[Jake Wilson]

OK folks. I have something I have been meaning to try, but it seems so simple and idea, there must be something I'm missing.

I am not set up presently to heat treat steel, so I was thinking of purchasing a piece of damascus bar stock, having it hardened to around HRC 28, and then just working it by stock removal, and then polishing and etching it.

Why will this not work? It seems like it would make a historically accurate sword as far as hardness and toughness, based on an article read here on the site. Granted, it's not ideal, but it does permit the making of a sword with at least some hardness/toughness without the need for further heat treating.

Also, if I can't find damascus bar stock that fits my needs, would this method work with a 1050 or 1060 steel?

Thanks,

[Jared Smith]

It does not sound like an easy idea overall. You could opt to send the ground blade off to someone else for the heat treat. I would expect a sword sized piece of pattern welded stock to be pretty expensive too. If it is your first try at it, 1085 or 1095 with someone else doing the heat treat may be considerably cheaper overall than the premium raw stock for a "damascus" blade.

Many pattern welders don't really do a thorough anneal after forging the material, and I would guess you may be looking at Rc 20 to 25 on "as forged" raw stock with some sort of very simple normalization ... allowing it to cool in the forge when done. (Tend to need bimetallic blades to cut flat stock very well. Grinding is also noticeably tougher than store bought annealed materials.)

[Doug Lester]

HRC of 28 is real soft and will not support a cutting edge. Hardening and tempering a blade is not rocket science and can be done with a propane torch a deep kettle of oil (like a turkey frier), and a kitchen oven, or use the propane torch again. Give us an idea of what you want size blade you want to make and there are those of us who make blade can give you ideas of how to heat treat on the cheap.

[Jake Wilson]

About 26 inches long, viking pattern blade. plus the tang so about 31 inches total probably. I found a place called twofingerknife.net that sells pattern welded bar stock, and I figure I could use that for a nice blade. Depending on price, I might get some 1050 as well from admiral steel.

So the heat treatment is not terribly difficult? A lot of what I read makes it appear to break blades with surprising regularity.

Also, in the article here about old swords:

http://www.myArmoury.com/feature_bladehardness.html

The colored lines on graph 2 look to average to a HRC of about 28? Was this not typical of the period blades?

Looking back to an older post I was reading about taking modern smiths and "dropping them into the period", it seems to me modern blades are FAR superior to period blades. When you can buy a whole piece of stock with consistent properties.

Is the pattern welded steel heat treated in the same fashion as the homogeneous materials? Do you heat treat pattern welded steel based on the curves for the higher carbon steel in the mix.

Thanks for the replies.

[Jared Smith]

I would agree that modern blades meeting our expectations of high quality reproduction quality are not lacking mechanically in comparison to historical ones. The trick with a true sword length object (a piece 31" long in your case, or longer in many historical cases) is having large enough equipment to reliably anneal, heat treat, etc. The raw damascus stock can be welded up in regions just 8" in length. If you ask your source, they may be able to do a fair anneal (probably 3 successive normalizing cycles) if they have large enough coal forges or some sort of suitable sized salt bath or heat treating furnace. 31" length will probably will be a few inches long to fit in a typical kitchen appliance oven. Also, spring tempering temperature appropriate for a sword will almost certainly entail heating it above 600F, (many of the pattern welded combinations seem to be taken to 700 to 800F range for sword / spring temper purposes.) Few kitchen ovens if any could safely do this. If you limited the project to a longseax (maybe 18" blade, no more than 24" total length), and accepted a stiffer final blade, it would be easier to pull it off with improvised home heat treat.

[Jake Wilson]

OK I'm convinced, I am planning to build a simple charcoal forge on the ground. I figure some brick, some sand as insulator on the outside and a load of charcoal. I don't know exactly what to use for a blower, but I'll figure that out. A few questions for you folks.

1. Once the blade goes into the fire, about how long will it soak until it gets ready to quench?
2. Should I simply check it with a magnet to see when it's ready?
3. How long do I have after I decide to take it out of the fire...a few seconds before it starts to precipitate the cementite or the ferrite depending on content?

I guess the only purpose of the heat treat is to form martensite, right? Fine grained pearlite is quite strong and durable. Why is air cooling never used to make a fine grain pearlite blade?

Thanks

[Maurizio D'Angelo]

[Maurizio D'Angelo]

[Jared Smith]