Question for those who have forged extensively:

[bodog]

All things being equal, equal steel, equal master smith, equally good heat treatment.

In creating a significantly curved blade such as a kukri, sabre, kris, persian dagger, etc, would forging the knife to shape provide any extra strength? I.e., would having the grain flow following the curvature of the blade itself help mitigate crack propagation where moderate to high impact hits are foreseen?

Would stock removal work just as well given equal steels and odd or rolling impacts where the impact forces may not be hitting the blade perpendicular to the grain flow?

We're leaving cost, wasted material, etc, out of the picture and looking at performance alone.

Please bear with the questions, they have arisen in another thread and some people are saying one thing and some other people saying another.

I'm hoping some smiths who have extensive experience with forging and stock removal and testing of complex/irregular/exaggerated blades using both methods can chime in.

 

[elementfe]

(in Montoya's voice) You keep using that word, "grain." I do not think it means what you think it means.
-----
There are many people here with much better understanding of metallurgy than me (to put it mildly), but my response is that it's much more likely that a fault in the steel would appear as a result of forging than in sheet material produced by modern methods.
As for "grain," I think Stacy Apelt and Kevin Cashen, among others, have discussed this thoroughly in this forum in the not too distant past.
There was a time when raw iron and steels were made usable by forging processes and were fairly sketchy until they had been hammered quite a bit, so a forged blade was superior- but that hasn't been the case in more than a century. It's my feeling that this discussion is an echo of those long ago times.

 

[Greenberg Woods]

What a layman might call the grain and knife maker call the grain are two different things. For knife makers, grain is used as in a grain of sand. It refers to the size of the crystals that make up the steel. Here, smaller is always better.

This only has to do with heat treat, it doesn't matter if it was forged or made through stock removal.

The grain you are thinking of is grain as in a wood grain. There is a VERY small benefit to a forged knife in terms of a continuous grain of steel as you might get from forging, but this difference is so minor as to be practically unmemorable in a piece the size of a knife or even a sword. For all intents and purposes, the knives would be identical.

 

[bodog]

Do you mind posting your experience with the two methods and what you've done to test the differences? It's the only way to know that the info is coming from a place of knowledge rather than a lot of people just parroting others.

From Kevin Cashen:

Going against the grain

One undeniable aspect of forging things to shape, that we can get out of the way immediately, deals with the directional structure of steel from the aforementioned milling process. This condition is the result of the elongation of impurities, voids and inclusions in the direction of the rolling operation resulting in a wood grain type effect, such that the material will have slightly different properties in one direction than in another.

In order to avoid a very common confusion, it must be heavily stressed that the term “grain” in this case has nothing to do with the crystalline structure of the metal, such as an “austenite grain,” but instead refers to this directional property, as in “going against the grain,” and is not affected by annealing and other heat treatments. The condition where a property of a material is different in one direction than it is in another is known as “anisotropy,” and we will examine it again later in this discussion.

 

[Greenberg Woods]

This is a quote from Kevin
"Fourthly, while very little permanent effects for something shaped as simply as a knife can be achieved merely through deformation, there are real effects on the steel if we just forget about the hammering. Forging involves multiple cycles of heating and cooling, something that can indeed have profound effects on the steel. Granted, there are about a hundred things that can go wrong in these cycles, and perhaps one or two that can be of benefit, but this puts much greater emphasis on the knowledge and skills of the smith. A totally unskilled grinder can make a knife without changing many properties in the steel itself, but an unprepared smith can outright ruin a piece of steel on almost every level. But if a smith avails himself with knowledge of what really happens inside that steel, each and every heat can be an opportunity to do some pretty cool things.

For example, a smith and a stock remover are each given identical bars, cut for the same length of steel as received from the mill. The stock removal guy will have to follow a different heat treatment, especially in soak times, than the smith; he will benefit most from a good oven. The smith, on the other hand, will be able to more effectively use a forge to heat treat because that steel had been worked from that forge. This is not as Voodoo like as it first appears. The bar was sent from the mill heavily spheroidized since most industrial applications will require easy machinability; this condition will require a long steady soak to put that carbon back into solution. Forging that steel will erase that spheroidal condition over the countless heating cycles and replace it with a fine pearlitic condition, especially after proper normalization, so the forged blade will enter the hardening heat with an entirely different structure requiring very different soak considerations.

The trouble starts when we start viewing one as superior to the other merely because they are different. Just because we create new circumstances with the forge that must then be dealt with in a different way does not mean we have made a great “improvement”, and when we consider all the things that can go wrong, we should probably be happy to just break even. Worse yet would be attempts to test our assumptions by mixing the two methods and skewing the results in a very poor apples and oranges way. A spheroidized blade, heat treated in a forge, with no precise soak will most likely provide disappointing results. It is like settling an argument over which is the greatest athlete in his field, Tiger Woods, or Babe Ruth, and then forcing them both to play baseball to find the answer. The Baseball fans could strut and gloat but in the end would only deny themselves of a richer reality."


The thing is, the differences will be incredibly tiny. While forging may result in a different blade, nearly all the difference would simply be due to the fact that it was thermally cycled so many times. The actual effect of the grain of steel is simply nearly impossible to measure. How would you make two exactly identical knives, heat treat them the safe and then test them? Again, the difference due to the act of forging, that is a continuation of the the grain obtained through hammering steel to shape is there, but is so tiny across an object the size of a knife that it is really not worth considering.

Before you worry about continuation of grain, work on heat treat. the improvement gained from a constantly improving and evolving heat treat system is so incalculably massive when compared to the benefit you might glean from the continuation of grain that it should be your first concern in terms of knife quality.

I would end this with another quote from Kevin,

"I will finish with a statement that in past has ruffled the feathers of collectors who really like forged blades, which is ironic considering I am a lifelong, devoted, bladesmith. If I were a collector with no knowledge of metallurgy or the processes used by the maker, other than the popular marketing, I believe my chances of getting higher quality blade would rest with the stock removers. Too often the quest for the superior forged blade leaves us oblivious to all the things that can go wrong that a stock removed blade is never subjected to. Beware the knifemaker that finds it easier to redefine what a knife is than to take on the challenge of actually making a better knife; Something that neither stock removers nor bladesmiths are immune to."

 

[bodog]

This is a quote from Kevin
"Fourthly, while very little permanent effects for something shaped as simply as a knife can be achieved merely through deformation, there are real effects on the steel if we just forget about the hammering. Forging involves multiple cycles of heating and cooling, something that can indeed have profound effects on the steel. Granted, there are about a hundred things that can go wrong in these cycles, and perhaps one or two that can be of benefit, but this puts much greater emphasis on the knowledge and skills of the smith. A totally unskilled grinder can make a knife without changing many properties in the steel itself, but an unprepared smith can outright ruin a piece of steel on almost every level. But if a smith avails himself with knowledge of what really happens inside that steel, each and every heat can be an opportunity to do some pretty cool things.

For example, a smith and a stock remover are each given identical bars, cut for the same length of steel as received from the mill. The stock removal guy will have to follow a different heat treatment, especially in soak times, than the smith; he will benefit most from a good oven. The smith, on the other hand, will be able to more effectively use a forge to heat treat because that steel had been worked from that forge. This is not as Voodoo like as it first appears. The bar was sent from the mill heavily spheroidized since most industrial applications will require easy machinability; this condition will require a long steady soak to put that carbon back into solution. Forging that steel will erase that spheroidal condition over the countless heating cycles and replace it with a fine pearlitic condition, especially after proper normalization, so the forged blade will enter the hardening heat with an entirely different structure requiring very different soak considerations.

The trouble starts when we start viewing one as superior to the other merely because they are different. Just because we create new circumstances with the forge that must then be dealt with in a different way does not mean we have made a great “improvement”, and when we consider all the things that can go wrong, we should probably be happy to just break even. Worse yet would be attempts to test our assumptions by mixing the two methods and skewing the results in a very poor apples and oranges way. A spheroidized blade, heat treated in a forge, with no precise soak will most likely provide disappointing results. It is like settling an argument over which is the greatest athlete in his field, Tiger Woods, or Babe Ruth, and then forcing them both to play baseball to find the answer. The Baseball fans could strut and gloat but in the end would only deny themselves of a richer reality."


The thing is, the differences will be incredibly tiny. While forging may result in a different blade, nearly all the difference would simply be due to the fact that it was thermally cycled so many times. The actual effect of the grain of steel is simply nearly impossible to measure. How would you make two exactly identical knives, heat treat them the safe and then test them? Again, the difference due to the act of forging, that is a continuation of the the grain obtained through hammering steel to shape is there, but is so tiny across an object the size of a knife that it is really not worth considering.

Before you worry about continuation of grain, work on heat treat. the improvement gained from a constantly improving and evolving heat treat system is so incalculably massive when compared to the benefit you might glean from the continuation of grain that it should be your first concern in terms of knife quality.

I would end this with another quote from Kevin,

"I will finish with a statement that in past has ruffled the feathers of collectors who really like forged blades, which is ironic considering I am a lifelong, devoted, bladesmith. If I were a collector with no knowledge of metallurgy or the processes used by the maker, other than the popular marketing, I believe my chances of getting higher quality blade would rest with the stock removers. Too often the quest for the superior forged blade leaves us oblivious to all the things that can go wrong that a stock removed blade is never subjected to. Beware the knifemaker that finds it easier to redefine what a knife is than to take on the challenge of actually making a better knife; Something that neither stock removers nor bladesmiths are immune to."

So he says stock removal is easier. And he says there are different considerations for both stock removal and forging, which we already know. What he does not say, however, is which can take heavier impacts, so using those statements neither hurt nor help here. And he says something so obvious, they're apples and oranges when going into heat, like a baseball bat can be made of wood or metal. Sure, some people would rather use wood, some metal. Rather than say a metal baseball bat is a nice novelty, I'm simply saying that most people can hit a ball farther with a metal bat and the metal bat can take more punishment than a wood bat.

In the end, a wood bat vs a metal bat and which you prefer is a matter of opinion, but to say that a wood bat is stronger than a metal bat is kind of preposterous. Sure, a lot more people can make wooden bats in their garage. Sure, you need more equipment to make metal bats, even industrial equipment that most people cannot obtain. A wood baseball bat is pretty good for most people and for some purposes you probably WANT a wood bat. But that doesn't mean a wood bat is STRONGER than a metal bat.

 

[Greenberg Woods]

No. You have it wrong. In the case of a metal and wood bat, they are DIFFERENT materials with different characteristics. So many things effect the over all quality of a blade. Without a doubt, the biggest one is heat treat. You can forge all the knives in the world, but if they are not correctly heat treated they are useless. while the continuation of grain IS a factor, im not saying its not, It is simply so small when compared to something like geometry or heat treat. So in theroy, given two identical blades, one forged and one made through stock removal, the forged one would be slightly better, but by an incredibly tiny margin.

My point is dont focus on that. A well made and well HT'd stock removal knife will out preform EVERY SINGLE time when compared to a medium quality HT'd forged knife. You're focusing on a single element, a tiny element at that. You're missing the picture for a pixel.

 

[bodog]

No. You have it wrong. In the case of a metal and wood bat, they are DIFFERENT materials with different characteristics. So many things effect the over all quality of a blade. Without a doubt, the biggest one is heat treat. You can forge all the knives in the world, but if they are not correctly heat treated they are useless. while the continuation of grain IS a factor, im not saying its not, It is simply so small when compared to something like geometry or heat treat. So in theroy, given two identical blades, one forged and one made through stock removal, the forged one would be slightly better, but by an incredibly tiny margin.

My point is dont focus on that. A well made and well HT'd stock removal knife will out preform EVERY SINGLE time when compared to a medium quality HT'd forged knife. You're focusing on a single element, a tiny element at that. You're missing the picture for a pixel.

The question that started the conversation was which was better, a blade that was ground to shape or a knife that was forged to shape. The only way to answer that was to assume that all other things being equal, the forged knife would be better. Of course heat treatment, steel chemistry, quality of steel production, and geometry given the steel's characteristics are more important, but on that list is something that the original poster wanted to know, does a forged knife perform better. And the answer to that is yes. The amount is up for discussion, but not the fact that the forged knife would perform better, all other things being equally good.

 

[Greenberg Woods]

Yes, but not enough to EVER notice. This isent a "which is more useful" king of thing. The difference is to small to ever notice. If you are looking to make knives, or even if you are just looking to buy knives, forged or not is simply not a big enough diffrence that in any amount of usage you or anyone else would ever detect.

 

[elementfe]

If what you want to do is forge blades instead of grinding them from flat stock, have at it! Personally, I think it's one of the best parts of the process, and worth doing well for its own sake.
There are well established smiths that you can quote, who will also claim that a forged blade is structurally "better."
It's just that on this forum, many are concerned with the basics of good knife making, and tend to concentrate on the things that make big, or perhaps noticeable improvements in the finished blade. Forging vs. stock removal, for practical purposes, isn't something where one is better than the other.
---------
...and BTW, "Parroting" Cashen and Apelt would be the sign of someone who is paying attention to some of the best advice available in the knifemaking world.
I'm not set up nor inclined to do exhaustive testing of every facet of making knives, so I take the word of very reputable people who have done that homework.

 

[Omega Leather Works]

I think that answering a simple question with a simple answer is fine so long as omitted additional information doesn't exclude what needs to be said in order to be accurate and honest.

Sounds like the answer is "yes", but it doesn't tell the whole story, in fact it's possibly a detriment to the discussion.

 

[Fred.Rowe]

Forged is more efficient in material used especially when considering a large curved blade. A stock removal maker does not need to be a metallurgist, if he outsources the heat treat, where as a forger must possess this knowledge if he is to have any hope of producing a quality product. Having forged blades for the last 17 years; forging is far more interesting and fun to practice the art.

Fred

 

[bodog]

If what you want to do is forge blades instead of grinding them from flat stock, have at it! Personally, I think it's one of the best parts of the process, and worth doing well for its own sake.
There are well established smiths that you can quote, who will also claim that a forged blade is structurally "better."
It's just that on this forum, many are concerned with the basics of good knife making, and tend to concentrate on the things that make big, or perhaps noticeable improvements in the finished blade. Forging vs. stock removal, for practical purposes, isn't something where one is better than the other.
---------
...and BTW, "Parroting" Cashen and Apelt would be the sign of someone who is paying attention to some of the best advice available in the knifemaking world.
I'm not set up nor inclined to do exhaustive testing of every facet of making knives, so I take the word of very reputable people who have done that homework.

I have absolutely no problem with anyone quoting experts if they can be accurately cited. It's when there's a lot of parsing and paraphrasing that things get twisted.

As far as looking for which is "better" it happens all the time. Guys will spend an extra 100 dollars to get a knife with a steel that will make 50 more cuts on cardboard when the 100 dollar cheaper knife will make 1,000 cuts before needing serious sharpening. People here want to at least know what the best is in a given category and then figure out if the price is worth it for that extra little bit of performance. Happens all the time. Guys can't tell a difference in a blind test of elmax and m390 in the same knife design yet they'll pump out an extra hundred for the IDEA that M390 is just a little bit better. Is there a difference with impact toughness in a large knife? Shouldn't be. If you want a car that pumps out 20 more horsepower than your neighbor's car, then you'll make it happen of you have the money. Same goes with knives. Personally I don't see a need in having just that little bit extra impact toughness but that's not saying others shouldn't. If they ask a question then they should hear the correct answer, then the focus of the conversation can be on whether anyone ACTUALLY see a difference and if the extra cost is REALLY worth it. You see that discussion all the time regarding edge stability and edge retention.

 

[jdm61]

The basic advantage of forging a blade like the ones you asked about is that say if you want to forge a curvy saber where the tip is three inches "higher" than the ricasso, you can do it with say a 1 1/14 inch wide bar of steel. If you want to stock remove that same blade, you had better have a pice of steel that is at LEAST 3 inches wide.

 

[Omega Leather Works]

As you deftly point out, there's no reason not to want the "best". What I gather from Kevin (who, imo, should be shown some respect) is that the benefits of forged over stock removal are quite possibly outweighed by the product that a less experienced smith is likely to make.

From my point of view it's not The Answer that perpetuates these threads as the answer seems pretty clear.

You didn't ask, but indulge me.

If I'm buying a custom made knife I cannot spend a ton of cash. Just a fact. Because of this my order of preference for any bladed tool is-

1. Stock removal sent out to a pro for ht, or in house if I believe the craftsman knows what they are doing.

I'm not certain that I can afford a blade forged by a MS or one made by a maker that has the rep to insure that I'm getting the very best for my money. If you can, then the best course of action, for anyone wanting *whatever qualities* might fit their needs over a stock removal blade, is obvious. It's already been pointed out that the difference is slight if even noticeable at all.

Edit- I apologize. My post should have gone in the other thread as I an not an experienced smith.

 

[bodog]

As you deftly point out, there's no reason not to want the "best". What I gather from Kevin (who, imo, should be shown some respect) is that the benefits of forged over stock removal are quite possibly outweighed by the product that a less experienced smith is likely to make.

From my point of view it's not The Answer that perpetuates these threads as the answer seems pretty clear.

You didn't ask, but indulge me.

If I'm buying a custom made knife I cannot spend a ton of cash. Just a fact. Because of this my order of preference for any bladed tool is-

1. Stock removal sent out to a pro for ht, or in house if I believe the craftsman knows what they are doing.

I'm not certain that I can afford a blade forged by a MS or one made by a maker that has the rep to insure that I'm getting the very best for my money. If you can, then the best course of action, for anyone wanting *whatever qualities* might fit their needs over a stock removal blade, is obvious. It's already been pointed out that the difference is slight if even noticeable at all.

I agree with your post 100%. If you have the money, then by all means, buy from an outstanding smith that takes a lot of small intangibles that a lot of us have never thought about before and can probably never do ourselves and puts them into a blade that is more than the sum of its parts. If you are on a moderate budget, go for a good knifemaker/ production company that does stock removal and does good heat treats. If you're on a low budget, get a hatchet and a utility razor.

 

[elementfe]

I have absolutely no problem with anyone quoting experts if they can be accurately cited. It's when there's a lot of parsing and paraphrasing that things get twisted.

As far as looking for which is "better" it happens all the time. Guys will spend an extra 100 dollars to get a knife with a steel that will make 50 more cuts on cardboard when the 100 dollar cheaper knife will make 1,000 cuts before needing serious sharpening. People here want to at least know what the best is in a given category and then figure out if the price is worth it for that extra little bit of performance. Happens all the time. Guys can't tell a difference in a blind test of elmax and m390 in the same knife design yet they'll pump out an extra hundred for the IDEA that M390 is just a little bit better. Is there a difference with impact toughness in a large knife? Shouldn't be. If you want a car that pumps out 20 more horsepower than your neighbor's car, then you'll make it happen of you have the money. Same goes with knives. Personally I don't see a need in having just that little bit extra impact toughness but that's not saying others shouldn't. If they ask a question then they should hear the correct answer, then the focus of the conversation can be on whether anyone ACTUALLY see a difference and if the extra cost is REALLY worth it. You see that discussion all the time regarding edge stability and edge retention.

All good points!
I tend to make sure the basics of good metallurgy are covered and put my efforts into ergonomics and function, so to my way of thinking it's a little like asking, is a backlock folder stronger than an automatic? Well....it depends, on an awful lot of little and big factors.

 

[JMJones]

I'm hoping some smiths who have extensive experience with forging and stock removal and testing of complex/irregular/exaggerated blades using both methods can chime in.

That is a pretty tall order! I really don't think you are going to find what you are looking for, for a couple of reasons. First even if someone or a few people with that experience exists, you still only have their (probably biased) opinion, or a few different opinions at the most.

I would be willing to bet that there is a difference but it is probably very small. We would probably need a properly conducted double blind experiment with an adequate sample size to observe the difference (I am not guessing which method would be superior). So if that is the case, in practice their is probably no discernible difference.

Just like Ford vs Chevy, 30-06 vs 270, Makita vs Dewalt, Bud lite vs regular tap water, there will always be highly biased debates about these things because people like to choose sides and argue or debate. But that is really all it is, mental masturbation for the entertainment of it. The perceived differences discussed in these debates is usually much higher than the actual differences. To one person having the blade forged in fire by one smith is a large perceived difference vs stock removal. For someone else the perceived difference of the consistency of the thermal treatment of a stock removal blade is superior vs something that has repeatedly smacked with a hammer in someones garage. However probably neither could tell the differance between the two if they were not told.

 

[elementfe]

Bud Lite vs. tap water! :thumbup:

 

[stezann]

In the rare case actually serious segregation strings are present in forged blades, they happily split in half lenghtwise during HT... the forging powers went short
Seriously guys, think about it, it doesn't needs to be uber metallurgists or MS forging guys. If trace inclusions run lenghtwise in the stock you won't have problems either way. If the inclusions are transverse what do you think forging will do? Go take playdoh and simulate the 2 cases and you'll see what's happening.