Quality of edged weapons (101)?

[A. G. Maisey]

Mate, you don't need to be a chicken to know what an egg looks like:- you can gain more knowledge than you would ever need about custom knives by reading the hard copy literature. I suggest a good place to start might be the books written by Jim Hrisoulas.

Re steel quality.

there's damascus and damascus. You can forge weld any two different ferric materials together and get something that looks like damascus, but it won't necessarily perform like damascus. A lot of the current stuff out of India and China is like this.

All the damascus that I made I used 01 steel in, combined with various other materials such as wrought iron, mild steel, nickel & so on.Whatever is used should be heat treated to the specs of the high carbon steel used. This is the reason I used 01, it is easy for an ordinary smith working with fire to get a good result in heat treatment with this steel.

However, depending on intended use, you can make a useable blade from ordinary mild steel which has only small quantities of carbon, its just that the blade will not hold an edge as long, but on the pro side, its not likely to break either. In fact, for a short stabbing weapon mild steel performs pretty good, and costs very little.

As to forming an opinion on the quality of steel based upon what you can actually see, well, I personally cannot.

Give a mirror finish to a piece of mild steel and it can look just as good as the finest hi-tech alloy steel. In fact, a lot of knives made as works of art are made from steel that has not been heat-treated. Why? Because the maker doesn't want to blow 40 or more hours work on a heat treat that goes bad, so he doesn't take the risk. The thing was made as a work of art, not a user.

If we are talking about trad knives, OK, here's the indicator:- go down to the local market and look at what the meat and vege sellers are using; if these are the local knives they are knives made to use.You can bet they're not fancy.

The user daggers and throat cutters of yesteryear are now replaced by more modern weapons, so these types of trad knife are often simply dress knives and made to dress standards not use standards. If you want a trad ethnic knife as a work of art that is also a user seek out a good, reliable maker and order one.

[JamesKelly]

Axes. In the late 1960's I did some work with the old Kelly Axe factory, Charleston, West Virginia, USA. Axes at that time were made of AISI 1086 carbon steel, meaning steel with a nominal carbon content about 0.86% (sorry, I do not know corresponding W.Nr. or EN #). They heat treated both axe and hammer heads in a lead bath. As I recall, tempered hardness of an axe was about Rockwell C55. The heaviest hammer they had made was 50 pounds, or 22.7 kilogram. That is the origin of the American expression "putting the hammer down" (i.e. go as fast as you can). When two steamboats chose to race on the Mississippi river one way to get some extra speed out of that old steam engine was to set a 50 pound hammer down on the steam safety valve. If the boiler was strong enough, you might win the race. If not, well, it no longer mattered.

What is the best steel & how hard should it be? Depends upon what you want the knife to do. If you make your living skinning bears or cutting ropes then a tool steel called D2 in the US, about 12% chromium 2% carbon, maybe Rockwell C 58 to 62, is appropriate for good edge holding.
If your life depends upon that blade not breaking, then a lower carbon & softer temper is appropriate. I.e., you want a tougher steel, less likely to break when abused. In the USA power lawnmower blades, all of them, were formerly made of AISI 1070 carbon steel (nominal 0.7% carbon), quenched in molten salt ("austempered" maybe 300C/600F), to end up with a hardness about Rockwell C40. This hardness is about the best combination of hardness and toughness one can get. No, if will not hold an edge as long as your favorite 440C blade at Rockwell C58, but neither is it like to break when you swing it at a large heavy or hard object. Now in the USA they use a lower carbon steel, 10B35, which has boron (B) for hardenability but only 0.35% carbon, for better toughness. These things do need to remain intact after striking the odd rock (or foot . . .).
Steel heat treatment is well described in various publications, some used to be free from the steel companies. It helps learn it from some knowledgeable metallurgical source. E.g., if you like to forge your blades, then do anneal them before hardening, to refine the grain a bit. Makes them a LOT tougher at the same hardness. Water with about 10% common salt in it quenches plain carbon steel faster, with less chance of distortion and cracking. &c, &c, &c.

I am a metallurgist & just edited this post as I am in a Grumpy Mood & this is a polite site. Apologies to all who read the un-edited version. Just put my less grumpy comments above.

[A. G. Maisey]

Sorry I missed your previous post, James. I'm sure it would have made good reading. Probably a bit like some of my posts that I've withdrawn from time to time. Much more entertaining than the polite ones.

Yeah, agreed 100%, the best steel depends on what it is used for.

During the 1980's when I was doing a lot of custom forge work I used to get an order from time to time from a couple of blokes who lived in Canada. I don't know exactly what they did, but they seemed to spend a lot time in the bush. The order was for two blade patterns, one something like the old Marbles pattern knife from the 1920-30 era, and one like an ordinary butcher's knife. They wanted them forged from recycled motor vehicle spring steel and given a spring temper. They reckoned that anything they could buy was not able to be sharpened when they were away from home, so they wanted a tough knife, to their own specs that they could sharpen on a stone in camp. Over about a 5 year period I probably supplied these blokes with about 30 or so knife blades.

I have no idea at all what Rockwell they ran at, they were pretty rough blades, and I did not have to fit handles, just provide a stick tang.

[driftwould]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

Sorry I missed your previous post, James. I'm sure it would have made good reading. Probably a bit like some of my posts that I've withdrawn from time to time. Much more entertaining than the polite ones.

Yeah, agreed 100%, the best steel depends on what it is used for.

During the 1980's when I was doing a lot of custom forge work I used to get an order from time to time from a couple of blokes who lived in Canada. I don't know exactly what they did, but they seemed to spend a lot time in the bush. The order was for two blade patterns, one something like the old Marbles pattern knife from the 1920-30 era, and one like an ordinary butcher's knife. They wanted them forged from recycled motor vehicle spring steel and given a spring temper. They reckoned that anything they could buy was not able to be sharpened when they were away from home, so they wanted a tough knife, to their own specs that they could sharpen on a stone in camp. Over about a 5 year period I probably supplied these blokes with about 30 or so knife blades.

I have no idea at all what Rockwell they ran at, they were pretty rough blades, and I did not have to fit handles, just provide a stick tang.

Far from being offended, I thought it was quite informative - and entertaining! Also, thanks for going into such detail about this. As with other comments above, your input has given me useful and interesting insights to start from.