[J Mills]

Greetings, one and all!

I recently discovered this site and have greatly enjoyed delving through the wealth of information available here. I am not a real blacksmith, but I began playing with a home built forge and anvil a while back and it has rekindled old interests. Add to that my teenage son is picking up speed in this arena as well. (You can imagine the shock on the lad's face when he tells me all the neat stuff he has discovered about swords and the old man pulls a full-sized wall hanger sword out of a closet that he's never seen!)

Handling the wall hanger brings back memories of why it's been in a closet for fifteen years. It weighs nearly four pounds and the point of balance is more than a foot forward of the guard. After doing some reading here and on some related sites, the day is coming when I may do a complete overhaul on it, but I don't want to destroy what potential it has by doing that much learning on it. Also, with its stainless blade, I'm not sure what kind of utility it will have when I finish.

I think I would be as well off starting with a piece of carbon steel barstock and going from there. This leads me to the title of the thread.

Where can I get a suitable piece of barstock?

I have looked in some knife maker sites and found some pieces, but the longest I can find are 36" long. To me this would be a minimum (tho probably not a bad size to start with). Where does one get the longer metal to make something like a hand-and-half sword?

I can probably go with the leaf springs off an old chevy, but there would be a lot more work at the beginning in annealing and grinding down the initial dimensions.

What a can of worms to open!

[Nat Lamb]

Honestly, I'd go with the leaf springs, though it would be worth doing the research to work out exactly which type of steel they were made from.

[Erick R.]

I've used leaf springs myself as well as placed an order or two here... http://www.admiralsteel.com/ If you're in the states.

[Arne Focke]

Leaf Springs would certainly work as would many modern tool steels.
Just look around at the nearest scrap-yard.
I always obtain the material for my damascene steel from those places.

Most steel vendors also sell in smaller amounts.
I do not know the english id-numbers for suitable sorts of steel, but a German C60 would be a good choice for a sword.

[J Mills]

http://www.admiralsteel.com/ is exactly what I was looking for. It also contains a great deal of reference information. According to the info there and what I've found elsewhere, 5160 is the alloy automotive leaf springs are made of and is often referred to as OCS (Old Chevy Spring).

Arne, according to a table on the above site, the German C60 is known as 1060 carbon steel here.

Oh, I'm in Texas (and glad to be there!).

Thanks und Danke!

[Maurizio D'Angelo]

hi,
Much depends on the final quality you want to achieve.
A carbon steel with 0.63 in Usa (1060) carbon seems to me the least. A steel with 0.40 in Usa (1040) to poor results in terms of duration.
Is already in the plate, but do not recommend cutting with oxygen, it is soon cut, but it ruined the steel is from a physical point of view that chemical.
If you want a blade that lasts over time without too many bruises then we have a multiple items with steel alloy. These elements may be a blade: Carbon, Manganese, Chromium and Vanadium (51CrV4) in Usa (6150). Another example is the steel 52SiCrNi5. Where to find them? Tecnoacciai - Bari - Italy.
I'm joking, in your country, I have no an idea.
Regards