I'm hearing some conflicting information about the Damascus process. My dad swears he can't believe that Damascus swords were not "folded" 300 times. Another friend says its 300 layers which is around 10 folds depending on how its folded. Each fold creates welds which creates layers.
This friend of mine that says its 10 or so folds says he has made it before and he is about to receive a hammer mill he purchased for $500 to aid in making it. He will make me a knife shaped just like the M14 Bayonet I hope, I like that design.
Binary is 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024 And if you folded in half each time thats the number of layers you would get after each fold. Now it could be folded 3 ways on some folds for example fold 1/3 over on one end then 1/3 on the other and have two welds and 6 layers. So one could get very close to a even 300 layers if they do it right.
My dad says they add carbon as they fold and hammer. My friend who's buying the hammer mill says they absolutely do not add carbon. He says even in the old days they carbonized first then made the Damascus from a piece of carbon steel. Though he says the carbonization process in the old days was more difficult and after the metal was in a solid state.
The knife smithing friend of mine says in the old days you had a master and some apprentices hammering at one time on each fold and weld. So you might have up to 4 people hammering at once. Today with a Hammer mill only one person is needed. Yet even today there is no fully automated process for making this kind of steel. Anyone have anything to add?
I'm still researching this myself to see what to believe.
