I have been asked on many an occassion how to forge a ladder pattern dagger/knife. I am always asked how I keep the pattern so even and uniformly spaced. Here is how I weld and pattern a basic ladder pattern bar that will be worked into a yet to be determined dagger/knife or two. There will be enough material for several blades.

I have been asked on many an occassion how to forge a ladder pattern dagger/knife. I am always asked how I keep the pattern so even and uniformly spaced. Here is how I weld and pattern a basic ladder pattern bar that will be worked into a yet to be determined dagger/knife or two. There will be enough material for several blades.

Now the pieces are evenly alaigned and wired together into stack with 12 Ga soft iron wire. This stack is 1 1/2" high, 1 1/4" wide and 12" in length. It is double wrapped in three places. These wire bandings holding the pieces together will be snipped off as I weld my way back from one end to the other.

With the pieces wired it is now time to weld these into one solid piece. Forge welding, while physically intense, it is not technically difficult. Usually it is all a matter of time and temperature. What is involved is bring the stack up to a full cherry red (approx. 1800 degrees F) fluxing with my "Steel Glue" flux, returning the piece to the forge and then steadily raising the piece up to the proper welding temperature (in this case approx. 2350 degrees F.) and allowing enough time at this temperature for the material to be "soaked" and heated uniformly through.

When at the proper temperature the piece is removed and welded under a hammer. I prefer a 8 lb hand hammer for something this size as I can feel the pieces "stick" when welding by hand whereas I cannot really tell under a power hammer if I am getting a solid weld.

I work in sections approx 3 to 4 inches in length and overlapping by about 1 to 1 1/2 inches with the perviously welded area. I remove the wire bandings as I approach them on the bar, prior to welding that area. I also alternate "sides" when welding to ensure a solid, even weld and to help maintain straight laminations. The straighter the laminations are, and the closer attention you pay to the small details the better the end result will be.

The first weld is completed. If you want to be able to produce decent pattern welded material you must be able to make 100% perfect welds, 100% of the time. At this stage, any areas that are not welded can be reheated and welded over. I usually do two "courses" of welding on the first weld, as I am making 38 individual welds at one time. This way I am certain that I am getting 100% in my welds.

The next step is the first primary draw to lengthen the piece

Drawing can be done my hand or under power. I use both depending. Hand drawing where the precision and control is required, as in final shaping and power drawing when there is a large volume of material to be moved.

In this case I will use both my #25 Little Giant and my treadle hammer to make the first draw. This will be done in one heat.

Working at a rising heat (the piece going up in temperature) to a welding heat the piece is removed and placed under my power hammer using drawing dies. These dies will more or less "squeeze" the piece down and are almost unidirectional in drawing, however there will be some widening of the work, but not as much as if a flat die was used.

I will continue to work the bar until it drops to a medium cherry red.

Here is the bar after the first draw. I will continue to draw it out in length while maintaining the present width (approx 1 3/8") while reducing the thickness. I will stop drawing after I reach a thickness of approx 3/8" to 7/16". This will give me enough length to cut the piece into three pieces prior to the second welding course.

After a second and third heat's worth of drawing under my powerhammer the bar is trued up and flattened so there are no high/low areas prior to cutting. Any areas that de-laminate are rewelded as I work and the drawing continues. Care must be taken that the same number of blows are struck on each side of the bar to maintain laminate straightness.

Here is the bar after the first drawing is completed. The bar is now approx. 36" in length 1 3/8" wide and just under 1/2" thick. The next step will be to cut into thirds, clean the weld surfaces, stack and re-weld. Time from start to this step, approx 1 hour 10 minutes.

The next step will be to measure off three equal lengths and cut. By cutting into thirds instead of just "folding" it over I will triple the number of laminations/layers rather than just doubling. By tripling I will save at least one welding course, thereby saving not only time but lessening the chances of botching this up.

Now after the pieces are cut to length, the weld surafces are ground smooth. What this does is allows for the flux to evenly spread over the surfce, plus it prevent any slag inclusions that may become trapped in any "dimples or pockets". What is not visible is that I gound the bars so the centre of the bar is slightly "thicker" than the edge. This is commonly referred to as "crowning" and this helps ensure that the bar welds from the "centre" out to the edges, thereby driving out the flux and taking any scale, oxidation or slag wih it, resulting in a clean, solid, weld.

With the pieces cleaned and ground they are once again stacked and wire together for the second welding and drawing. THis weld will be accomplished the same was as the first weld, using a 8 lb single jack hammer. By using a hand hammer instead of a power hammer or press I can not only "feel" the weld stick I can also make any "adjustments" to any layer shifts quite easily. Layer orientation is very important in apttern welding, that is if you want to get even, uniform patterns.

With the pieces wired the second weld is made. Here again, welding with a 8lb single Jack hammer, starting at one end and working back, welding in sections and overlapping weld areas. As I stated before you need an intimate knowledge of forge welding and you must know how to correct any problems that arise. Even more important, is the knowledge and skill to prevent problems from even starting.

This is a good sized piece of steel and due to its mass, the amount of time the piece is workable at a welding heat is approx 20 to 25 seconds. While this does not sound like it is very long, it is. In this amoiunt of time I can strike approx 35 blows by hand. This is a lot of welding strikes.

As I weld I also flip the bar over, making certain that I strike the same amount of blows on both sides of the bar. This is important to keeping the laminations straight.

Here I have drawn the bar out on its second weld/draw course. It is now approx 41" x 1 3/8" x just under 3/8". I drew this out by using a combination of my Little Giant, hand hammers and my 84 ton Hydraulic Press "Julius Squeezer"...

Presently there are approx 112 layers/laminates in this bar (114 minus 2 from the doubling during the stack..two weld areas, you subtract 2 laminate numbers), plus or minus a couple lost to scale and welding opperations.

Care must be taken to keep the work as even an uniform as possible if you want a nioce looking pattern. I am a stickler when it comes to hammer control and frankly there are very few smiths that know what it hammer control is. Most makers just heat and bash and that's about it. If you want a precise pattern, you must have a good starting point. By counting and rememebring your blow placement you can get very close in keeping the laminate almost dead straight and the straighter the laminates are, the better "starting point" you will have for patterning.

The next step will be cutting into thrids, therby once again tripling the nummber of layers. I do not see any reason why I should repeat photographing this step as it is the same basic techniques as described above.

Once the third weld is made, I am ready to draw out for the final drawing and dimensioning before the patterning begins.

With the last weld made, after cutting into thrids this will give a bar of approx 330 layers, which for this pattern (to me anyway) is about ideal as far as contrast and later "visibility". This is the last weld for this particular bar.

After the last weld is made, the bar is drawn out for the last time prior to patterning. This will be done using my power hammer for the heavy drawing and my press for "clean up" to the final size prior to cutting and patterning for the individual blades. While I could very easily pattern the entire piece, I will be cuting individual lengths from this bar.

With the last draw completed the bar is now approx 41" in length, 1 3/8" wide and just under 3/8" thick, from starting to this step: approx 3 hrs 20 mins.

The next step will be to cut off a length, pattern and then start to work on the actual knife.

Now a piece is cut, in this case at 14" in length. The next step will be to lay out the grooves for the pattern. These grooves will be cut into the flat of the bar by hand using a high speed industrial angle grinder. As you can see I already layed out where the grooves will be. The depthof the grooves will be approx 1/3 the thickness of the bar, and they will alternate from side to side so they do not "line up". it is this position of the grooves that gives the "ladder" pattern.

With the groove location layed out the grooves are then cut using a 5/32" thich metal cutting disc on the angle grinde