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You know what's cool? Damascus Steel. A layered type of steel that shows grains when you etch away the surface. I had watched all the forged in fire and similar things in youtube and thought: "damn, I could probably do that" I was in a welding/machine class in my senior year and we happened to have just finieshed forging. My teacher had tried to make some damascus with some steel cable. He didn't have any luck at it and I thought I knew better so I gave it a shot. The trick I thought, is that he hadn't twisted it together hard enough. It was also the season that everyone was ordering class rings, and I wasn't about to be paying for memorabilia of my highschool experience so I decided I would forge my own. Forging damascus is tough. I used a lot of flux and many hours hammering things. Oh ya, I made a custom Awl do shape the part to my rough hole size. It saved me some work on drilling. Then I did an anealing heat to bring down the hardness and make it easier to work. Once it was in the rough shape, I drilled through a part that was fused decenty with a mill. I cut that off and then threw it into the Lathe and began the hard part. Just kidding the hard part was forging, lathing this was simple as setting up a jig to hold it. (which was a steel rod that I tacked the ring to with a welder. Then I just slowly and gently pealed back metal till it was the shape I wanted. I had to flip the ring on the rod to get to the other side but all was relatively easy. I added a bevel and it looked good. I chucked it up again but this time to finish it with sandpaper. Nice and smooth. Now for some chemistry... Muriatic acid. The acid eats away at the steel surface at different rates depending on the different materials. This makes a grain pattern in the steel, some materials also discolor or oxidize slightly darker from the acid so it adds some color. Anyways, I set up a jar of acid and a large bucket of base to neutralize things. Full PPE goggles, thick gloves, the whole 9 yards. Did I mention that I just found this acid in the attic of the shed? The previous owner had left all sorts of interesting things up there... All that white powder is cocaine, in case I needed a hit on top of the smell of acid wafting from the jar. Lmao, nah It's baking soda to neutralize any small droplets of acid that might escape. I dunked it a few times till I was happy with the result. It turned out pretty badass. My phone camera was so bad... you can barely see anything about the ring, but trust me it is amazing. Perfect fit, if not a tad bulky and a real interesting pattern.

email: va.web.code@gmail.com https://github.com/va-code https://www.youtube.com/@vaughnanderson7984