CARBON or 440 steel

If you're talking about swords, you're going to need to be a lot more specific and know a lot more about steels - there are tons of carbon steels and tons of stainless steels. 440 is just a designation for a specific family of stainless steels.

Generally speaking, swordsmiths as a group gravitate towards carbon steels. They are easier to forge, easier to heat treat, and generally yield finished products with better sword characteristics than the vast majority of stainless steels. You can make swords with stainless steel - but (I've been given to understand that) it's extremely difficult to do so consistently, partially because the characteristics that make simple carbon steels so suitable for swords are modified/altered/removed by the elements that are added to make stainless steel good at what it does. Also, the alloying elements make heat-treating and tempering that much more difficult.

Add to that the question of your smith's preference - does he favor water quenching? Oil quenching? Does he make western-style swords or eastern-style swords? Does he differentially temper or differentially harden his blades? Does he through-temper his blades? What are you looking for in your sword - toughness above all else, or do you want a harder edge? All these factors will change your "ideal" steel.

I took a look at the sword you posted - it's crap. I wouldn't even call it a sword - it's a decoration. It won't cut anything, and it's certainly not properly heat treated. If you're interested in swords as a decoration for your wall, there's nothing to be said against that particular... thing. But if you're interested in real swords, go to the Sword Discussion forum here, or some other sword forum, and look around. And be prepared to spend much, much more than $9.99.

Hope this helps!
 
Most stainless steels are too brittle to use for swords. 440 series steel are only advantageous for lighter-duty knives, where corrosion-resistance and ease of resharpening is important.

You really need carbon steels for differential tempering, making the edge hard to cut well and the back of the blade softer to absorb the shock of combat.

But a reasonable price for a real sword is at least in the hundreds of dollars. That ebay offering is only decorative, as knife saber said.
 
If you're looking for a user sword I wouldn't recommend anything less then one from Kris Cutlery.If you want more info about Kris email me.
 
Kris Cutlery makes stuff from 5160, which if heat treated right is very tough and has pretty good edge retention (in fact, it's quite popular with many custom and semi-production swordmakers as well).

For katanas, any shallow hardening water-quenching steel should work. Not an expert... but makes sense to me. I would highly recommend you go to Swordforum.com for more info.

And yes, I believe the late, great Bob Engnath made several swords of stainless steel, quite the feat. There were also some Japanese smiths that experimented using stainless for forging, but it was rather untraditional to say the least, what with all the regulation and whatnot in Japan concerning nihonto.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top