live and let dao (trying again.).

[kevin -the professor]

Hello Everyone,
I was not happy with the last blade attempt. It did not have a visible heat treatment pattern, which must mean I have some kind of contaminant in the wrought iron I used to mix with the modern steels. This one had 440 layers of wrought iron, w2, and 1075 from Aldo, with a w2 core in a sanmei. I just didn't like the fullering I had done. The lack of a shuangxue (Chinese for hamon) was also a big blow. It would have been a good blade if I had just left the planes flat and not goofed it with the sloppy fullers.

I did not like the fullering once I cut them in, and my attempts to fix them only made them a LOT worse.

So, with this one, I have gone with a known favorite steel - Aldo's low manganese 1075. This stuff is wonderful for swords because of its shock resistance, and it makes beautiful shuangxue (heat treament patterns).

I very carefully straightened a piece of stock on the mill to use as a guide for cutting the fullers. I ground them in with 1/8" disc on angle grinder and a cutting disc on the angle grinder. I straightened the guide stock after each fuller, since it got ground a bit, too.

I have figured out that the reason the fullers were so sloppy last time had to do with the way the 1/4" wheel I used to cut them wore down. It starts with 90 degree angles and flat edges. After some use, it turns into an appleseed shape on the edge. This leads to a sloppy looking fuller with lots of facets. I can usually clean these up by breaking off part of a chainsaw file and then bending the tang end and using that short tool to file/scrape inside the fuller. But, the ends of these were too bad. I ruined them trying to carve little triangular designs in the end (which is a common thing on Chinese and Japanese swords).

I still have to grind the false edge in, and also do all of the grinding to put the convexity into the edge. It is just out of heat treatment here.

I did take the tip down just a hair after these pics, to make sure it would function properly in straight sword techniques. That is the idea behind the goose quill design, it combines the benefits of curved and straight swords.

comments are welcomed. Thanks for looking. I would appreciate any advice given by those who know more about making swords.

Kevin

 

[Nebulae]

wholy crap! how big is that?!!? it looks about 7 ft long! either that or you have some really small feet. the fullers do look much nicer, but i still cant believe you cut them with an angle grinder, but if you have a mill why use the angle grinder?

 

[kevin -the professor]

The blade is 28" long, from shoulders to tip. Just perspective, my feet are 11 1/2. My mill is a high torque mini mill, and it is overwhelmed by tool steel. After this sword is done, I have to build an adjustable cutter to use by hand. The other option I want to use is get a die grinder (either air or electric) and modify it with a tracking finger to guide it along the spine of the blade. Vince Evans gets great results with one of those and scrapers.
kc

 

[Nebulae]

are you gonna brine quench? if so good luck.

 

[kevin -the professor]

It is already quenched. Plain ol hot tap water. Works great. The biggest problem people have with quenching is due to heat cycling. They don't normalize enough and at the right series of descending temps, or they get the blade either too hot or unevenly heated. Same for the heat before the quench, either too hot, or uneven or both. Not soaking enough at the normalization and austinizing temps is another problem that doesn't lead to breakage but is still a problem.

I have an Evenheat vertical stacked kiln with a 36" x 6" x .63" piece of cast iron valve cover in it (the thing that goes just under a fire hydrant). The cast iron weighs about 65lb, and causes the temp to be even and stable.

So far, so good. I am sure I will lose a blade at some point. The one before this one, I quenched 3 times because I was baffled by not getting a hamon.

I have done 15 or so heat treatments since getting this kiln. All in water. No breaks, yet. It will happen, but it happens a lot less.

kc

 

[kevin -the professor]

I got the tip taken down a bit, the false-edge cut in, and the geometry set.

I need to cut the plunge cut back just a hair on the far side. Almost there.

But, I am happy with the relationship between the fullers and the false-edge on this one.

Here is a full-length shot:

 

[Dan Pierson]

This one is really looking good so far. Great lines.