Forging a Copper Damascus Cu Mai Knife

This should be interesting!
In this video I work on an experimental Cu Mai knife.
I love how the finished product turned out, if a little unexpected.
Hope you enjoy!
Link to Aleeknives video here: • Cu Mai by hand - progr...
Music: Bensound.com

[@MeleeTiger]

The real treasures are the friends we consolidated along the way.

[@PJTForging]

You jest, but I genuinely appreciate your continued support. 🙃

[@TyrellKnifeworks]

The knife came out great! Good job, Phil! Couple tips: 1) For etching regular damascus, weaken your ferric mixture to something like 4:1 and do three 6-7 minute baths (instead of one 20 min), sanding with 2000 grit in between. That will give you more defined lines and not "muddy" your damascus as much. 2) Keep your ferric mixture you used with copper separate since the copper will contaminate your ferric, 3) for your ferric mixture for copper, replace 1/3 of it with muriatic acid. That will prevent your copper from bleeding.

[@PJTForging]

I tried to find the comment where you mentioned this before, but I couldn't find it! Thanks! I do keep the copper ferric separate already though. ;)

[@TyrellKnifeworks]

@@PJTForging I figured you consolidated all that info. 🤣

[@PJTForging]

Touché! 😂

[@JamesMPogue]

Absolutely beautiful knife, well done knife maker, enjoyed watching you build it.

[@24934637]

Did you remember to consolidate the billet? LOL. On a serious note.....Great vid. Thanks for the upload. Stunning end result!

[@PJTForging]

Thanks! :)

[@tiezeehc]

The consolidating part of this video was my favorite 😂

[@PJTForging]

It's a very important step! 😉

[@robertrussell6324]

Looks awesome. Thanks for taking us along.

[@TWKKNIVES]

I don't know if you have but I certainly hope that you have continued to master that process where you integrate the style of Damascus with the holes in the copper you can tell the difference and I think with some more refinement that could be extremely extremely cool having two patterns of the cover on different sides of the blade

[@flatpicker9]

Ou mate, I love it so much! Those "fokin' take a long" looks are so funny. But, almost every minute I was sayin' Ou damn!!!! I envy you!

[@PJTForging]

Thanks a lot! :)

[@danielschisler949]

That thing is stupid beautiful!

[@PJTForging]

Thanks man! :)

[@bobgore1962]

The knife looks amazing!!! Great job, and thanks for sharing! 😎👍🏻🔨🔥🔪

[@PJTForging]

Thanks Bob! :)

[@HummingbirdKnives]

She's a beauty! Great job and always entertaining!!

[@PJTForging]

Thanks Jeff! 🙂

[@xabieraranburu716]

Really well consolidated

[@wetcat833]

Just stumbled on to the first vid that I have seen from you. Very enjoyable. It pays to dare outside the box. First class knife. you have a new subscriber. I'm glad it worked out. I think a stroke of good luck that your first choice of wood, broke. That handle is a perfect contrast. You did have me biting my nails when you were worrying about the air gaps in the drill holes. A bit extra work but extra insurance. Copper melts at 1085C. You could melt some copper rod with your oxy into the holes and scratches and then grind it flat on the belt grinder. No air pockets. the extra copper might give an alternative look. Great job, worked without the extra work. Hope to catch up with more of your shows, soon.

[@whuop-wadeshumbleopinion625]

Really awesome build!! Even if it isn’t exactly as you had intended. Great work!

[@PJTForging]

Thanks Wade! :)

[@406751]

WOW!!!!! dude ... such an amazing job, it looks completely awesome!

[@austinstark860]

I’m only half here for the blacksmithing, more than half for the humor 😂

[@scottstrong1989]

Love the knife, and your sense of humor!

[@dodgeit3014]

holy cow man that is beautiful

[@PJTForging]

Thank you! 😁

[@hankgarcia7572]

The knife is beautiful, I was a copper worker so anything with copper is fantastic. Great job.

[@bleeblin5252]

Love the thumbnail. Should get you a lot of views. Project looks awesome.

[@PJTForging]

Thanks! 😁

[@qdiyprojects]

Great work, loving the finished knife! 👍👍🍻🍻

[@PJTForging]

Thanks! :)

[@Dorkasaurus_711]

I'll comment in a sec, just consolidating my billet... still consolidating my billet. Awesome video, end product looked fantastic. Looking forward to seeing another experiment soon.

[@PJTForging]

Thanks Emma! Glad you liked it! :)

[@kbye5323]

This is beautiful! Very nice work and love the channel!

[@PJTForging]

Thanks! :)

[@KChandler9362]

Very nice!

[@PJTForging]

Thanks! :)

[@peresknives]

Great job!

[@PJTForging]

Thanks! :)

[@popssevere6492]

Amazing 👏

[@PJTForging]

Thanks 😄

[@tomasjosefvela1]

You should have made a really tiny domino and a tiny domino tool to cut the holes and sold the design to Festool or offered it rather, and if they said no you could just sell it to Vevor before they stole it anyway(to sell on Amazon where they take great strides to make sure copy write and patents are strictly enforced!! NOT!) and then you'd have created a whole new way to fix those damn breaks that happen to just about every knife maker I've watched on KZbin at some point or another but always ALWAYS when there is an unidentified or irreplaceable piece of material they had sitting... no "bouncing (or bumping maybe?) around the shop since forever how long when my grandpa was alive and my daddy was a wee one making weird trades with hitchhikers and farmers at their stands on the side of a road that no longer exists.... idk, i forgot what my point was... but thanks for sharing, you do beautiful work!

[@laurentcavaille2191]

Magnifique travail et résultat 👏👏

[@sharpestbulb]

I was half expecting you to open the oven to a charred lump because you left it in for a minute longer than you wanted. I think you've toyed with us so much I'm just paranoid now 😆

[@PJTForging]

Don't be frightened. 😏😈

[@stufq]

Is a beauty!

[@PJTForging]

Cheers Jakub! :)

[@threecatforge]

Cool experiment with an awesome end product l. Would love to see a successful tigers trip pattern it sounds like it would look amazing

[@PJTForging]

So would I. 😅

[@farscape3100]

dont knock it i have to say that turned out gorgeous

[@PJTForging]

Thanks! 😇

[@thespartan2224]

I don't know.... I didn't see a group hammer consolidation pass, so I'm not sure its really consolidated properly... Was a damn fine looking knife and while some of the more intricate pattern was lost on the rain drop damascus side, it still looks absolutely stunning. Also really neat work on the handle, the lighter wood I reckon worked out better overall.

[@PJTForging]

I wasn't 100% sure on the choice of handle wood, so thanks for saying so! :)

[@thespartan2224]

I think it provides a good contrast and pops nicely with the darker shades from the coffee and acid etches and really nicely complements the copper.

[@christospapakostas8405]

All clear....the billet is consolidated! I repeat: the billet is consolidated!

[@PJTForging]

You sure? 😂

[@carrestore]

good job

[@PJTForging]

Cheers! :)

[@Barncat01]

I've seen this on KZbin a few times. Really cool!!! I think I saw Tyrell knife works do one with gold in it. I really don't see how the copper and or gold don't melt getting it up to weld temp and heat treating temp.

[@PJTForging]

You're not actually forge welding like you would between two pieces of steel, it's more like the copper layer is brazing the steel together. And the heat treating temp. of steel is lower than the melting point of copper. :)

[@zarathean8758]

put a piece of paper in between eaxh layer before welding the billet up should prevent the oxides

[@thomasherrington5521]

I consolidate the advice

[@PJTForging]

It's the right thing to do! :)

[@MarrockV]

Maybe next time you should consolidate the billet.

[@ianmclaughlin8987]

Would it be possible to do the same technique as this video but using thinner stock metal, also adding an additional four pieces, two metal, two brass. I would think the thinner stock would compensate for the extra four layers. I have tried a brass, copper Cu Mai myself and out of three attempts managed to get one to bond almost 100 percent but still small cracks or pits. I have not seen any Cu Mai using brass and copper so know it is hard or unlikely to succeed. I almost achieved success but realize that I never cleaned the metals thoroughly before welding them into the sandwich. I am hoping to see someone try this that has much better skills then me and produce a nice blade.

[@PJTForging]

I nearly achieved this exact think when I tried to made a copper and brass cumai axe. Yes it is possible, however if you have a lot of thin layers, you risk losing the straightness of your actual cutting edge, so you'd have to be careful to keep it straight and equal down the length of the blade during the forging process. :)

[@ianmclaughlin8987]

@@PJTForging Yes, your Cu Mai Axe looking amazing. I will probably try another blade at some point but it more expensive when is fails. Thanks for the advice :)

[@CrudeButEfficient]

That's a really good looking blade! I wonder how deep you can make the indentations, and still have them fill out. Would it work if you drilled holes straight through, and squeezed in copper rods? Or would that mess something else up?

[@PJTForging]

I did consider that as an option, my main concern would be if the blade blank was full of holes, it could significantly warp when it came to the quench. 🤷🏼‍♂️

[@CrudeButEfficient]

@@PJTForging Yea, I figured that there was some metallurgic reason. Maybe try it as an experiment on some scrap pieces, just to see what happens?

[@cryp2nite947]

I wonder if you really consolidated the billet enough :P

[@PJTForging]

I lay awake every night wondering the same thing. 🤔

[@DesOttsel]

Could you shape the knife by forging it with a hammer instead of grinding/machining it down or would that just be too much of a risk of loosing the copper even if I had a square pipe to shield it from direct heat? Also, if I was to make a cleaver, would the easiest way to make the billet wide enough be to make a shorter taller stack so that it gets wider and less long when you compress and draw it out? Thanks, love your videos, but I’m still pretty new to smithing. Also, my oil is just vegetable oil since I’ve mainly been working with 1075. Would that work for the quench or would I need a different speed

[@PJTForging]

Alright, so... Once you've brazed the copper and steel layers together, you need to use stock removal rather than forging otherwise you won't get the layers/stripes showing through in the final pattern/blade. If you mean can you forge the profile of the knife, in theory yes, but you're gonna massively risk making the centre piece that will form the hardenable edge of the blade wonky, so I wouldn't recommend trying this. Unless you have a big power hammer, or VERY strong press, I wouldn't recommend trying to squish a tall billet down flat. Plus again, you risk loosing symmetry of your layers and might end up with a wonky blade edge. Vegetable oil isn't ideal, but I used veggie oil when I was starting out, and it did ok. I have no idea how quenching a cumai billet would react in it though. I don't know where you're at with your forging journey, but I would suggest just making some small, sacrificial cumai billets first. Just practice getting them to stick, and how to grind the patterns in, and how they react to the quench before you attempt a knife. Otherwise I fear you may invest a lot of time in a blade for it to fail at one of any number of hurdles, leading to many a tantrum. Good luck to you! :)

[@DesOttsel]

Thanks so much for the info. That gives me a good starting place. Yeah, I was talking about the profile of the knife, but I was guessing I wouldn’t be able to and was actually thinking that same wonky cutting edge might happen. I’ll probably still hammer out the tang to draw it out, but sounds like I’ll be going through some belts haha. For right now, I’ll probably start with sandwiching copper and 1075 for the first couple tries that way I’m not wasting Damascus.

[@johncannon3593]

Doesn’t the copper tarnish pretty quickly in CuMai (on a working blade vs a safe queen that never sees use)?

[@smudger797]

🤠

[@philmcglen6194]

That is absolutely gorgeous! Really great build. My thing about knives like this though is that it feels like a bit of a waste of the two bars of Damascus in the end. The results are amazing, but there's really not much left of the cladding. Maybe I'm just tight lol

[@PJTForging]

I get what you mean, cu mai is a pretty wasteful process. But so long as you just look at the end result and not the starting point, it comes out pretty!

[@guerrero1972canalla]

Hola a que temperatura haces la forja para que derretir el cobre?

[@ssunfish]

9:56 I laughed!!!!

[@MeleeTiger]

This might be a stupid thought... But is it possible to do something like Cu Mai with other metals like silver or gold? 🤔

[@zarathean8758]

from what ive read silver and brass/bronze could also be used (think braizing)

[@PJTForging]

You can do it with brass, bronze and nickel... I'm not sure about silver and gold... and I'm too poor to find out. 😮‍💨

[@TyrellKnifeworks]

Yes, its possible with both silver and gold. I'll be attempting 24k gold soon.

[@billwoehl3051]

Although throwing a piece of clothe or paper into the forge with the gas already flowing looks cool on camera, it's not a good idea to open the gas before introducing the flame, Flame first, then open the gas, ALWAYS.

[@PJTForging]

But it looks cool on camera. 😎👍

[@willyschannel6594]

How much for that knife..... I want one

[@jeffclarke1694]

Hey bro, I heard you liked consolidating. So we Consolidated your consolidating, so you can consolidate while you consolidate.

[@PJTForging]

What on earth are you talking about!? 😉

[@jeffclarke1694]

@@PJTForging you never watched xibits 'pimp my ride' kind of a meme lol

[@PJTForging]

I just don't understand why you keep using varying forms of the word "consolidate" so much... seems odd. 😂😉

[@jeffclarke1694]

@@PJTForgingYOU DID THAT

[@coffeemaniya3285]

San Mai. san : three, mai : sheet. Cu mai : Cu Sheet?????

[@PJTForging]

"Mai" is used to denote "layer/count/number". So San Mai roughly translates to "number/layer of three". Technically speaking, this knife is a Go Mai or "number/layer of five". Cu Mai comes from the chemical symbol of copper being "Cu". So "Copper layers". 🙃

[@coffeemaniya3285]

@@PJTForging Precisely, "Mai" is a unit for counting thin, flimsy objects such as paper and leaves. The layer you mentioned is called "Sou" in Japanese. So, to express the Cu (Copper) Layer, you should say "Cu Sou". Of course, in the narrow sense of "Sanmai", which is one method of knife making, it is also transformed into the meaning of "3 layers". Because 3 iron plates means 3 layers of iron plates. And since the word "Sanmai" is used as a proper noun in knife making, it should be used as one word. If you separate "San" and "Mai", it becomes a word with a different meaning from "Mai" in "Sanmai". thank you. 🙂

[@coffeemaniya3285]

Ignore all of my comments above, it's a word you created yourself, so there should be no problem.😁 thank you for the good video

[@Macca8228]

Did you learn what the word consolidation ment before this video 😂😂

[@paullmight42]

purty

[@bramweinreder2346]

Yo dawg, i heard you like consolidating damascus with a hammer, so I put a hammer in your hammer so you can consolidate while you consolidate!

[@scrappyddz]

really wasted an opportunity to use copper pins

[@Palatard]

w a f t

[@PJTForging]

🔥😅

[@markpereira1975]

Dude you say the word consolidate one more time and I'm gonna punch you through the screen!

[@PJTForging]

Consolidate.

[@markpereira1975]

@@PJTForging lol