Pete,
Somewhere in my collection of files from others on this bbs, I had a picture of a machine that wound the ribbon of damscus on a mandrel.

I know there is a lot of opinion that all damascus was hand forged, but some of the later damascus has such a consistant spiral wrap and straight line of the forgeweld of the composite ribbon that I really think striking the material with a hammer would leave the forgeweld line with irregularities very visible.