There are some concepts of forging and welding stainless steels that I'd like to talk about for a second.
Stainless steels melt at temperatures a tad lower than regular carbon steels, however, the forging temperature is substantially higher.
Stainless steels can be hot forged just like carbon steels, but since they have intrinsic characteristics and properties, in addition of the mentioned higher temperature, it's imperative that you take some particular and important meassures to achive a successful forging.
Stainless steels' thermal conductivity is lower than carbon steels'. At higher temperatures, stainless steels are harder and less plastic than carbon steels. They require about 40% more hits to achieve the same deformation.
This lack of plasticity causes the need for more heating cycles, and, as they have a "slow" thermal conductivity, these cycles should be done very slowly, to achieve a uniform temperature in the entire piece to forge.
It's better not to heat it to the direct flame, as this causes the steel to get oxidized. For this reason, as I still haven't finished my induction oven, is that I leave it thicker than needed and then I get rid of a good 1mm on each side, by grinding it off, after the piece cooled off.
It's also very important to properly measure the temperature in the oven while you're heating for forging, as if it goes lower than 900C, this can cause fissures on the steel.
Because of all of this precautions that I have to take into consideration when forging stainless steels, as well as the extra cost of the materials involved, is that I consider the cost of making this type of stainless damascus to be about as twice as making regular carbon damascus.
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