Daniel Cauble

It's basically a McDonald rolling mill. I've seen them on FB.

A small blade formed from the same half of puck that the previous post came from. This one has been heat treated and the decarb is revealing the steel as it grind away.

Back to the first side of the puck, the bar that was "on the verge". It certainly did the job. This was ground into a Suhihiki kitchen knife. Not yet HT. Just peeking to see where it's at in ferric with a coarse grind. The bright splotches are the last remaining bit of decarb. It was the top of the ingot.

Forged the small section. White blotches are decarb left on the blade surface. I wanted to take a peak with a ferric etch. This is a water pattern.

So both of those pucks lost cohesion in the center due to forging it slightly wrong and voids. Apparently the crucibles I've been using are crap. I switched to a different style suggested to me by Niko and another friend Josh. This lead to better melting. Apparently the cheap crucibles oxidize a bit more at these temls than the nice ones. This lead to healthier steel. One of the two pucks I made shattered using a unique forging schedule than what's used commonly. The other, the one I will share pictures of is still forging nicely.

Took opportunity to polish one side of one and see. I overetched it which is why there are blue splotches. At first I thought nothing was etching, but oh, it's because there's so much cementite. I wish my new phone and this message board got along better. Even if I rotate my photos the opposite direction they still upload sideways and low definition.

Pre-treatments before main forging complete and looking good

Element.com will do it for around $115 per sample for a general mass spec However, from experimentation and testing, it will likely be devoid or trace amount of Manganese, and being modern steels, scraps, it will probably have small amounts of nickle, copper, Chromium, lots of carbon, and relatively low S&P.

Just low power 5x10. Etched in 3% nital. Quick polish. Galaxy S21 Ultra...

So I think I was making a buncha white cast iron just above 2% with that and a few others. Discovering this, I started to adjust my carbon and eventually after about a dozen pucks after the one just above pictured, I've adjusted carbon levels and got better at understanding how to get a healthy ingot with my current furnace. Yesterday and today with a repeat melt I have correct carbon levels and a healthy ingot. I will also note that aluminum was not used in this process. The first puck with 1.5-1.6% C estimation Also pics seem to be

Different blade than the one right above, but same batch. Mild steel over W2. Fingerstones used. And then a different blade that I have shown in different polishes in my Oroshogane thread. It is often polished to such a fine degree that all of the character in the folded oroshigane can be seen. In this case I was playing with soft uchigimori which tends to soften the highlights. Also playing with fingerstones. 9 fold oroshigane over W2 with 1018 wrapped around all of that.

A few others. 2 of these I clad in stainless (410) and polished on benchstones only. Very monochromatic. A different knife, same cladding. And this one is another mild steel (1018) jacket.

Yea, it really comes down to how thin you forge it. My starting billets are all equal in thickness before they are forgewelded together. I have a lot of fingerstones. In the poundage of Uchigumori, and a lot from Narutaki mine specifically, some shiro suita, Nakayama in various hardnesses... Usually I end with benchstones on kitchen knives as as way to display my polishing ability and to show I'm not hiding geometric imperfections, but there are times I use them if I'm trying to bring out characteristics in the jacket material, specifically banding. So the b

It takes a lot of time and effort. I go from 2x72 to a disc sander, and then to an Atoma 140 and work my way up in hard formula synthetics to 1000grit, and then take off in Naturals. Depending on the knife I can have a dozen or more hours in polishing on benchstones. I have an array of naturals ranging from low 100 grit to the finest and hardest Jnats and everything in between. Some iron/steel combinations and hardnesses work better with some finishing stones than others. Some of use for specific geometries as well. You can however do it all in synthetics and end with f