[Sam Scelza]

Hello there!

I have made a relatively shocking discovery this afternoon: the last inch or so of one of my dagger blades has gone magnetic, or always was. The blade in question is a Szco Supplies training rondel dagger. It is supposedly a high carbon steel, but can that be true if the tip is magnetic? After an inch or so from the tip it loses the magnetism. The only other part is the threaded end of the tang, but only very slightly at the tip.

The blade is pretty rusty, and has been sitting in a leather scabbard for almost a year now (I didn't do much with it as its a pretty bad blade). The scabbard has a steel chape and the end of the blade has been sitting right against it, as far as I can tell. Could this have something to do with it?

Is there anyway a carbon steel blade can become, or be, magnetic? Or is it made from a certain type of steel?

Thanks!
-Sam

[Sam Scelza]

To clarify:

I don't mean magnetic in the sense that a magnet sticks to it, I mean that it acts like a magnet on its own. I can stick it to the refrigerator door and pick up small knives and other metal objects with it.

[Dan Howard]

The tip must have been left near a magnet for a prolonged period of time - perhaps a speaker or an electric motor. If you hit it against something a few times, it will lose its magnetism, which is why it couldn't have been magnetised during the forging process.

[Sam Scelza]

It had been sitting on top of a guitar amp for all that time, so that's what did it. That's extremely interesting. Thank you for the help!

[Jonathan Blair]

Iron can become magnetic when exposed to a strong enough magnetic field, such as the magnets in your guitar amp, or when stroked along another piece of iron or something that can generate a static electrical charge, like a piece of fur. I have a pair of scissors the blades of which have become magnetic enough to attract pins and needles and the like, but not strong enough to stick to the fridge. This was caused simply from the two blades rubbing in the same direction against each other over time.

[Glen A Cleeton]

I imagine it is only very slightly magnetized

Sharpening with long strokes and even buffing along the length of a blade can magnetize a blade (especially if held north south when doing so). In somewhat the same fashion, put a long nail or steel rod in the earth pointed magnetic north and whack it several times with a hammer.

Strange (not really) but true.

Cheers

GC

[William P]

i remember a villain in the manga rurouni kenshin fought with a blade that was heavily magnitized by magnets in the scabbard and throwing iron powder onto the opponent so that the blade willl partially folllow him/ bind the opponents sword better

complete and total fiction for a variety of reasons but yeah, magnitizing a sword blade in the scabbard (how you could ever draw it is beyod me as well...