704]

Hmm, there is a background colour button, right next to the font colour one, but I dunno how this would work with overlaid titles. Worth a try perhaps.

I use Videomach which has slightly better options for text, but it is not free :(

[FredeenBlades]

Using Windows Movie Maker to edit these and havent figured out how (if you can) to put some sort of background behind them. I've tried different font colors to make the descriptions the most readable and this seems to be the best for now.