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Michael Pikula
Industry Professional
Location: Madison, WI Joined: 07 Jun 2008
Posts: 411
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 Posted: Fri 07 Aug, 2009 10:08 am Post subject: |
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| Maurizio D'Angelo wrote: |
average carbon-steel, I want to say a percentage from 0.40 to 0.60.
A steel with those percentages provides a good hardening.
Well, I think the costs.
steel with a medium or high carbon content is hard in its natural state about 23-25 HRC.
A special steel,in its natural state, can be tough 37 HRC.
Working on the machine tool becomes much longer as the hours worked, for a special steel.
Even the performances are very different.
This is the reason for different steels, but I can make mistakes.
Perhaps for the swords do not need to use these steels.
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Although every makers situation and goals are different the cost of steel that goes into a blade should not be a factor unless the main operation yields a extremely high level of scrap. I did a test tanto once and the difference in weight from as forged to final ground was under 3oz. On a larger blade there will be more loss but even if you start with a 4lb blank and end with a 2lb blade, the gains in using more costly steel that has higher performance greatly out weigh using ”cheaper" steel that might have less performance. I feel that spending the extra $10 or so for superior steel is well worth the piece of mind.
With proper heat treating processes I think that most steels that are suitable for making blades can be annealed in such a way that they won't excessively tear up tooling. If that "extra" cost is reflected in the original price and the end quality of the blade, I would imagine that most customers wouldn't mind paying $30-$40** extra for a blade that out performs the competition.
** Figure is a rough guess and not based on any specific research or number crunching
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Maurizio D'Angelo
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| Posted: Fri 07 Aug, 2009 6:40 pm Post subject: |
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| Michael Pikula wrote: |
Although every makers situation and goals are different the cost of steel that goes into a blade should not be a factor unless the main operation yields a extremely high level of scrap. I did a test tanto once and the difference in weight from as forged to final ground was under 3oz.
With proper heat treating processes I think that most steels that are suitable for making blades can be annealed in such a way that they won't excessively tear up tooling. If that "extra" cost is reflected in the original price and the end quality of the blade, I would imagine that most customers wouldn't mind paying $30-$40** extra for a blade that out performs the competition.
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Hi Michael,
I agree with you. To make a blade of the waste material is negligible.
Many steels can be annealed in such a way that they will not tear up excessively tooling.
But... for special steels, this is not always possible.
Most special steels, is found only in round bars. Cut a round bar 60 mm in diameter over a meter to a rectangular section of a few mm, is a long job. The waste material is not negligible.
Some special steels have poor machinability, this is due to some elements in the metal alloy. One example, not exaustive, silicon has great effects on the elasticity and hardness of steel, and highly damaging to the working machine tools.
In this case the annealing has no effect.
It seems strange, but for some steel, a hardness greater increases machinability.
I remember, years ago, an Italian company to build a super gun for Saddam Hussein. The Iraqis, who forgot to say that in steel exported in Italy, an element of the alloy had high percentages. The workability became almost impossible. The relationship between budgeted hours and hours worked was 1 to 8.
The price was updated.
with this, I do not think that the swords should use steel borrowed the aerospace industry.
Choose a special steel can lead to a price increase.
As the price increases? Depends steel.
Ciao
Maurizio
P.S.
I saw some of your work at the forge, some hand-embroidered on steel, a show.
Well done, Michael
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