Handforged Carbon Damascus I make my Damascus by forge welding a billet, which consists of several layers of two different types of steel. Once the billet is welded it is drawn out to a suitable length and allowed to slowly cool. The forged billet is ground to clean metal and cut into equal length pieces. These pieces are then used to form a new billet. The new billet is then welded and drawn out and the process is repeated until I produce a billet which contains the amount of layers I require. The amount of layers will depend on the intended pattern and size of the blade. The billet is then rough forged to the blade shape and given a pattern by removing metal in various geometric patterns. The rough forged and patterned ‘blank’ is then reforged to the shape of the blade. From this final forging the blade is hand ground and polished. The final stage is to etch the blade … because the blade contains two different steels they etch at different rates which clearly exposes the layers and brings out the pattern.