Pattern Welding Explained

[Niels Provos]

I have been toying with the idea of making a video that explains the pattern-welding process via computer visuals. Here is an early experiment from 2016:

 

As part of that video, I would like to show a few high-quality pictures of pattern welded examples. If anyone here is interested in seeing their photo featured (with their name) in the video, please let me know.

Ps: Progress on this will likely continue to be slow but I plan to complete the video this year.

 

[Joshua States]

This should be spectacular. Are you using the Thor II software to create the variations?

Shall we send our photos to you in a PM for your review and consideration? Do they have to be in Viking style blades?

Edited March 19, 2018 by Joshua States

[Kris Lipinski]

Great idea! Do you think about several types of patterns?

As Jochua has asked. Should we send you some pictures? As each smith has some nice and slightly different examples and variations

[Niels Provos]

Send me a PM and I will share a Google Photos album with you. Thank you!

[Niels Provos]

Here is an example of a more recent visualization:

[Niels Provos]

Here is an update to show where I am currently at visualizing pattern development; some of you may recall this from a paper from Ypey:

Let me know what you think about the current look.

BTW, I am still looking for more examples of pattern welding in the real world. If you have any examples you would like to share, please let me know.

[Bruno]

That looks Cool...  Are you gonna weld all those together ?

[Charles dP]

That’s quite mesmerising to look at Niels. It would be quite cool to have row 3 from the bottom on one side of a blade and 4 on the other if you could reverse the twist and line up the stars properly. Sort of a light mirrors dark idea.

Edited August 14, 2018 by Charles du Preez

[Alan Longmire]

Beautiful!

For those who don't know, that is just ever so slightly deeper cross-sections on a simple twist.  Ypey would be impressed!

[Jerrod Miller]

8 minutes ago, Alan Longmire said:

For those who don't know, that is just ever so slightly deeper cross-sections on a simple twist.

Niels, if you could also add a shot of the side view showing how it is cut through, that would really drive this point home.  I think that is a great presentation of the concept.  Kudos!  

[Niels Provos]

Sure. Here you go.

[Jerrod Miller]

Now we're talking!  That is really cool, having those 2 pictures together.  Fantastic work!  

[Dave Stephens]

Holy crap, Niels! This is amazing. That's a computer generated image? 

For those of you that don't know, Niels is one of those uber-cyber gods of the new universe we call the Internet. He works at one of the huge corporations with annual revenues larger than most nation's GDP and could certainly ruin your credit score or read your email at will. I think, however, he's one of the good guys that fights the evil hackers of Sauron. At least, that's his mild-mannered secret identity.

Grins,

Dave

 

[Niels Provos]

They are computer generated :-) I plan to make a fully animated video that shows stacking and twisting, etc.

BTW, I am still looking for more people who would like to share photos of their pattern-welded blades to be included in said video :-)

[Alan Longmire]

Feel free to use these: 

I'll even take better pictures of the one I still have!  It displays the pattern from your bar #8 on the bottom and bar #10 on top.

 

[Joshua States]

On ‎8‎/‎15‎/‎2018 at 7:39 AM, nprovos said:

BTW, I am still looking for more people who would like to share photos of their pattern-welded blades to be included in said video :-)

Do you want us to send a PM? I thought I sent you a couple already.....but if you  want some others, I can oblige.

Never mind, I scrolled up and read the directive. PM sent.

Oh yeah, while I'm here...…..would someone please pin this sucker?

Edited August 17, 2018 by Joshua States

[John Page]

This is fantastic!! If I didn't already know they were CG, I would never have known they are not real. Great stuff, there's an insane amount of potential in this sort of reconstruction and the value it provides to the community.

Cheers!

[Niels Provos]

I am getting to a place where I am happy with the visualization and can now focus more on animating the process. It's still going to be slow though.

[Niels Provos]

This is blatant advertising of a commercial offering. So don't read further if that upsets you.

I liked the pictures I had shared above and wanted to make a t-shirt and a higher quality printout of them for myself, e.g. something to quickly show folks to explain some aspects of pattern welding. While doing that I figured I might not be the only one who would think that neat and put them up on RedBubble for others to buy. Here are the final pictures I came up with:

Ps: I do get a commission for orders placed. As I have worked on this for almost two years that does not seem unreasonable :-)

[Joshua States]

Yeah baby! That's thinking there. 

[Brian Dougherty]

Cool idea!  The poster option would be a good conversation starter

 

[Richard Furrer]

I can not program a circle, but I could twist up a 2" square bar of laminate and have it EDM cut.

Have you seen the work of Gunther here:

https://www.messerforum.net/showthread.php?58043-Computersimulierte-Damast-Muster

Ric

[Niels Provos]

Thanks for the pointer, Ric. I had not seen that yet. That's really good. 

[Niels Provos]

I just posted another thing I am playing with on Twitter, I am not sure if the forum software will be able to understand it:

[Alan Longmire]

Nice!  Of course, I saw Ric's analog version (in steel, start to finish on a partially-deconstructed blade you could hold as your brain slowly unwound) several years ago, but that is a great animation!