what size knife could i expect?

[TARGETZERO]

Can any one give me a rough idea, as to what size blade i could get from a piece of damascus. With these dimensions >> 0.125" Thick, Measures approx 1" Wide x 3-3/4" Long. Also what type of blade would be suited to this amount? Thanks perry

[John N]

probably about 1/8" thick, 25.4mm maximum 'depth' to the blade, blade lenght about half if you go full tang, 2/3rds length of billet for hidden tang

[Knife-Man]

you would get a blade about

3MM thick
25MM wide and
85mm Long

I'm not totally sure about what your asking though .... you might gain a little length and width if you forged in the bevel's.

If you forging you could get a long thin knife

a short fat knife

a short thick knife

a fat thin knife

Basically you cant add steel (unless your welding another bit on ... in which case the question make no sense whatsoever).... so work on the assumption that you will have pretty much the same amount of steel and work it out from there.

If you double the thickness you will have to half something else .... if you half the width you will double something else ... and so on and so on.

[TARGETZERO]

Thanks lads, informative

[a6cjn]

One trick I was shown many years ago, is to take a piece of plasticene, the same size as your piece of metal.
You can then stretch, bend and squeeze it into the shape you want because, as it was explained to me, if you get the right working temp, metal will behave in the same way as your plasticene.

Not a lot of people know that (said he in his best Michael Caine accent)

Chris

[John N]

Thanks lads, informative

sorry mate, twaz a bit sarky, but the questions pretty rhetorical.

If youve got some pics of the metal some folks might give you better pointers, sometimes a particualr pattern damascus lends itself to a knife shape / size.

Let us know if your gonna forge it, or stock remove it. If your stock removing you will need to leave at least 1" and a bit for a tang to make a slightly 'strong' knife, if you go 'full tang' your gonna loose half of it, so its gonna be a short blade knife whatever you do,

If its real nice mascus you could 'save' some metal on a hidden tang by making the tang say 1/2" long, and welding another couple of inchs of plain steel on for the rest.

worlds your oyster really.

[TARGETZERO]

I should of explaned, my plan was simple I seen a piece of damascus for sale >>> http://www.putfile.com/pic.php?img=7454081 and i liked the look of it but befor i bought it, i was curious as to what size knife i could acctually get out of it. I planned to have some one make me one up, too one of my blade designs.

[John N]

thats pretty.

What would a lump like that set you back?

[narsil]

You won't lose much metal during the forging process (a bit but not much) so should end up with something the same volume you started with. To some extent it depends on how closely you forge it to shape. If you forge a simple balnk then you will lose quite a bit of material when you grind in the bevels and such. Having said that some damascus patterns do benefit from being ground rather than forged to shape.

You can save a fair bit of damascus by welding on a plain tang.

[Colin KC]

Cut it in half & stick a nice piece of knifesteel inna middle, add half the dims again & get a decent steel for the edge

[narsil]

Yes that's the other option, give it to Colin to make and it will end up as an enormous scary-sharp bowie. This applies even if it's just a SAK rehandling project

[Colin KC]

Yup, if I treated it nice, I could prolly get an 8" bowie out of it