The Armour Archive

If I were to forge weld several pieces of wire from the same roll together, would it obtain the pattern welded/Damascus steel look? Or does it have to be different alloys of metal?

I want to try my hand at forge welding... and I'm also working on making some neck torques.
The idea in my head is to twist the wire, forge weld each end and form it into a ball. If I do this and then acid dip the ball am I going to get the cool lines and patterns?

-Halbrust

Look up cable damascus.

Bjorn

you need different types of wire, soft iron, steel maybe.
steel hawser I have heard can look good as can chains from motorbikes or for bigger stuff the chains from fork lifts

Actually you do get a pattern from the same metal as the decarburization and slight alloying of the outside of the wires does leave a trace.

However it's often harder to get it to show and so may take some experimentation with etchants to get the best show!

Look up cable damascus.

Halbrust,

I'm less than an hour away from you in Al-Sahid. If you'd like, we could get together for an afternoon.
I'd be happy to share the little I know about forge welding.

I'll be at Al-Savally Saturday and would love to meet/talk.

I'll be doing the forging under the supervision and direction of some very experienced metasl workers. But more info is never a bad thing. My above question was just a thought as I am figuring out different ways to finish the ends of a torque.

Dunno if I am going Saturday... hadn't planned on it. I might go just to visit now that I know a fellow archiver, interested in metal work, is going to be there. Since you'll be doing it under the direction of experienced folks you likely won't need me (too many cooks spoil the pot!) but at least you now know I'm fairly local and can help out if needed.

Grimr

If you make it look for me. I'll be the three hundred pounder in the pink tunic.
Pretty safe bet I'll be the only male there in pink.