Interesting Toradar Barrel

[thomas hauschild]

I‘m not realy sure if this is a damascus steel made out of layers. The “round“ structure which looks like a wheel or a half cut orange will be possible to make as a round bar, not impossible. But making opposite cuts and fold it out will not result such a clear, undeformed pattern with one round near the other. Cutting such a bar into slices and weld let me say 30 pieces side by side on a flat different steel is possible but the weld will not so good that you ca make a long enough bar to bend it round to make a barrel. And make every hammerblow and keep the structure round within the steel and make every welding and forming and keep the round pattern. I do not think so

The strukture with the angles shows exakt „layers“ meeting each other perfectly „around the sharp angle“ . If you make a twisted bar, the pattern will be different ( turkish twist) if you will make a bar with a 45° angle, that will be possible but it will be impossible to make a second bar and weld it so perfectly together that you will meet the opposite layer everytime perfectly, like it looks on the pictures. You can push a cold blade through a „high tower“ of hot damascus steel and get that angle afterwards but there will be a „feather-like“ structure after this. ( google for feather damascus ) It will be possible to weld 2 pieces of damascus steel together under an angle to make a chevron. There are some composite blades with chevrons in some kris. But that pieces are very small and does not have the length that you will need to make a barrel like this with perfectly matching layers. To make a long enough bar to wrap it around a core likes this, will need several thousands layers that will need to match the oposite bar

So from the pictures I‘m afraid that this is a just etched structure and there will be a risk to polish and clean them away.

Edit: reading the following comments it is very interesting that it is not just etched. Nice to be wrong. Maximum respect to the maker of the past time. I think the only way to make it is to cut the pieces of the first bar into pieces an weld that pieces on a flat steel like little mosaic stones on a flat ground

Just my opinion

Best Thomas