It is difficult to imagine a real hunter or a cook without a knife. In principle, men for the most part are such creatures that they are madly in love with various knives. And for many years they argued - which knives are better? In the end, everyone agreed that the best knives in the world were Damascus steel knives. And how you can forge such a knife - now we will tell you.
It is necessary
Metal rope, chain or wire, fittings, grinder
Instructions
Step 1
First of all, it is worth noting that Damascus steel cannot be found in the store. As such, there is only the concept of "Damascus steel". In fact, this is not steel, but a forging method. Therefore, the phrase "Damascus steel knife" means that it was forged in a special way.
Step 2
So, let's proceed directly to creating a knife. Since we have already swung at Damascus, we will immediately say that this is a rather expensive pleasure. But even in our Russian land, you can find material that is perfect for this job.
Step 3
One of the most popular is the cable damascus. The metal from which the cables are made makes it possible to obtain a fairly high-quality blade material, but due to the large pattern it does not give an increase in cutting properties.
Step 4
Materials such as chains are no less popular and widely known. Chains from chainsaws are mainly used, or motor chains of gasoline engines.
Step 5
Nevertheless, despite the apparent variety, it is worth noting that there are very few such materials suitable for making blade Damascus. Therefore, it is often necessary to look for new material, experiment, in order to get a new pattern on the finished blade. And one of the successful experiments of this kind was Damascus from a coil of wire. We will focus our attention on it.
Step 6
The first step is to find out the chemical composition of the wire. This is done in order to find out whether it is possible to weld it with forge welding. Plus, you need to figure out the approximate amount of carbon. Such an inquiry is necessary to find out whether the finished blade will take hardening. Although at first glance it seems incredibly difficult, in fact, everything is simpler than simple. The test is carried out with a spark.
Step 7
To do this, bring the end of the wire to the rotating disc of the grinder. If you get a sheaf of orange sparks of medium density, you can work with a clear conscience. If the number of sparks and their color is of a different type, then you should not worry too much. This will only slightly affect the design of the finished blade and its physical properties. But in general, it will be the same knife to which we are moving so persistently.
Step 8
The spark test described above provides an estimate of the carbon content. If the sparks match the first description, then the carbon content is approximately 1%. This means that the metal will take a decent hardening.
Step 9
Next, it is necessary to perform annealing in order to facilitate further processing. Heat up to austenitic transformation and let cool. The wire then becomes soft and the workpiece is then created. The wire is pressed, and a handle from the reinforcement is welded to it. Then this "workpiece" is heated in an oven to about 800 degrees. After heating, sprinkle abundantly with brown. It is needed to dissolve the scale and protect the metal from oxygen. Now we make the welding itself.
Step 10
When the workpiece is ready, you need to forge the blade. For this, the body, the nose of the blade and the shank are pulled back. Then the blade is ground and the ends are trimmed. The liner is welded and future runs are marked. After all this, we carry out heat treatment again. Normalization is performed to grind metal grains, and hardening is done. We heat the blade to the hardening temperature and lower it into the oil heated to 70 degrees. Then we heat it up to 200 degrees and keep it for two hours.
Step 11
All that remains is to grind the blade clean and etch it in a 5% solution of ferric chloride. This is necessary to show the drawing. As a result, you will get a wonderful knife from Damascus steel, forged by your own hands.
