Titanium Sword / Katana?

Get 'im, Horseclover! Or send in the battle-ax guy to handle your light work! :D
 
horseclover said:
Oh, so you meant stab when you wrote cut. OK
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Maybe I was thinking about bolt cutters:D.

There were medieval curved blades as well and again, single hand swords of overall length comparable to the overall length of katana, weighing pretty much the same ball park. Maybe a little heavier but not "much more" or a pound's difference. You initially touted katana in your initial post and have needed to clarify just what you initially wrote.
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Single hand? If it's a comparable length to a katana, I'd expect it to be heavy, relatively speaking, because a katana is typically wielded with two hands.


You now write of a "tanto tip". Of course katana had points and they are called kissaki.

Cheers

GC
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I clearly need to read more cultural references if I'm comparing a sword to a knife:thumbup:.
 
Mecha said:
Get 'im, Horseclover! Or send in the battle-ax guy to handle your light work! :D
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Pfft, or make a titanium battle-ax and give it to clover:thumbup:!

Gotta ask though, you ever use your titanium katana for something you might use a light machete on? Just seems like it could fill the same niche, but without rust issues. I assume the blade can be sharpened normally like a steel blade as well?
 
This^ is another reason to choose a Ti blade.
I would never use a traditional blade as a machete.
rolf
 
Mostly just been a metal shop hermit lately, pale and Golem-like, skittering away from direct sunlight and warily avoiding all but the most generic of sword terminology. However, I did manage to crawl out to the woods and use one to clear a bunch of brush and wimpy saplings, and split a pile of of kindling. The titanium alloy sharpens well on a belt, or on a very fine whetstone, and it's not that much different than steel.

When visitors come and play with the titanium swords, they usually ask about machetes straight away. Such a machete would be almost impossible to distort.
 
Mecha said:
Mostly just been a metal shop hermit lately, pale and Golem-like, skittering away from direct sunlight and warily avoiding all but the most generic of sword terminology. However, I did manage to crawl out to the woods and use one to clear a bunch of brush and wimpy saplings, and split a pile of of kindling. The titanium alloy sharpens well on a belt, or on a very fine whetstone, and it's not that much different than steel.

When visitors come and play with the titanium swords, they usually ask about machetes straight away. Such a machete would be almost impossible to distort.
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Sounds like it would be the case in theory. I know beta titanium can roughly attain the same hardness range as steel, but I'm not too sure what the toughness is like(compared to say, 1060) at the same hardness and physical dimensions. But I would think you get the benefit of the exaggerated convex grind without as much weight behind it(may or may not be a good thing).

Also curious if perhaps a 26-29" titanium katana is light enough to swing around with one hand, as it seems like a longer length could get you more force behind a swing. I'd love to have a 26" convex ground Iberian Falcata you can swing around with one hand:D.

I'm guessing the price is prohibitive though:eek:.
 
Lycosa said:
This^ is another reason to choose a Ti blade.
I would never use a traditional blade as a machete.
rolf
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I bought an ESEE Junglas instead of a machete, so I guess I can't use a machete as a machete:thumbup:.
 
Lycosa said:
fwiw- I'd like to see an INFI machete also.
rolf
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Yeah really huh?

INFI steel on a quarter inch thick blade isn't going to tell you anything about how tough it is. Putting it in an edge geometry that really puts an emphasis on toughness would give the steel a run for its money. But given that it's Busse's proprietary steel IIRC, fat chance of that happening.

Interesting subject though, a member linked a site that stated that old genuine katanas were likely inferior to modern katanas due to vastly inferior quality of steels(hence the need to fold it and differentially harden it), both in purity and consistency. And this use of titanium in katanas certainly makes me eager to explore the possibilities(pity I'm not a bladesmith).

Makes me wonder if available modern metallurgy opens the doors to new ways to use old designs. Again, I feel beta titanium gives you the possibility of a full length blade that can be swung around faster than any steel counterpart of identical dimensions(swinging around a 21" blade wakizashi without tiring like it's a 7" blade dagger would be quite an experience). Also think CPM 3V would be great in a machete, would have far better edge retention than anything else at about Rc 60-62, without losing that toughness and the ease of deep cutting. I'd also be curious to see if that could be differentially hardened to say, have the edge at Rc 63+ and the spine somewhere in the 50s. You'd never need another machete ever again:D.
 
Hartsfield said to ignore modern technology would compromise the blade. I agree.
Sword experts agree that many japanese swords failed. Only a few swords were good to very good.
As I said before, I'd love a Busse katana with traditional Japanese geometry.
rolf
 
Lycosa said:
Hartsfield said to ignore modern technology would compromise the blade. I agree.
Sword experts agree that many japanese swords failed. Only a few swords were good to very good.
As I said before, I'd love a Busse katana with traditional Japanese geometry.
rolf
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I don't know if INFI is the right steel for a sword. I found myself having to sharpen INFI far more often than a similar blade made of properly heat treated CPM 3V. Don't get me wrong, INFI is tough as crap, but it just seemed to require more frequent sharpening. Now 3V is a lot more work to sharpen, INFI grinds like butter. They both seem to take equally scary sharp edges. But my personal experience is that 3V holds its edge longer. I also have a Siegle Camp Knife in 5160 and that damn thing holds an edge for a LONG time. I just picked up a sword from Ted Frizzell of MMHW in 5160... looking forward to testing its edge holding ability.
 
I'll buy that^ infi-del.
I do know Jerry cut lots of hemp rope before the INFI blade went dull.
And, look what Hartsfield did with A2. Incredible. HT man!
rolf
 
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First day of the knife show in Eugene, and had a great time talking about forging, titanium, metallurgy and swords with lots of people. Mostly everyone wanted to see the S.A.M.hammer, my home-made power sledge, which caused such a sensation (and giant thud) that the seller next to me pulled his table away from mine! Even sold one of these bad sons-a-guns today to an enthusiastic blade junkie.

hckuaSq.jpg



Here is a closer view of the caged Airwave Dagger:

UtIZkE2.jpg


Tomorrow (April 13, 2014) is the last day of the show, if anyone wants to see these swords in person.
 
Very cool! lmk how sales went.
I will get a blade from you as soon as I can.
rolf
 
there are plenty of titanium alloy suitable for swords i think. we are talking about swords, not knives. steel has clear advantage over titanium on knife making due to hardness and strength of same mass. however hardness of a steel sword with 35~40inch blade are usualy in range of 50~55hrc. a suitable titanium alloy could achieve similar hardness as well. also sword is a weapon, a titanium sword means at the same weight it possibly made longer than steel swords. reach is one of the most important thing for a weapon. i would rather perfer 6 inches increase in reach than the hardness increase by 2hrc. it might not be as effective at cutting due to its less density compare to steel though.
 
Speaking of 3V, I actually asked that very question of Dan Keffeler and Brad Stallsmith at Peters a while back. Differential hardening isn't actually the be-all and end-all. It's not a selling point on modern steels because the purpose behind it is to maintain toughness without sacrificing too much in the way of edge hardness, and that's not necessary or useful in a complex steel like 3V. What makes 3V so awesome is the carbides it forms. The way I understand it is that the carbides form a crystalline matrix. It's kinda like a series of interlocking blocks. You want those blocks to fit together consistently, and you get different formation with differential tempering. That actually compromises the strength on a complex carbide-forming steel, where it can be more useful on a simple steel. The great advantage to 3V, and the reason you would use a steel that costs 3 times as much as a simple carbon steel, and which is far harder to work and finish, is that it's incredibly tough, even at 60 RC. I suspect the same logic is true of Beta-Ti, but that would be a question for Mecha. Regardless, I'd take a through-hardened 3V sword done right over a differentially tempered simple high carbon steel blade any day.
 
Interesting information, but while true for the custom realm, I don't think DH is particularly bad for the mid-range carbon steel katanas. Though the durability of through hardened 9260 still leaves me drooling when I watch the (attempted) destruction tests of a Cheness katana.
 
Oh no, the point isn't that it's bad for simple carbon steels. It's that DH is detrimental for a complex steel like 3V, and isn't really necessary for some other steels as well. If I were going to summarize, I'd say that you need to pick the right heat treat for the right steel, and DH doesn't make any sense for 3V. Still fine for simpler steels like 9260, any of the 10- series of carbon steels, etc.
 
Well, through hardened 9260 is already plenty tough. Wouldn't DH just increase the risk of permanent deformation? I recall reading something along those lines. I'm just thinking that DH might be better for high carbon steels that can attain high levels of hardness for better edge holding, but allow the spine to be soft enough so it's usable in the size and length of a katana blade shape.

I'm also rather curious about truly custom heat treatments, as I do believe hearing about how regular 154CM can be heat treated to such a degree that it can be used for some things you wouldn't expect it to be capable of, such as turbine blades for aircraft.

Kind of wondering if that type of premium HT contributes to the high cost of L6 Bainite, and I'm wondering if you can take the same concept to steels like CPM-3V. Though I'm guessing the complex carbide formation might also render that moot?
 
The crystal structures of beta titanium alloys can be "customized" with lengthy and complex quenching and annealing processes, just like with fine steels (sometimes these HT processes can take days). I eagerly tried to DH a few sword blades, but the ti alloy is naturally so springy and tough, that an aggressive through-harden after a careful heat skews it toward maximum hardness and rigidity without detriment, and really makes the blade come alive. There is no real embrittlement unless the HT is poor, and the best part is no secondary annealing to obliterate the hard and irregular structures created by hammering and forging. The beta titanium in use for the mad science swords is a nice, heavy older alloy that was devised with forging in mind, so it's rather forgiving! A lot of the newfangled alloys, ferrous or otherwise, REQUIRE a superb annealing process to gain their amazing qualities! This is a clear and present danger to when welding today's alloys, which can become extremely weak or brittle when a welding arc upsets the delicate HT of a machine or component.
 
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