Japanese Blade Steels

VOODOO CHILD

VOODOO CHILD

Joined
Jun 6, 2000
Messages
374
Could anyone tell me how well tomahagne or shiro 2 goh steels function and why they aren't used by many other knife makers
 
Tamahagane is the raw steel made from Japanese iron sand. It's about 1.2% carbon, a bit of silicon, and trace amounts of other impurities. It's pretty crappy by modern steel standards. The biggest difference between tamahagane and modern steels like the 10XX series is that the old steel is very dirty and has no maganese in them.

After forge folding a dozen times, the steel gets much cleaner and more homogenous. Allowing you to make sword blades out of it. At this point the carbon content has dropped to .6 - .7% (a good level for swordmaking). Personally I think SK-7 is pretty close in composition as far as modern steels go. If you buy a made in China shovel, the steel is probably similiar to SK-7.

Tamahagane is not really anything special from a performance point of view. In fact it was so bad that the Japanese had to repeatedly fold it and then laminate with steels of different hardness just to make it a functional sword. The fact that they could make a good sword out of this material is a testament to the ingenuity of Japanese smiths to make lemonade out of a real lemon.

The point is traditional steels are really cool in a historical context. But modern technology has gone a long way since then.



[This message has been edited by tallwingedgoat (edited 08-13-2000).]
 
I couldn't agree more with you, tallwingedgoat. And, if all of us used tamahagane, the resulting swords would cost just as much as the Japanese smith's work does, which makes it much harder to sell. Takes a great deasl of time to make something out of that stuff that is usable.

I like modern steel, good stuff.
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Well, oh wise knife knuts, I wonder then what you would suggest for a "modern" sword? I would love to hear you rhonest and obviously educated opinions! Steel and heat treat please!!! Oh, I can't wait to hear what comes out of this!

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"Come What May..."
 
I like to use cable folded up a bunch .It looks very very close to older and new hada
depending on how you fold . It has nice temper line and habuchi. It cutts very well too.
Cheers, Wally Hayes
 
Thanks Howard, everything I know about this subject I got from posts by you and Randal.

Wally, I'm curious about your folded cable swords. In you experience do cable blades perform any differently than monosteel of the same composition? If a 1095 wire cable is folded 3 or more times, would it still have 0.95% carbon through and through?

[This message has been edited by tallwingedgoat (edited 08-15-2000).]
 
The mono steel like Howards perforns as good as the cable but you don't have the the same grain look. Damascus or hada. The more you fold the lower the carbon goes. you loose carbon every weld. This is the short answer.
Cheers, Wally Hayes
 
Thanks to all for the posts and info! Hey Wally can't wait until you have my Tac-custom and typhoon ready
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Voodoo,The ert swat guys keep coming over and ordering stuff,so I stop what I'm doing and make thiers first. They need them right away cause there on the teams a short time.
I see you've been talking to Larry.?
working on a couple for him now. Thanks,
Cheers, Wally
 
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