Making A Knife From Copper and Damascus 

64 layers…

Your quip about documenting the journey put a quote in my head. Wise words from an unlikely place: Adventure Time. Jake once said: "Sucking at something is the first step towards being sort of good at something." I've kept that one around through the years.

I think its actually 64 layers and not 56. Don't sell yourself short, you had to make starter knives to get some practice. No one starts out an expert. just remember "Practice does not make perfect Practice makes for improvement" ! Keep honing and one day you will impress yourself with just how far you have came. I really dig this one .

Well, I've been watching your videos for some time now and can clearly see your progress. Personally, I wouldn't let that one leave my house, not because of the "flaw" but because it's so beautiful.

Idk if you ever gonna see this comment, but you're like the only knife maker RU-vidr I watch. That being said, I've always wanted to see a knife maker create a knife from off-cuts. Not exactly sure what all you do with them, but I'm sure you have dozens of off-cuts laying around, and maybe mixing them and turning it into a knife can be a cool fun experience

I always have to tell myself; no one starts out as an expert. We can only learn so much from other people's successes and failures - overcoming personal failure will always teach the most impactful lessons.

Sunday night, a beer, some snacks, a new video from JP, life’s good

Looks really cool with the copper layer

Turned out amazing great work! Did you coffee etch it after the acid? I find the coffee works the best to make everything pop. Thanks for making Sunday morning coffee great 👍🏼

That copper vein running thru the blade is 🤌🤌🤌

Amazing! One of the best you've made IMO 🔥

It is absolutely gorgeous! Good stuff!

What you created is called "gomai" damascus, and it looks beautiful. Good work

Beautiful, the pattern came out perfect!!!

Daaaaaaaamn, that came out awesome!!!! I agree with you about the little mistakes. IMO the little mistakes are character in the knife's soul, nothing wrong with them if they aren't structural problems or anything serious.

Please please PLEASE make a machete soon!!!! I love everything you do but it would be amazing to see your take on a machete…….. or a scythe!!!!!!!

For higher temp, different colours you can experiment with the bronzes, the silicon, nickel and aluminum bronzes tend to wet and braze better than brass. Because if you're like me, you probably messed around with the leaded brasses and stuff like the A260 cartridge brasses which tend to off-gas a lot of zinc and turn into lava. Especially in mokume gane, which gets compiled at the lowest melting point of all the metals in the stack and its quite low at 900C or thereabouts. So a full 200C lower than copper and it doesn't give you a lot of wiggle room in a forge if you hot-spot it, it all turns to goo

I love that you make a complete knife. The blade is always gorgeous but I love that you craft a gorgeous handle as well

Lovie it that is a beautiful piece. If i could ever stay out of the hospital to where i could save some money i would love that knife but with dark blue its my favorite color.

I recently made a brass and copper cu mai knife with a 1084 core. It really turned out amazing!

Great job getting better every time

All about the journey. Another great piece.

Growing with every build. Awesome job. Never sell yourself short!!

I'm dying to see a sweet brisket knife of yours go on sale

Stunning knife! Well done!!

Those 2 bolts on your press need googly eyes stuck on them.

Looks damn good bro! Personally, I have yet to get a copper build to stick, so I am 100% hats off to you folks who make it look so simple!

Absolutely STUNNING!!!! I just LOVE how the pattern is so reminiscent of flames.... maybe you could layer it in a way that you get a gradient that goes from dark to light, like the tips of the 'flames' are either lighter or darker than the damascus pattern.... IDK if you melt down scrap at all, but it's pretty easy to do and fairly cheap to get started... you would save a TON of money on the more 'precious' metals like copper and bronze and aluminum, but the main reason to do it is to make your own alloys and have totally control of the color they end up... it would take some time and good amount of practice, but it's something you might wanna get into as a next step in customizing your work.... you would be able to make different shades of bronze by making aluminum bronze instead of tin and make it darker by adding more copper and less aluminum and this way you have something that is TOTALLY different from everyone else, because I don't see ANYONE doing anything like this I just wanted to put the idea out there, and maybe it'll give you some kind of inspiration :) It really is a beautiful piece

It’s a good job you make knives and don’t teach maths 😆 Seriously, stunning end result.

Straight up, that knife looks fresh af! 😎👍 outstanding work sir

That copper Damascus is such a bad ass look.

because of my OCD i have to leave a flaw somewhere on a knife, not where it will effect the performance but somewhere on it. and your work never disappoints in its beauty. great work

I really appreciate your explanations as you show your work.

i heated a brass nut with a jeweller's torch. i'm lucky to still have both of my eyes. zinc doesn't like to be heated too fast.

You should make a damascus flatware set. It would be a trip have a nice stainless steel set

Have you considered using bronze instead of copper? I am not a metallurgist, so I don't know if there would be problems.

Awesome job as always. Thanks for promoting forge safety as well.

beautiful knife. well done. im so going to have to buy one of your knives to add to my collection

Good job, gorgeous knife.

Ya 64 layers! Also I've been watching your vids for about a year now and yes you have came a long way sir! I look forward to every video to see your progress.

We built our surface grinders 2x72 with a small vise in mind for non-magnetics of any kind .

That knife is FANTASTIC!

I love these builds that have the copper in them, they always look amazing

That's a lot of layers! And it looks fantastic.

Along came Lou with the old baboon And said, "Recognize that smell? Smells like sixty four layers That knife eats Taco Bell".

Wow. What a cool knife!

Very awesome knife

Mistakes add unique character to all knives

seriously, nice looking blade.

Another Beautiful Knife ! My Friend, Thanks for Sharing!

Amazing sir straight up beautiful. Love watching your videos. I hope to be able to make beautiful knives one day

Gotta make some spooky knives for the month of October like Jasons machete or Michael Myers butchers knife

A work of art 👍👏👏👏

Awesome man love your watching your journey and that is a beautiful knife !

I noticed you didn't seem to use any flux while working with the metal, using something like a wax stick, or dipping your core & layers into (pure paraffin- stay away from wax with styrene added to it; long burn time candles usually have it in them) & press it onto a container sprinkled with flux. Then stack your layers & when you start to forge them the wax will evaporate, without leaving a residue & preventing far less de-lamination between your layers. An added benefit, it it will serve the same purpose as the WD-40 without the toxic chemicals your inhaling from burning it also. Nice craftsmanship nevertheless, the look of the copper with the damascus-style blade is nice, especially with the red cherry colored handle, it's nice enough that I'd buy one.

Dude thats a really awesome knife very bad ass been watching your videos for quite a while now

Really beautiful knife dude.😲

Beautiful knife. I love it. ~Kevin

16x4 = 56 Studied at the Terrence Howard School of Math I see. 😁

That's beautiful!

Yooo?!! That's what I'm talking about bro?!! Hmm I'm in love with this one 💕 😍

I have that same stoll. My breaks go by fast when I sit on it

Not clear if you mark the center before grinding the sides? I really like your videos and your candid approach to your learning process

Another banger JP. 🤙🏻

Nice brotha! Looks great! 🔪❤️

Indeed!

Fantastic piece of work. 👍👍👍

Very awesome pattern

Badass knife.

Nice work dude 👏👏

Very nice ... if I could afford it would take a whole set of them ...

looks beautiful brother nice job

Come out nice. 👍

Really well done. Gorgeous. Did you choose stock removal over hammering to not get too wild patterns, or is it more due to the copper in the block?

Great work!

with the copper it looks amazing 👀

came out great

What would a blade look like if you took all the pieces of damascus you cut off over the years and forge welded them together?

People who don't know. The steel used in Damascus blades are imported from India.

Looks awesome dude

Very nice! 👍

Heck yeah that's a nice one!

Very nice knive

Damn beautiful knife bro

Came out dope homie

4x16 =64

Beautiful

Toll geworden 😊👍

My elementary school art teacher told me in 1971: "Work with your mistakes"

Cool, but maybe you didn't know that copper and iron can react with each other. So it's pretty but it may fall apart due to galvanic corrosion. This is why when copper and steel pipes are connected they are connected with what's called a "non-electric union", or "dielectric union", and other non-electric components used when copper and steel, or other dissimilar metal components are used together. just say'n

Are you coating the handle in something before you etch the entire thing?

A real beauty

Wd 40 in between leave soot bad weld

I know soaking in coffee after the acid etch is a thing, but are there other things you could use to add other colors to the metal??like red or blue kool-aid? LOL I was actually thinking of copper sulfate to turn it blue, but I have no idea what that would do to it... I doubt it would do anything, but it MIGHT change the color of the copper... I think this is more of a chemistry thing tho lol

Can you possibly tell me what the stuff is that falls off the billet when you are forging the steel? It like flakes off as you forge the steel.

No Makers mark? I kept thinking something was missing then I noticed it at the end

very cool

dont sell yourself short. based on what ive seen from others, this knife could easily sell for over $1000 if you find someone who really likes it.

Sexy billets!!! Super nice knife. Awesome vid brother!

Incredible