Bar Stock Calculatora free tool from KraftyQuote

Damascus billet planner

Start from the bar your blade needs. Get the stack to weld, the restack plan, the layer count, and how much of each steel to buy once the steel lost to welding and patterning is counted.

Your billet

in
in
in
The calculator's "stock per blade" for your knife.

The stack

15N20
in
in
in
Pure nickel between every layer for brighter lines. It doesn't harden, so keep it out of the cutting edge; fine for cladding or decorative billets.
Odd puts the dark steel on both faces.
in

Pattern

%
Not modeled for twist or feather. Weigh one billet before and after the pattern and enter it here.

Advanced: losses and bars
%
Scale, face grinding, cropped ends and kerf, per weld. 12% is a middle value from three smiths' reports, which ran from about 7% to 19% a weld. Weigh your own stack and billet to replace it.
in
in
Cutting sheets from bars, and blades from the billet.

The plan

Stack to weld
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Layers stacked
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Distinct layers
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Average finished layer
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Steel in
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Billet out
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Kept
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BuyPiecesEachBarsWeight

Step by step

    What this assumed
    Copy link to this plan

    What the etch could look like

    An approximate visual guide, not a simulation of your forging. Real billets move unevenly, and twist, feather and W's especially depend on hand work this can't see.

    How the plan is worked out

    Backward from the billet. The finished billet's volume, divided by what survives each weld cycle and the pattern, is the stack you weld. The stack's height is your sheets added up; its length is whatever makes the volume work.

    Layers. Each restack multiplies the count by the pieces you cut. An odd stack starts and ends on the dark steel, so every restack seam welds dark to dark and two layers become one. That's why 15 × 4 × 4 is 240 stacked but 225 distinct.

    Losses. Two kinds. Each weld cycle loses steel to scale, face grinding, cropped ends and the saw; measured figures per weld are hard to find, and most published numbers lump every weld, the forging and the grinding together (Ed Caffrey puts simple patterns at 30 to 50% by weight overall). So the 12% default is a middle value from three bladesmiths' forum reports. One lost around 40% by 500+ layers doubling, about 7% a weld; another kept 53% after three welds, about 19% a weld. It's an editable box for that reason. Ladder and raindrop depend on how you make them. Cut with a grinder or drill, you lose only the steel you cut out (holes are counted as flat-bottomed, so a drill point loses a little less). Pressed with dies, both faces are ground down to the die floor, so everything above the floor is lost; if your press lengthens the bar instead of bulging the ridges you'll lose a little less, and the plan shows that lower figure too. Twist and feather loss isn't modeled, but the weld that joins twisted bars side by side, or closes a feather's split, is counted as one more weld cycle. For W's, each restack after the bar is turned on edge is a weld cycle too. Turning it and crushing the corners move steel without removing it, so they're counted as no loss, an estimate until there are measured figures.

    Forging the blade from the billet loses steel too, and the main calculator already counts it. Nothing here counts it twice.