The 97 Damascus Toothpick is almost complete.





Hey .... what happened to the Damascus blade?!!!

You see the little Mammoth Tusk Castle Carving reflected in the blade? The blade has to be clean and free of flaws to etch nicely. That's the next step!!!

Gonna be a fine knife.

Gary

Holy smokes
I sure called that one good and fast . That knifes looking better all the time ! I gotta think that WILL be my favorite Barnes knife to date .
Thanks for the fine work & I do see the castle reflection in the polish finish.

Thanks
Kurt

A story Kurt already knows.

In grinding the Mosaic, a "snag" showed up in one piece of Mammoth. Now, it's 10-30,000 years old. Some pieces have little uniform "checks" evenly throughout. It's part of the material. But when you build around clean pieces and you get a snag spear that sort of splinters off the side into a spear shaped point .... double bummer. It had to be replaced.

This stuff is hard. The tusk is hard. The Matrix is hard. To cut out a piece, down to the Liner and not nick up something good, takes nerves of steel! Yeah. That's me. I have one nerve of steel left.

It took half a day to cut, remove, file, scrape, choose, shape, graft, sand, fine sand, finer sand, really finer sand, and polish the side. Looks goo..... wait ..... ah ..... which side was that????? It's like an Auto Body Shop. If they do a good job ..... NOBODY sees it.

Etch the blade. Engrave the numbers inside, Engrave the Logo ..... onto the FINISHED blade .... details ..... assemble.

Gary

Getting ready to etch Kurt.

My last nerve was shaky this am .... so I put it off and did other things. Now I have had a darned nasty headache for hours. So .......



I think I'm ready!!!

Gary
Sorry about your migraine . I've never had one but know some who do and it's gotta be debilitating. I've very seldom even get headaches anymore but I won't complain after hearing what some go through.
I hope all the etching and assembly goes well as planned . During a recent flood we had , my family and I stayed in hotels & motels for awhile . Well I got to use my fix blade skeeter tusk for some food prep . It was so funny when my wife asked " who's got a knife " knowing we both had a Barnes handy . Well Jacob my son wouldn't cough up his copper folder so I offered up mine . Maybe moms will get one for Christmas!
I can't wait to see the etching !

Thanks
Kurt

Hi Kurt,

Sorry. Not trying to make you wait.

It's almost done.

As you recall, my best guess is I made the blade 34 years ago. I'm pretty confident of the alloys, but couldn't swear. There have been five main alloys in the laminated Damascus blades. Different mixes. Different proportions. There are four main acids I use to etch the different mixes. Different strengths of the acids to produce the cleanest etch of the various alloys. Then there are acids to highlight. Techniques to color and contrast.

It's complex.

Finding the materials in which bullet proof container was easier than expected. But my first etch was aborted 4 minutes in. It wasn't right. So; that involved refinishing the steel surface to near mirror. A lot of work. Just a few microns, but with extremely fine abrasive and then buffing compound, it's work. So dinner began with a salad st 9:30 pm. Smile.

Wentbto a different acid and far different technique this morning. Then the phone rang. More of the Health Insurance Nightmare. That burned up a couple of hours. However: no longer having a nerve in my body .... it didn't bother me.

I'm back now. BIG SMILE.

It's coming my Friend. Thanks

Gary

Cute Bear! Wish I had that talent!!!
Jeff

Guys,

Yes, agreed, that is a very useful style knife.

Lon

Gary
So IF I understand correctly, the types and strengths and mixtures of acid determine the clarity of the etching BUT even when it's polished the design is ONLYgoing to be whatever the Damascus was made from and the processes used to make the blank from different steels? It's just that the acid reaction is different for each steel .

It's surprising that you hafta start with polished steel each time . One would think the acid would react and maintain the look even if you polished after grinding. It must only penetrate only so deep !
That's a whole new world to me . I have blued a few parts before and even cold blued my 2 ft framing square but it sounds like a lot of science involved

Thanks
Kurt

Hi Kurt,

Yes Sir. It's it's own rabbit hole. Maybe ant colony would be better.

Correct, the pattern in/of the steel won't change. But the clarity and contrast will be remarkably different. Some acids will make a component steel in the mix, grey. Another acid will make the same steel component layer black. Some acids will make eat one component layer faster than another. A different acid will eat most all of the layers together. If an acid mix is too strong, it will tend to pick at certain boundary layers in the billet.

You want the acids to eat slowly. Fast is rough.

Regarding the starting finish .... the acid "Copies" the starting finish. If you have a scratch on the beginning surface, the acid will eat the surrounding surface - AND - it will eat inside the scratch. So; it willcopy the darned scratch all the way thru the blade. You could dissolve the whole darned blade and, in the end, you'd just have the scratch laying there on the bench! Whoooohhh!!!! Ha.

So, no.... of course everybody doesn't start from s mirror finish. Just us perfect guys. (Eye roll ...)

The temperature of the acid makes a difference. Cold - slow. Hot - fast. The age of the acid makes a difference. The amount of steel dissolved in the acid from previous use makes a difference.

Your technique will determine how Crisp, and with how much contrast you get. The steels mixed in the blade are a prime factor. The density of the layers (number of layers per thickness) makes a huge difference.

You can make a fabulous cutting steel that just doesn't have much Contract because it has so many layers and the steels don't have much, if any, resist alloys to the acid you are using.

Early on in modern custom knives, people reading the early articles in Damascus steel, got the idea that "the more layers the better". Well, a few things effect that idea. What is the final density of the layers going to be? If you are going to have a 3/8" thick Bowie knife, you will have a certain density of layers. If you take the same steel and forge/compress it down to a 1/8" pocket knife blade, you will have THREE TIMES the density. The steel will look and act totally different. The layers will be thinner. You can easily get Damascus so dense that the layers look like the grooves on a record. You can hardly see them.

People reading those articles I referred to THINK that they want lots and lots and lots of layers. In fact, certain numbers - arrived at by starting with a particular number of layers of steel components, and folding it a particular number of times ... will give a particular number of layers. The classic example is starting with 2 layers and then folding it 9 times. You get 512 layers. 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512. In my previous example, that will look very dense in a Bowie, and nearly invisible if compressed into 1/8" pocket knife steel. At the show table, people all love certain knives. Bold contrast you can see from ten feet away. Everyone loves those. But, they want to hear that those are 512 layers. They are not. Example of writers being unable to cover all the bases and really understand the details. Folks want to memorize what to look for. It's hard to make it all clear.

Well, that's a start. My phone keyboard finger is going to sleep. Haha.

Gary