Quote:
Instead of flattening the twist into a bar, a barrel might have more likely been ground to shape. A forged bar might end up with spots of long thin tapered laps of the two materials, where you may be looking for slices somewhere in the middle.


Correct!!

I would flatten the rod to a thickness that allows for stock removal to develop the damascus pattern. The other option, would be to flip the flat layers 90 degrees and create a bar that just has long straight lines of alternating iron and steel. Maybe weld the 1 layer stack a second time, to create 22 layers. If the bar was finished to 1 ˝ inches wide, the layers would be .068 thou in width. If the bar was 2 inches wide, the layers would be .091 thou wide. The possibilities are endless.

Steve Culver
Steve Culver Knives