sword from stainless

[gragnak]

Never heard of harmonic steel?
I think tere are a smith or two using this technique in England...

 

[M Wadel]

please tell us more about harmonic steel gragnak. btw i dont think swordmikey was joking there actually is something called a ninjasword (stumbled upon it on some site) its supposedly straight and kinda short

 

[gragnak]

Harmonic steel is used for musical instruments parts and special engineering applications (cables, pillars, etc.) It's more difficult to work than normal steel (carbon and inox) and tends to get rusty (so requires e frequent maintenance). But the good thing is that it's really strong, hard and flexible.
I know a smith in italy that makes swords in harmonic steel, but a firend of mine told me that a smith in Wales produce outstanding long swords and claymore.
The problem is that i can't rememeber the name of the smith and my friend is working in another country now...

Here's what I found on the net

(oh... sorry for my poor english)


Spada ad una mano Cod: R.M.spad.2

Spada tipica dei secoli XIV°-XV°,utilizzata sia a cavallo che a piedi. L’articolo è riprodotto seguendo il più strettamente possibile i canoni dell’epoca, la lama è in acciaio armonico, temprato allo stesso grado di durezza riscontrato in esemplari dell’epoca. La forma, i pesi e le dimensioni, pur non rifacendosi ad un singolo esemplare di museo sono coerenti con la tipologia XIIIa della classificazione di Oakeshott ed il bilanciamento e la sezione della lama sono stati studiati per migliorare la maneggevolezza e la resistenza della lama. L’impugnatura è in legno ricoperto di pelle per una presa migliore. Prodotto altamente filologico fatto a mano e realizzato in Italia particolarmente consigliato per il combattimento.

Lunghezza lama: 83 cm - Larghezza lama: 4.5 cm

Lunghezza Totale: 95 cm - Lunghezza impugnatura: 12 cm - Peso: 1490 gr

www.bottegamedievale.com/products.asp?id=1

 

[harm]

If it really has to be from stainless, then make it out of something that will take a really nice finish (not S30V), because all you'll want to do with it is hang it over your mantel.

dont know if u heard of Robert Bauchop from s africa,son of Peter Bauchop?he makes swords in stainless,440 [a or b,i cant remember]i know his katana is hardened to 50-52 HRC.the owner of a katana made by Robert is a good friend of mine and a long time [last 10 years] practitioner of katori[the samurai martial art,sorry i dont know much about it].he has used Robert's blade extensively in tameshigiri and swears by it.

 

[Merek]

...he has used Robert's blade extensively in tameshigiri and swears by it.

"In modern times, the practice of Tameshigiri has come to focus on testing the swordsman's abitities, rather than the sword's. The target most often used at present is the goza or tatami "omote" rush mat." (Wikipedia)

How hard the steel is does not determine whether it will 'work' as a real sword. Diamonds are very hard but lack tensile strength and can be crushed to powder with an average hammer. Hardness AND flexibility must be in proper balance for a sword to perform. Anyone interested in the various aspects of swords should, at minimum, focus on the articles available on http://forums.swordforum.com www.thearma.org & http://home.earthlink.net/~steinrl/nihonto.htm . There many answers are available and myths addressed in no-nonsense terms.

 

[harm]

well from what i understand,robert and my pal have tested this blade extensively.my pal would never have bought it if would not "work" as a real sword.btw my pal is also an AMOK tribal leader[instructor] and has "used" knives.to him no blade[knife or sword] can be called a fighting knife/sword unless it can do the job consistantly without failure.

 

[senoBDEC]

How hard the steel is does not determine whether it will 'work' as a real sword.

A little out of context - but it does actually (a little). In the heat treat best suited to the steel used, one can vary the hardness through a variety of methods, including time in quench or the method and degree of tempering.... a sword blade could end up being not so useful as a cutting instrument due to malformation of the crystalline structure - ONE indicator of which is the HRC. Too soft and you get a blade that tends to absorb shock and is more prone to take a bend permanently. Too hard and thin sections (like the edge) become very brittle and more likely to snap under stress.

Of course it's only a very small part of the whole picture regarding heat treat, but it's a nice "easy" way to explain heat treat of steel. Many other factors come into play, and then of course you deal with the blade geometry, handle construction, steel composition, whee!

About tameshigiri - yes, it's a test of the swordsman, but the sword is tested too.

 

[harm]

u know all this swordsman talk makes me wana watch porno - lol

 

[Will P.]

u know all this swordsman talk makes me wana watch porno - lol

I don't want to know.

Anyways, wood does not behave in the same manner as wood. I'd get a direct quote from Gould, but I don't have access to my books right now. The fibers and internal glue prevent the wood from fracturing; some woods are more resistant to breaking under stress than mild steel ("stronger" in a material sense). Also, the fibers make it difficult to cut wood. The rigid structurs in on on the other hand are not particularly dense. The small pockets and bubbles prevent castatrophic fractures (most of the time), but to a lseer degree than wood. Bone is also more prone to breaking up - it is soft, living tissue, while wood is (even in tree) dead. Any butcher can tell ya - bone is not that hard to chop through. living bone is soft enough to bruise and deform, and microfactures generated by the deformation make the bone loose is strenght - exactly the opposite of how wood reacts to stress. Many woods out there are a pain in the ass though.

Swords will actually bend around the object they are cutting, literally shearing through denser objects. This obvious requires that the sword is elastic (won't deform when bent) and is not brittle - most stainless steels have trouble with both these properties. Fracture resistant objects can cause trouble, as can layered material like wood.

It isn't like a voilent chop into a person would be less stressful, in fact it would be more so due to the very high localized pressures encountered when dynamically cutting bone. Of course not all swords were made to do that either. But if you are looking at a large utility piece you want a parang/bolo/golok or similar, not a sword.

-Cliff

Cliff, if you want to use technical jargon, pressures occur in fluids. For example, wave cyclones form due to localized low pressures troughs. When a sword encounters a long object like a bone, there are are four forces - the applied force (angular acceleration), weight, kenetic friction, and the normal force (the electromagnetic fields of the edge and the object being cut attempting to occupy the same space). Thsis results in shearing forces in the sword and the object, as the parts in contacts are compressed by the momentum of the object themselves, and the far sides are streched. Once again when wood is subjected to this forces it behaves in an elastic fasion; bone deforms, gets microfractures throughout, and breaks.

 

[Cliff Stamp]

The fibers and internal glue prevent the wood from fracturing;

Depends on the wood and the condition, lots of them will suffer brittle failure, some will actually splinter and shard leaving sharp edges, others are quite soft and elastic.

Any butcher can tell ya - bone is not that hard to chop through.

The edges on a heavy bone cleaver are *far* thicker and more obtuse than on a felling axe. As well butchers generally do static cuts, dynamically is much different, it is the lateral forces across the edge which induce failure, compressive loads are easily handled.

Take a quick poke around the forum and find the results of work with knives on various bones, and blades are much more likely to get damaged there than cutting wood because bone is much more demanding of an edge than wood, even of the harder types.

Or simply take a look at the edge profile of long knives of sword weight and size like a golok and check the profiles compared to a sword made to withstand heavy chops into a human body. The wood golok has a much thinner and more acute edge profile, they get down to 8-10 degrees per side at the very edge.

White oak for example which is harder than most woods people use to test knives on has a compressive strength of about 7kpsi, the compact tissue of bone can be 24kpsi.

[speaking of cutting bone/wood]

...pressures occur in fluids.

Not speaking of in the medium, the pressure is higher on the edge of the sword due to the lower area of contact, if you chop a sword into a 2x4 it makes a much larger contact area than if you were to chop hard into a person and thus the pressure is less, the impulse is also much greater in the bone because the collision time is much shorter.

You can directly see the effect of contact area and pressure if you look at limbing vs felling in axes where the limbing axes are ground much thicker than what is found on felling axes. I have shots of knives which could fell trees all day long but as soon as they were taken to even soft limbs the edges bent and then tore, the pressure is just too high when the diameter of the wood gets small.

It gets even worse in an actual combat situation if you consider the effect of violent opposition to the cut such a the target moving which can induce a violent snap across the blade while it is lodged in a fairly rigid medium around a small constrained region, again inducing very high localized pressures. None of this happens when cutting woods.

-Cliff

 

[Will P.]

Depends on the wood and the condition, lots of them will suffer brittle failure, some will actually splinter and shard leaving sharp edges, others are quite soft and elastic.

Furniture is either made of heavy woods or wood/glue composite.

The edges on a heavy bone cleaver are *far* thicker and more obtuse than on a felling axe. As well butchers generally do static cuts, dynamically is much different, it is the lateral forces across the edge which induce failure, compressive loads are easily handled.

Take a quick poke around the forum and find the results of work with knives on various bones, and blades are much more likely to get damaged there than cutting wood because bone is much more demanding of an edge than wood, even of the harder types.[/quote]
Most animals we eat have a much denser bone structure than humans.

Good point about the dynamic cuts, but edge chipping is much different than castastrophic failure due to fracturing or deformation - once again, swords should to shear through denser objects rather than chop/cut. That's part of what makes it a sword.

Not speaking of in the medium, the pressure is higher on the edge of the sword due to the lower area of contact, if you chop a sword into a 2x4 it makes a much larger contact area than if you were to chop hard into a person and thus the pressure is less, the impulse is also much greater in the bone because the collision time is much shorter.

Pressure is the wrong term. The crystal structure of the steel fratuces or deforms, but does not compress - pressure occurs in fluids, not crystals.

If you hit the broad side of a 2x4 with a sword, you will get a strong resistance to the shearing forces and can damage the sword. With a sowrd, you want to cut into smaller diameter object to fracture and/or shear them more effectively. I'm not should how you consider a bone impact to be taking place in a short time period than contact with a 2x4 - the sword may get STUCK in the 2x4 due to friction and the normal force, and this is very bad for the sword as the bulk of the energy in the swing at that point will get converted into the searing forces acting on the sword. (Some of the energy will become heat - when chopping, tools will heat up fast.) In any case, Swords should ideally pass through the object they are cutting. Curved swords make this process easier - the arc of the swing can run the edge across something rather than shearing through it directly. When making this sort of cut though, you're more likely to chip the edge (the dynamic aspect of the cutting you mentioned).

It gets even worse in an actual combat situation if you consider the effect of violent opposition to the cut such a the target moving which can induce a violent snap across the blade while it is lodged in a fairly rigid medium around a small constrained region, again inducing very high localized pressures. None of this happens when cutting woods.
-Cliff

When cutting wood, it is quite possible to get the tool stuck in the wood. It can easily be twisted and bent laterally as you try to dislodge it. This won't neccesarily damage a good sword, but it can. A stainless steel sword, being by nature more brittle, will have trouble with this sort of treatment.

 

[Cliff Stamp]

Furniture is either made of heavy woods or wood/glue composite.

Depends, around here white pine is commonly used on the higher end, this is really soft, you can score it with your fingernail. Most of the working class functional grade is lower as spruce is the common local wood, pressboard laminates are in the really cheap stuff.

Good point about the dynamic cuts, but edge chipping is much different than castastrophic failure due to fracturing or deformation - once again, swords should to shear through denser objects rather than chop/cut. That's part of what makes it a sword.

Not all swords function in the same manner, read the posts by Clements in rec.knives a few weeks back on various swords which chopped and even functioned as blunt objects as there was no edge to speak of, sword covers a broad scope of blades.

Many of the profiles described are horribly thick and blunt compared to what are found on wood working blades and you could take those swords and pound on desks all day long and do nothing, you could crack them into nails if you wanted with little effect.

Note the long graceful arc on a katana and the convex cross section is near identical to a traditional golok, which is also used in the same draw manner instead of a pure chop, even simple machetes will be used in the same manner as are khukuris.

Pressure is the wrong term. The crystal structure of the steel fratuces or deforms, but does not compress - pressure occurs in fluids, not crystals.

Not speaking of the internal media and a resulting corrosponding chance in density, but what is exerted upon it. There is a large pressure upon the edge of a knife if you chop into a branch vs the trunk of the tree, this higher pressure can easily be enough to surpass the critical yeild point and cause the steel to deform or crack depending on how fast it is applied and its magnitude. Note many of the critical properties of steels are in units of pressure as it is a force being applied over an area to normalize it for a standard.

If you hit the broad side of a 2x4 with a sword, you will get a strong resistance to the shearing forces and can damage the sword.

Only if it is made out of unhardened steel, or is a *really* thin sword. Why would you expect a forged piece of 3/16"-1/4" tool steel to be functionally far weaker than a 1/8" stamped machete you can buy for $10.

I'm not should how you consider a bone impact to be taking place in a short time period than contact with a 2x4

Bone is harder, Apatite which is the main mineral component of bone, is about 35 on the Rockwell 'C' scale, wood is much softer. I can take a decent large bowie and cut for example 2" deep into a 3" piece of pine, 6 square inches. If I chopped into this much bone the knife would not get anywhere near that level of penetration, as the distance traveled is much shorter so is the time of the collision, this raises the impulse accordingly and can cause much greater damage to the edge.

When cutting wood, it is quite possible to get the tool stuck in the wood. It can easily be twisted and bent laterally as you try to dislodge it.

Only an isse with annealed steels, or really thin blades. What is critical is high pressures causing a massive stress due to focused contacts, knots, regions of twisted grain, or high localized densities due to wood rot. It takes a horrible blade to get damaged from actual working it loose, even a cheap 1/8" machete won't be bothered by that. The only time that could likely cause a problem would be if you got it right between or around a knot which locked it in tight enough so that you could actually bend the blade before the wood would just compress and let the blade go, I never have seen that happen and can't see it happening unless the blade had an annealed spine or was really thin, 1/16" machete or similar.

-Cliff

 

[senoBDEC]

I don't possess much in terms of jargon... but there's plenty of historical evidence for sword cutting through live bone... if that's the thing being questioned. Dead bone is something else... not sure why, but it becomes extraordinarily tough and hard - hence it was a good choice in some cultures for making tools.

There are even accounts of tameshigiri (cutting through a person, usually a prisoner, to test the blade) of 5 bodies... admittedly these were done by exceptional swordsman and typically with exceptional blades AND the bodies were typically tied up and the only part cut was the belly and spine. I still find it nigh unbelieveable but certainly it is possible.

Clements may have been speaking about poorly constructed or damaged swords that may have been blunted on purpose or through accident. Many old swords still possess a rather keen edge, depending on condition. If you could post a link to the thread I would be most interested in reading it. Swords are NOT thick and blunt compared to a knife, especially proportionately, of late, many knives have become more and more "tough", thick and obtuse and sacrificing cutting ability... an odd phenomena. Can still cut though. Don't know, so can't say for sure. But a REALLY blunt sword would be a very awkward weapon...

It's kind of hard to generalize katana blade geometry, there were quite a few types and they all cut differently. Same goes for European or Northern Asiatic swords... many of which were also convex ground (though some were double edged and straight, etc).

Speaking of which, it is hypothesized that katana used during warfare, many of which were damaged and cut down, repaired, polished, are actually thinner than they were in their infancy. They also tend to be heavier than modern production katana or shinsakuto. Broad generalization, but whatever.

Side note: I've asked around on Swordforum about the "harmonic steel" - according to a metallurgist, it seems to be a spring steel....

 

[Cliff Stamp]

.. but there's plenty of historical evidence for sword cutting through live bone...

Yes, it is easily possible, the point of contention is what would be more demanding on a blade cutting up some wood or a person.

Clements may have been speaking about poorly constructed or damaged swords that may have been blunted on purpose or through accident.

No, various types of sabres. You can turn up his posts in a group search on google. Interesting discussion which lead to comments on use because I was wondering how they kept from breaking their own wrists in use with swords on horseback, turns out they often didn't.

There were a very tangents dealing with weapon level impacts from people who currently practice with those implements and there were some interesting physics brought up in particular with respect to chained weapons and controlling levels of impact.

Swords are NOT thick and blunt compared to a knife, especially proportionately, of late, many knives have become more and more "tough", thick and obtuse and sacrificing cutting ability... an odd phenomena.

Not speaking of general knives, especially the various tacticals, many of which are not really knives but more general purpose sharp tools, but knives specifically designed as wood cutting tools, a Valiant Golok for example, you can see the entire profile in the review I did as I mapped it out, it has a very thin profile and would not work well as a thick bone cleaver.

-Cliff

 

[senoBDEC]

if the discussion about about which is harder/more damaging to cut, wood or bone, it depends . Some wood have very short grain and are soft (and break around a fracture point, some have long grain and are soft and bend and vice-versa... it all depends.

Yeah, over at SFI we're not sure why people think cutting wood is abuse without any contextual knowledge. Live wood in saplings and such are actually quite easy to cut (depending on species), despite the "tests" using large blades and such - in that case with any kind of decent hardness and good blade geometry and cutting technique, one should be able to sail through. Similarly, cheap pine wood 2x4's or somewhat thin laminated boards can be cut - just so long as the blade doesn't flex and/or twist along the way. That's why machetes for brush are thin, and more versatile ones are a bit thicker and have a more reinforced edge (and cut brush worse of course).

The harder and more dense the material, the more likely force gets transmitted back to the sword and damages the hilt components. The edge damage is of course dependent on cutting angle, speed, momentum, blade geometry, material hardness and resilience, etc...

Interesting discussion, despite me not wanting to read the whole thing XD. Stupid school.

 

[Tim-Gabz]

Strange, I have a 12c27 14" Katana sharp as a razor and I still use it to trim the garden including branches. A machete is generally far better but the ones we get here are junk.

The Rule of thumb is over 9" on Stainless and you are asking for trouble or considerably extra work in the making. It cost alot with the nitrogen dipping and differential tempering, but it is sweet. Do it again nah I would go for 16" blade in 15200 as there is no real purpose for stainless except wall hanging.

 

[senoBDEC]

A katana (daito) should have a blade length (excluding blade collar) of at least 23-24 in (over 2 shaku). What you have is a wakizashi a.k.a. shoto (1-2 shaku or 12-22 inches). May I ask who made it? I always enjoy browsing smith's sites for eye candy .

 

[Tim-Gabz]

Hi SenoDBEC,

I don’t have the ability to post pics. I will try and email these onto you.

The cutler was Corne Smit of Norton Zimbabwe. For the most part he was a self taught enthusiast, a background of smithing and a long reputation for performance blades. It was made in 2001 for me to hang handle down my back whilst cycling during the fuel crisis (still ongoing). I had to cycle @ 20 miles / day and Bikejacking was a real problem as was carrying a Glock in a tense environment. With a jacket on it was well concealed. This arrangement had one flaw as I discovered after warning off some thugs, re-sheathing whilst sitting on a bike was difficult without removing a kidney.

I initially wanted it in carbon steel but he insisted on 12c27 being up to the job and low maintenance. It was. It is shaving sharp and capable of garden work and when needs be easily concealed by a jacket when I go on foot. It is worn with a loop around the neck, under the collar/tie and another loop through the belt. The blade is secured in the scabbard with a tight friction clip allowing ease of draw after the first two inches of movement. The handle was of ironwood that I bound in red paracord and then wrapped with 6mm wide nylon strapping.

As for Corne I soon had dagger made but lost contact after that. He lost his small holding and home in the dispora that is Zimbabwe.

 

[Tim-Gabz]

Hi Seno,

Here's to trying a picture link:


Thanks for the info.

Tim

 

[knife saber]

That's a pretty cool o-tanto/wakizashi!

Can't really tell from the photo, but is it hollow ground? What I can see of the yokote seems to be indicating a transition from a hollow ground section to a flat/convex ground tip. Any more details?