Almost ruined a damascus billet last week in my garage forge

I was welding up a 15-layer billet of 1080 and 15N20 and got the temp way too high. Hit over 2400 degrees for about 20 seconds before I noticed and that caused the nickel to start melting out. Lost about 3 inches of material on one end before I could hammer it back together. Has anyone else had nickel migration problems when forge welding damascus?

2 comments

2 Comments

theaw6529d ago

Man I feel you on that overheating thing. I had a billet of 1095 and 15N20 that I left in the forge too long while I was answering the phone and the whole thing started to look like it was raining silver all over the anvil. Had to grind off almost half of it just to get back to solid steel, and the pattern ended up all wonky on that end.

oscar39028d ago

Man you ever just watch your forge glowing like the sun and know you messed up but cant look away? That silver rain thing you described is exactly what happened to mine, I thought I was watching my whole day's work evaporate right there. I ended up with a weird mottled spot near the tang that I just tell people is "artistic character" but really it's just burned nickle doing its thing.