Meteorite knife?

L

LeaderofthePack

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Aug 4, 2013
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Just curious if it's possible and if anyone has ever smelted the iron from a meteorite to make a knife? Figured it would probably be along the same lines as the way japanese blades are forged to remove some impurities. Once again this is just theoretical and I have no intention of trying it just sounded like a cool idea.
 
Tony Swatton made Damascus with pieces of meteorite for the Man at Arms series on youtube. I understand that it was pretty difficult, even compared to most pattern welding.
 
This is a sword from a kids show but he makes it into a real, and dangerous, weapon. Not a knife but I thought you might like seeing it.

[video=youtube;DITY1WzbLj8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DITY1WzbLj8&index=19&list=PLUUGFk1wE5OHqeNDwp2q9_ZiPqKlWNc6V[/video]
 
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Not near the same but I did a folder blade with Seymechan meteorite and hard soldered a strip of D2 around the cutting edge. Of course this gave the meteorite a good cutting edge. Frank
 
At the beginning of the iron age (long time ago), the best (iron) weapons and tools were made from meteoritic iron. Not so much any more.
 
I did years ago with meteor shavings and powdered steel. The meteor had a lot of nickel and the powder did not have enough carbon to harden so I did san mai. Turned out great. All 3 knives went to China and sold readily. May need to dig out some granulated meteorite and do another canister. This time I will use 1095 powder. Only pictures I have of the three.

meteoritedamascus.jpg
 
Wow now seeing that it's been done somewhat regularly I may have to add one of those to my knife collection down the road. Definitely a knife with a good story behind it. And after watching the man at arms video I am in complete awe of what is truly possible with steel.
 
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I've never smelted any meteorite but I have made some pattern welded blades with it sandwiched between layers of W2 like this one:

meteoritefighter_zps3bb37baa.jpg


If you smelt it you will need to add carbon as by itself it won't harden.

Gary
 
I forged an iron/nickel meteorite into a dagger. Once the billet was drawn out from the lump, I folded it ten times times, using straw ash and boric acid as a flux in the folds. It was pretty stunning, and looked like a tamahagane blade. While not a very hard edge, it got sharp. I sold it to a collector a while back and can't find any photos of it on this computer.

Here is a meteorite project Mark had done. It used the slab as-is and kept the Widmanstatten lines.
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...e-Patina-on-Bronze-to-Contrast-w-Silver-Inlay


And another;
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/916603-Meteorite-Damascus-Gyuto-chef-knife
 
Gorgeous knife, Gary! That makes me want to try meteorite. What good contrast!
To the OP, if interested in firther reading, Jim Hrisoulas also has a good page about forging meteorite at his website...
 
I'll definitely check out that book. Very nice knives hopefully one day I'll be a big kid and get to play with the fire and hammer as well. :smile:
 
Salem Straub said:
Gorgeous knife, Gary! That makes me want to try meteorite. What good contrast!
To the OP, if interested in firther reading, Jim Hrisoulas also has a good page about forging meteorite at his website...
Click to expand...

Thanks, Salem. One advantage to a meteorite Damascus is high contrast due to the usual 6-8% nickel content. Just remember that they have no carbon so you need to use enough of a very high carbon steel to have enough carbon migration for the entire blade to end up with .7% carbon or more for proper H/T.

If you try working a meteorite be selective on which one that you use. The two best to work with are the Campo de Cielo & Gibeon meteorites. Both will be a little red short but will weld easily. Some of the others on the market are extremely difficult to get to weld.

Good luck,
Gary
 
That's beautiful, Mark. I like the way that you kept the figure of the meteorite. What's the handle inlet?

Gary
 
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