Normalizing

And they spoke faithless words and the Gods Of Steel thus spake to them.

Kevin, 1:1
Originally posted by Kevin R. Cashen
Well, moderation in all things... including having too much fun. It has been brought to my attention that the ripples of this thread are spreading out across the internet and rocking the boat in other forums. Kind of like television signals from "Jerry Springer" screaming across the cosmos at the speed of light to end up as our first impression and greeting and to a different culture.;) And even though I had the least to say in the thread, my name has been retrieved from the fray. So I thought I would give my $.02 here, at the source, and let it trickle down to the other places.

Just as we see our fun as harmless I also see the concepts that spawned it as harmless. With some of the wild speculative voodoo that has really misled would-be smiths toward a lifetime of lackluster results, this issue is really harmless, and I think that is why we can afford to have so much fun with it.

We don't want to tar and feather the person who sits at the casino with their "lucky charm" in hand. We figure, if it helps them feel better, more power to them. There are silly things going on in bladesmithing that is actually detrimental to the art and the final product, but this is one of those things that can't hurt anything and if it makes a person feel better about the quench, why not.

Some times giving a quick try is easier than going to the library, so I have angled the oil trough in a north/south direction before just to see if I could "feel the force" (but I think they were all tang north). I have also quenched a LOT of blades vertically in a tube so those knives must be real confused little guys.

Heck I have been known to say an "Our Father..." during welds on real complex pieces, just to be safe. Does it mean anything to the final piece? No, but it makes me feel better. Is there any science to it? Absolutely not! But it makes me feel better.

Those are my honest thoughts on the topic.
Click to expand...

WOE ON YOU FAITHLESS DOGS!!! THOU HATH SPOKEN ILL WORDS AND ATTRACTED THE ANGER OF THE STEEL GODS UPON US! LISTEN TO THE WORDS OF THE GODS, AND SIN NO MORE!!!! :D

Anyway, there are a lot of reasons why for example aligning the blade to north could have beneficial effects that obviously have nothing to do with the magnetic north but are nonetheless useful. For example aligning the blade with the magnetic north could be a way to keep the blade perfectly still without waving it around which could cause damage.
Just my two cents.
 
the only thing i have to say is with the drop in the magnetic field mabe in the old days it realy did have some efect on the knife but with it lower now mabe it doesnt have enuff umpf to efect it any more i havnt noticed any difrence now but mabe at one point in the time line i would have :D
 
I thought you were just joking about the drop in the magnetic field!

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The strength of the Earth's magnetic field has decreased 10 percent over the past 150 years, raising the remote possibility that it may collapse and later reverse, flipping the planet's poles for the first time in nearly a million years, scientists said.

At that rate of decline, the field could vanish altogether in 1,500 to 2,000 years, said Jeremy Bloxham of Harvard University.

Hundreds of years could pass before a flip-flopped field returned to where it was 780,000 years ago. But scientists at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union cautioned that scenario is an unlikely one.

"The chances are it will not," Bloxham said Thursday. "Reversals are a rare event."

Instead, the weakening, measured since 1845, could represent little more than an "excursion," or lull, which can last for hundreds of years, said John Tarduno of the University of Rochester.

Such a lull could still have significant effects, especially in regions where the weakening is most pronounced.

Over the southern Atlantic Ocean, a continued weakening of the magnetic field has diminished the shielding effect it has locally in protecting the Earth from the natural radiation that bombards our planet from space, scientists said.

As a result, satellites in low-Earth orbit are left vulnerable to that radiation as they pass over the region, known as the South Atlantic anomaly.

Among the satellites that have fallen prey to the harmful effects was a Danish satellite designed, ironically, to measure the Earth's magnetic field, Bloxham said.

The weakening -- if coupled with a subsequently large influx of radiation in the form of protons streaming from the sun -- can also affect the chemistry of the atmosphere, said Charles Jackman of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

That can lead to significant but temporary losses of atmospheric ozone, he said.



http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/science/12/12/magnetic.poles.ap/index.html
 
C.L.,We're very serious here .Things are happening ,the magnetic field is weakening and the sun is going crazy. They have now confirmed that aurora borealis can be found well over 500 miles above the earth. And solar flares are having a tremendous effect on communications especially for us amateur radio types.
 
there is a reason behind most things....the way to point the cooling blade, might just have been as someone said, to keep the blade still and not wave it around and bend it...

I have read of stories that old-time bladesmiths used to sing or pray stuff while thay made the blades,,,,and then when their faith in whatever god they were praying to changed over the years, their blades suffered,,,,this could point to the different amounts of time it took to sing a song or pray a prayer,,,and thus you would have been heating the blade while singing or praying always the same amount of time?.....perhaps
 
The sun will burn out in the next 5,000 years.

AAUGGGGGGHHH run about scream and shout :D :p :p :p :p :p :p
 
Originally posted by DaQo'tah Forge
there is a reason behind most things....the way to point the cooling blade, might just have been as someone said, to keep the blade still and not wave it around and bend it...

I have read of stories that old-time bladesmiths used to sing or pray stuff while thay made the blades,,,,and then when their faith in whatever god they were praying to changed over the years, their blades suffered,,,,this could point to the different amounts of time it took to sing a song or pray a prayer,,,and thus you would have been heating the blade while singing or praying always the same amount of time?.....perhaps
Click to expand...

Usually songs not only meter out a certain time period, but also a rhythm for working or pounding out a cadence.

Awesome DaQo'tah!!!
 
Well... time to add my two cents to this.

I work with Magnetic Particle Inspection in my field of NDT. After magnetizing the part and inspecting it we have to demag the part unless it is going to heat treat or annealing. The high temps remove any magnetic field in the metal.

So if we rapidly cool a part (quench) then the crystals will be small and in a random order.

So would annealing the part in the Earth's magnetic field allow the crystals to polarize?

Unless you were very, very, very patient.

The mineral magnetite has very large crystals which means it took quite some time to form and cool from a liquid state. In an experiment done to recreate the magnitite found in a Mars meteor it took an inorganic process over 19 hours to finally create the magnitite.

http://www.minsocam.org/MSA/AmMin/TOC/Articles_Free/2001/Golden_p370-375_01.pdf

Magnitite can be created by bacteria, but I imagine that takes some time as well.

BTW, When we demag the parts in the degausser, we do align the degausser North/South so the temporary magnetic fields does not compete with the Earth's magnetic field, ensuring a complete juggling of alignments of the crystals.

:D

Now... time for my smarta$$ remark:

Usually, I keep the knife's pointed end away from me while quenching.

:D
 
I remember an old tale about customs.

A new wife bakes a ham for her husband. Before baking she cut off the end and tossed it away. Perplexed her husband asks, "Why did you cut off the end of the ham?"

"That's the way my mother taught me to bake a ham."

"Does it make the ham tender or cook faster?"

"I don't know", replied the wife, "I'll call Mom"

The wife calls her mother and asks why she cut off the end of the ham for all those years. Her mother didn't know why either, it was the way that she learned to cook a ham from her mother. The young wife called her grandmother to ask why she cut off the end of the ham.

The grandmother replied, "It was the only way I could get it in my oven."
 
Mete, I was not aware you are a Ham. I was too but have not been for decades now. CW all the way OM. WN8BIT (1968 - 1970) and later was WN8NOA (early 70's). da di da

RL
 
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