Meteorite blade and fossil ivory sheath

milesofalaska

milesofalaska

Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
Joined
Dec 4, 2010
Messages
514
Where to begin? What would you want to know? I'm not big on numbers. I often work on 'story knives,' I call them. I got a big meteorite block to cut up into knife blades. Never again, buy the slices! I wore out several diamond saw and cut off blades and it took a week to make one cut. Meteorite, supposed to be cheap iron and soft nickel. How complicated can that be? However. There can be 'star dust' trapped in there. From outer space. (Roll our eyes up- go "0ooooo") Made up of? Tiny diamond dust. Go figure. Huh. It might actually hold up good under use? Anyhow. Etching took several kinds of acid. Handle is Alaska river birch, my own wood I find and stable. Sheath is different.... I use scrap garbage mammoth ivory I find and can not sell. Have to toss anything out....I keep learning and changing how it's done.... but now able to stabile and fit together. In this case, 7 separate pieces. All slightly curved. glue together with 4 types of starboard, focus on color blends and dust. Metal decorative bands also help tie it all together so will not ever come apart. Used shell 'because I could' 'why not?' Part of the story... meteorite landed in the ocean a million years ago. It knew 'shells.' Made it a neck knife. Or? At least it hangs. could be boot knife, under a Cloke as in 'Cloke and dagger,' for the reenactment folks. Computer game people, dragon age, knights, the days of old energy. A dinosaur guard. The Dino that looked up and went 'Huh!" As this meteorite lit up the sky and boiled the ocean as it hit, and blew up with their force of an atom bomb. Copper was lost wax cast and used to be water pipes under the Nenana Alaska school. Education energy?! Sounds good. Some call me OZ. (keep a straight face) Smile when you call me that! If you recall, Oz was both a wizzard, and a humbug. Described as "Does not play well in sandbox with others." Normal is an insult. "How it's done," Is to ensure I go do it some other way. Because I can. Anyhow, it'd IMGP0567.JPGtake a book to explain the how. 'Magic!' works. Hopefully if you are a knife maker yourself you can smile and go "huh." I do feel each of us having our own style works out well. "Yup looks like Oz all right." Curious if diamond dust mixed with nickel would make on cool cutting tool. No, not something to heat treat.
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milesofalaska said:
Curious if diamond dust mixed with nickel would make on cool cutting tool. No, not something to heat treat.
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It sounds like you didn’t do any heat treatment - so is this just ground out from an actual single huge meteorite (and not forged)?

The material must have been insanely expensive if it was!

So did it actually take an edge?

Have you done any test cutting to satisfy your curiosity?
 
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That's wild! I used to have a watch with meteorite dial. I didn't realize how it is to cut it.
 
scdub said:
It sounds like you didn’t do any heat treatment - so is this just ground out from an actual single huge meteorite (and not forged)?

The material must have been insanely expensive if it was!

So did it actually take an edge?

Have you done any test cutting to satisfy your curiosity?
Click to expand...
Yes usually heat treat my blades 'in general' Meteorites have nickel, not steel. The cool crystal meteorite pattern would go away at red hot temperatures. ( Unless someone knows more about meteorites then I do) Yes expensive. Paid $1,000 for the raw but could make a lot of knives. About 6x6 x 3 inches. Yes took an edge. NO time to test out. I have some other steels I am testing for now. The knife is more of a story knife for display, not meant to skin moose or hack trees down with. I just finished another knife I treated. beat it with a hammer on a 16 penny nail and cut nail in half no chip no dull my blade. The folks who make the industrial hacksaw blade will not tell me the steel beyond high speed tool. It seems to have chrome and seems to have carbide. Used in the 1980's to cut 8 inch stainless pipe building the Alaska pipeline. think these were custom made for the job. Anyhow, that's another story. Meteorite is more about metal older than the planet earth with diamond dust in it. Crystal structure created by cooling 1 degree per million years. I can Get meteorite at the Tucson fossil show end of Jan, will buy slices! Ha! Ends up $50 for enough for a blade, not two bad. As much as $100 oh yea, my dealer wholesale price. Oh mighty have to spend a grand to get that price. (smile) For you? A special deal! (laugh)
 
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DocJekl said:
That's wild! I used to have a watch with meteorite dial. I didn't realize how it is to cut it.
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Some meteorites are easier to cut. Got a low price on one from China, found out why low price. Mostly iron, cut easy and rusted into nothing within a year. No cool crystal pattern. It matters what meteorite you invest in. It was $100 not $1,000 and now I know why. The cost of an education huh.
 
Great story for a knife - and its maker. Nicely done for all your effort. :thumbsup:
 
Thanks Ray. "Perfect in its imperfections." Sort of quoting you. "Not off the grid, off the map" (me) and "Thinking outside the box? There's a box?" Might get an "Ah, yes."
 
For those who asked and wonder, I did a test of the blade. I leery heard meteorites are not great functional blades. On a brass rod test this did poor. My guess, though it had diamond dust, it is trapped in soft nickel. So under any pressure the diamonds press into the nickel, dulling the edge. I know not no way to harden the nickel- iron mix. If there is way it would mess with the special meteorite pattern we value. I saw some video's did a google search, nothing exciting to see. There are complicates solutions I think. But my goal here is not to create and hard use knife.
 
Could you zoom in on the details of the blade pattern? Would love to see a close up.
 
Some close up shots of the blade for those interested. I recognize meteorite types when I see them but it's all hard to spell. Metlanuska is one, Seymchan is good for knives. Another begins with a G. One not to ever use is Nantaan. It's cheap ,all iron but fragile and rusts. All meteorites are not equal. Naturally, the best get spendy! The very best may actual make knives that perform well. Take a zero off the cost and I can afford it. Anyhow...
First is an angle showing maybe the diamonds or crystal reflections. I find every angle looks totally different
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Fascinating, always wondered about these meteorites and their use for blades. I like your site and the information you provide as a first hand user/craftsman. Looking into the purchase of a few of these ceremonial or collector/artistic knives. Mostly, I investigate and acquire field knives for practical application and use in the weeds. Your posts are great reading and love looking at your artistic renderings of knives. Keep it up!
 
dsw0557 said:
Fascinating, always wondered about these meteorites and their use for blades. I like your site and the information you provide as a first hand user/craftsman. Looking into the purchase of a few of these ceremonial or collector/artistic knives. Mostly, I investigate and acquire field knives for practical application and use in the weeds. Your posts are great reading and love looking at your artistic renderings of knives. Keep it up!
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Everyone likes to be admired of coarse. I had posted in the past in the 'gallery' section here on the forum. No replies no interest felt a waste of my time kind of, maybe I'm just to ,'out there' my own methods kind of out of the loop, not doing the usual important big knife shows. Yet selling all I make.... so what's up??? I moved over to this spot to communicate what I am up to, feel more welcome here. Odd? I try different ideas, have a few copper and bronzed blades for those who wonder what life was like back in those days, compare just what bronze would cut, and not cut! How does copper bronze sharpen? Could someone survive with that and not steel? If you were in a survival life, would it be possible to melt down copper or bronze in a primative fire and create a survival tool? (let's say you had access to copper water pipes out of bombed old buildings) It's interesting knowledge to investigate I think. I of coarse also makes good functional more plain working knives of all steel! But a lot of people do so, ho hum. I mean I live in the wild, once when young attacked and killed a moose with a knife... no-one even believes me. (grin) But yea I could not afford a good knife in those days, so began making my own, out of necessity. I began 'what if?' And as you now see, off in different directions! Sure, like to encourage others, bottom line, you do not absolutely have to have much money into getting started. Do not give up! It does not take long to be able to make a better than factory knife. Anyhow! Yea different kinds of meteorite is the main thing to know here. But now I am just curious.... if a person could get hold of some industrial diamond dust, could it be folded into steel, hammered in, and would the end result be diamond on the cutting edge? Oh my! Has anyone tried it? I googled and saw just diamond dust used in resin for a sparkly handle material.
 
milesofalaska said:
Yes usually heat treat my blades 'in general' Meteorites have nickel, not steel. The cool crystal meteorite pattern would go away at red hot temperatures. ( Unless someone knows more about meteorites then I do) Yes expensive. Paid $1,000 for the raw but could make a lot of knives. About 6x6 x 3 inches. Yes took an edge. NO time to test out. I have some other steels I am testing for now. The knife is more of a story knife for display, not meant to skin moose or hack trees down with. I just finished another knife I treated. beat it with a hammer on a 16 penny nail and cut nail in half no chip no dull my blade. The folks who make the industrial hacksaw blade will not tell me the steel beyond high speed tool. It seems to have chrome and seems to have carbide. Used in the 1980's to cut 8 inch stainless pipe building the Alaska pipeline. think these were custom made for the job. Anyhow, that's another story. Meteorite is more about metal older than the planet earth with diamond dust in it. Crystal structure created by cooling 1 degree per million years. I can Get meteorite at the Tucson fossil show end of Jan, will buy slices! Ha! Ends up $50 for enough for a blade, not two bad. As much as $100 oh yea, my dealer wholesale price. Oh mighty have to spend a grand to get that price. (smile) For you? A special deal! (laugh)
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both muonionalusta and aletai meteorites can retain remnants of the witmanstatten pattern,muonionalusta likes lower forge forge welding temps to retain and aletai tends to be fine at high forge welding temps one thing to note is when forging either of the two and welding pieces together the pattern will become distorted so drawing a billet out will just look like strait or wavy lines.
 
milesofalaska said:
Some meteorites are easier to cut. Got a low price on one from China, found out why low price. Mostly iron, cut easy and rusted into nothing within a year. No cool crystal pattern. It matters what meteorite you invest in. It was $100 not $1,000 and now I know why. The cost of an education huh.
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that's rough sorry to hear that happened I don't know what meteorite you bought but nantan has a tendency to turn into rust if it is not oiled regularly.
aletai seem to rust pretty easy as well but after oiling a few times it becomes less of an issue i've had pieces of aletai sitting for a couple of years oiled them once and not much has been needed since.
 
Evan Wilson said:
both muonionalusta and aletai meteorites can retain remnants of the witmanstatten pattern,muonionalusta likes lower forge forge welding temps to retain and aletai tends to be fine at high forge welding temps one thing to note is when forging either of the two and welding pieces together the pattern will become distorted so drawing a billet out will just look like strait or wavy lines.
Click to expand...
Noticed some of what you say when welding a tang on hidden tang meteorite. Due to cost, did not want to experiment where the blade would show. I did noticed inclusions can get problematic. Turn to ash, expose, have lower melting temp. Some meteorites have tektite? The green glass. I can incorporate this in the blade design if I do not heat it up. Nice to have your information, thanks.
 
milesofalaska said:
Noticed some of what you say when welding a tang on hidden tang meteorite. Due to cost, did not want to experiment where the blade would show. I did noticed inclusions can get problematic. Turn to ash, expose, have lower melting temp. Some meteorites have tektite? The green glass. I can incorporate this in the blade design if I do not heat it up. Nice to have your information, thanks.
Click to expand...
hare a a few studies that can be found online regarding meteorite and forging pieces I've found useful bits and pieces of info from each of them.
study one: Does Meteoritic Metal Change with Forging? An Experimental Study
study two: The meteoritic origin of Tutankhamun's iron dagger blade
study three: NUCLEATION OF THE WIDMANSTATTEN PATTERN IN IRON METEORITES.
study four: The formation of the Widmanstätten structure in meteorites
study five: Thermal and impact histories of reheated group IVA, IVB, and ungrouped iron meteorites and their parent asteroids
study six: The IAB iron-meteorite complex: A group, five subgroups, numerous grouplets, closely related, mainly formed by crystal segregation in rapidly cooling melts

yes some of the names are quite long alot of useful info though,a simple google search should get results.
some of the studies may need to be requested from the authors.

hope these help.
keep up the good work.
 
Um. I need to confess here.... I am not that good at listening (ask my wife). "Does not play well in sandbox with others." I'm one of these (idiots?) Who figures things out all by myself. I re-invent the wheel even if it takes 50 years. I could have learned it in 10 minutes from someone else? Really? Or? Do I end up after 50 years, knowing a thing or two about wheels? or not. "Here watch this!" is quite often followed by an explosion, massive fire, utter failure and "opps!" Hmmm, I need to change something...'maybe.' However one in 1,000 successes can be off the chart. (but which one?) Even my chats with God.... God says He finds me amusing. I promised to do it my way, and God said yes I have that right. "Wow that didn't work!" God just smiles and watches. Amazing is, I keep going back! Sure I will discover my answer one day. On google??? So.... I may look around at what experts know. But if I refuse to even listen to God, the odds are slim I will be find enlightenment in google. (?) I'm not saying I am right and everyone else is wrong! I'm saying I am having one heck of a blast doing it my way! At 72 I still get up at 4am and jump out of bed, excited by what I can melt down today! Get to critical, and solidify again in parts of a second! Is anything more cool? Then! Even more cool... we get to see what we did!!!! There's a google in here someplace? Oh. Hmmm. Ok ( grin) Like that. I just made a video..... I successfully created a blade that hammers through steel without chipping or failing. It should cut barb wire baling wire and open cans and stuff. How is this possible? I'm still studying on it. Blade cuts steel 1123 - YouTube
 
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