[geeks] Swords (forge)

[Kevin]

Gas forges are overwhelmingly (and electric) more popular than coal these days.  In fact it can be
hard to find coal in some areas now.  Traditional Japanese smithing begins with iron sand or iron
ore so the adding of carbon is pretty much a necessity to form steel.  In practice, very few people
start out with raw iron these days.  Most begin with steel stock of various types.  

The very best of Japanese blades had very complex constructions, with iron being used for the core
and sometimes spine, but steel being used for the tempered edges and a softer steel used as the skin
on the sides and some times the spine.  There are actually several different possible combinations
and "layouts" but these were the more common for the higher quality blades.  It is this construction
that lead to most experts belief that the higher end Japanese blades far exceeded the quality of any
other on the planet.  There was a lot of work done in Damascus steel and other forge welding
techniques in Europe but none ever reached the peak that the Japanese blades did.

Cable blades have been around for years.  I don't know about the getting you half way there part but
they do produce nice blades with very interesting patters.  Almost spider web like.  The trick to
them is to be able to remove all air and impurities (and flux) during the forge weld process.  This
isn't easy.

/KRM

On Mon, 10 Nov 2003 11:16:57 -0500
"Michael A. Turner" <mturner at whro.org> wrote:

> > > Are you going gas or coal?
> > 
> > I don't know yet.  Probably gas, because it's easier to lug 
> > around a can
> > of PPG than coal.  But I don't think I'm to that point, yet.  I still
> > need to read up and take a good luck at what I'm getting myself into,
> > since I have a hard time maintaining attention on nifty projects.
> > 
> 
> 	It though that when hand forging steel you had to use charcoal in
> most cases to keep the iron in it's steel form. The carbon was the key to
> keeping things going the right direction, but I am not a sword smith by any
> means. IANASW? 
> 
> 	Second thing, I once heard of a respected sword smith that used
> steel cable scrap for his forging. Apparently the thick twisted steel wires
> of a thick steel cable get you half way to the number of folds needed to
> make a strong katana. Anyone else heard of this? Again IANASW so the person
> who told me this may have been pulling my leg.
> 
> Michael A. Turner
> Systems Engineer WHRO
> michael.turner at whro.org
> http://www.whro.org
> _______________________________________________
> GEEKS:  http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/geeks


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